Brundo Ethiopian Spices & Culinary Studio

Everything is Made with lots of Love!
The shouro combo is amazing, just spicy enough. I ordered it with a side of lentils. Had I not been super hungry, the lentils would have been a bit much.
I feel incredibly satisfied and light.
Thank you!

I recently purchased an Ethiopian cookbook with the hope of not looking like Igor shuffling strange ingredients into a pot at the whim of Dr. Bencarsonstein. My biggest worry was not being able to find the right spices without a plane ticket and red eye flight. This spot, an offshoot of Café Colluci, saved my culinary reputation. It took some digging around, but I found every spice I needed. Also, they sell injera!
The only weird thing was the guy doing stuff behind the counter didn’t seem to know much about the shop or what spices were available. He may have just been holding down the fort while someone else was on break. Anyhow, you pay for the ingredients next door in the restaurant.

I took the vegetarian cooking class, and had a great time. I learned quite a bit a lit Ethiopian cooking in terms of technique and the proper use of spices.
I can’t wait to try it at home.
The location of the class, inside American Steele is awesome. So many things to look at-​bring your camera and take a class at Brundo’s!

Went here to buy ingredients to try and make gored gored and use Unilocal coupon for free spice bag. The girl at the counter had no idea what gored gored was and she barely spoke English. Fortunately I speak Spanish! She had no clue about the Unilocal coupon though so no freebie for me. I think I’ll check out a couple of the other shops before coming back here.

There aren’t any clear labels as to what you are getting. In addition there are no prices on anything. The person who waited on me was very nice, but she didn’t speak english very well. I was somewhat uncomfortable being rung up, for things I did not know the cost for. I thought that I was going to get a receipt at the end of the transaction, but they would not give me a itemized receipt and stated that she needed it. There are so many Ethiopian stores and restaurants in Oakland, I recommend checking them out or even shopping on line for the spices you need.

this is the type of place I’d like to frequent, and find those hard to find gems. However, when I went in there and found something similar to the spice I was looking for the employee couldn’t speak english or assist me with anything. I thought it was a simple enough question. Essentially, this is a good spot — if you know exactly what you are looking for.

The vegetarian cooking class was an amazing course. Authentic Ethiopian food. No pretense just honest instruction on how to make high flavor nutritious dishes!

my one stop resource for everything i need to make ethiopian at home.
FYI folks, you can request 100% teff injera… it’s just a bit more pricey and understandably so…
my only qualm, not all of the packages are labeled.

Hands down the most amazing injera at a great bargain. You get 5 massive pieces for only $ 4, and they are great to eat with leftovers from neighboring Café Colucci.
I haven’t quite tried to delve into cooking my own Ethiopian food, but this little market seems to have every ingredient I would need beautifully displayed on neat shelves. Bonus points for a good selection of organics, too and their website has recipes and informative resources teaching you all you would need to know about Ethiopian cuisine.

ever since I’ve been introduced to Ethiopian food, I fell completely in love with it. I love cooking and trying new recipes, so I decided to give my hand at my favorite dish, atakilt. basic ingredients, but I needed nitter kibbeh [spiced butter] and injera. my first stop was a small market by my house, but I didn’t see it there. then I tried abyssinia, and they were all sold out. finally, I ended up at brundo.
when you walk in it smells AMAZING. they have different sized containers of nitter kibbeh in the fridge, and a ton of other spices and sauces. overestimating how much I would need, I bought the large container «just to be safe». well. I only used a tiny fraction of it lol. a large container is $ 7.00 and some change, but when you compare that to buying all the spices you need to cook the butter with. I’ll gladly buy it premade.
I also overestimated how large the injera pieces were! the market sells 5 for $ 4, and after packing up food for my coworkers and boyfriend, along with munching on the food at home, I still have one large piece left haha. the injera I got here was very tasty, and the woman at the counter was helpful and nice. definitely doesn’t break the bank either. I’ll be back soon, since I have all this butter left!

Lovelovelovelove Brundo. My boyfriend and I walked in, Ethiopian cookbook in hand, looking as pasty and clueless as we ever have (read: very), and started about the arduous process of finding what we needed.
Brundo has almost everything we needed to start making our own basic Ethiopian dishes and while the ingredients can be a little hard to decipher, the woman at the counter did an impeccable job of answering our questions and showing us what was what (or wot, as the case may be). Also, did I mention that all the ingredients were organic? Because they are.
While we waited for fresh injera (thin, spongy, crêpe-​like bread) to be made, we sampled the tasty snacks (kolo and kwanta), got some idea of what was going on, and gathered more and more of the spices, spice blends, and spiced butter. We wanted to make our own injera, too, so asked about teff (the flour, of course, with which you make injera). They didn’t have any, but were so outstandingly awesome that they gave us some of their own!
We didn’t realize they prepared their own food as well, and so unfortunately came on full stomachs. But the fresh injera we had that night was mind-​bendingly soft, tart, and everything I wanted my injera to be. Our first attempts at Ethiopian didn’t turn out too terrible, either, and I am sure that’s due to the lovely ingredients. We’ll be back, for sure.

Clean and with ample fresh ethiopian cooking necessities. Hilarious to find a mexican man making injera (no ethiopian man ever makes injera!)
Wish their injera had more teff in the mixture, often it tastes like wheat and we get full quickly from eating it. The best part: CLEAN.

Wonderful place for first-​time Ethiopian shopping for teff, injera, and berbere (spicy pepper paste, conglomeration of multiple spices), along with split red-​lentils. In Amharic, meser wot; in Tegrinya, tu’tumo (same dish). Tried my best to work together with kind clerk to figure out portions of ingredients to cook up stew for 40 – 45 people (fundraiser for street boys).
Kind, kind patient lady who answered all of my questions, offered me some Ethiopian snacks, and graciously allowed me to snap photos of fresh injera being made.
The Ethiopian spice butter, niter kibbeh, is sold there, alongside already prepared berbere sauce for sale, as well as other items.
Injera, when freshly fried like a crêpe, is made of teff (buckwheat), and is slightly sour, like a fermented-​type yeasty pancake… very close to a buckwheat galette from the French. The East African version is thicker, many more holes of yeasty sponginess, but related.
Wonderful place sandwiched on the west side of the street between the am/​pm gas station and Café Colucci.
Only one other review?! Kinda stunned – then again, everyone probably goes out to the restaurants to get their fill.

I went to Brundo a couple of times while experimenting with making my own Ethiopian food. I love walking in the door, because you’re immediately enveloped in this thick spicy, incensey aroma and there’s music playing, and tubs of unfamiliar things stacked to the ceiling. It’s pretty much the transporting experience you look for in a great ethnic market.
I bought a couple of ingredients there (spice butter, berbere, tea spice) and I guess I’m not really qualified to comment on quality or price, since I’ve never bought any of these things anywhere else, but I was satisfied with all my purchases. I also bought a huge stack of injera for a party and it was hot, cheap and delicious, as it should be. (As an aside, in case anyone is wondering, leftover injera freezes and reheats really really well!)
2 complaints remove a star from this review:
1. prices and labels on the spices are pretty rare. For a novice like me, this was a problem. I probably would have bought and tried more things if I’d been able to tell what they were.
2. the lady behind the counter was totally nice and well-​meaning, but not too great with a cash register. She actually helped me on two separate visits, and both times needed a little more training on the thing. I’m sure she’s picked it up by now.