Mudai Ethiopian Restaurant

We love having an Ethiopian restaurant in the neighborhood. The food is simply delicious and the service is casual, kind, and attentive.
Four of us split ‘The Platter’ option, choosing three vegetarian and one meat option to share. (Mudai will let you mix and match based on your party’s dietary preferences.) The #17 chickpeas and #15 lentils were my overall favorites, and unlike anything I had ever tasted before.
For dessert, they offer baklava — cinnamon, nuts, and honey, a wonderful ending to a great meal.

This place is quiet spacious and the food is delicious!!! We had a vegetarian combo and the ground beef. I’m so happy we came here and we will be back soon!

Actually learned about this place through a Unilocal newsletter advertising tartare. I had always flirted with the idea of trying tartare and for some reason, after seeing this ad I suddenly had this insatiable craving to try this dish. Ended up coming to Mudai, which was one of the places they recommended and ordered their beef tartare (kitfo) and their beef stew with injera. I would actually really recommend this combo as warmth of the stew helped to complement the cold rawness of the meat so it wasn’t an overwhelming amount of flavor in either direction. Ethiopian beer was a nice way to supplement the meal.

Feels like you walked in a shady restaurant with host not friendly. I wanted to leave and so did my dad, but because of my wife I had to stick around for the torture. Ordered food and it a long time to get it on the table. The lady with dreadlocks brought the lamb tibs and reaches over our food and dumps it on the table (waste on my expense) and then we try to eat that food which was hard as a rock over cooked leathered lamb meat. I called that lady and I explained to her that the food is inedible because it was so over cooked. The quantity was small and the prices are expensive. She just said sorry and walked away instead of offering to fix the problem. I would never recommend this ghetto place to anyone. If you don’t care about the quality and service of food, then you might be OK. We have been to so many other Ethiopian restaurant and this was probably the worst experience.

**There is no lunch buffet**
As of 2 weeks ago, they discontinued the lunch buffet and it won’t be back for a long time.
Ate here for dinner recently. The food was average. The problem was that it was especially salty. Mesir wot is usually one of our favorite dishes but it was difficult to finish because it was VERY salty. Took home leftovers!

It was my first time having Ethiopian food & I loved it. Mudai is a nice place located in a kind-​off shady area. The staff is very friendly. Food is amazing. The honey wine was very interesting and a good pairing with the spicy food.

Delish– start to finish. We got the veggie combo + 1 more veggie option cause we wanted to try it all. It was really great + we tried the spiced tea. All tasty, range of flavors& spices. Think I liked the veggies best although the chickpeas were amazing too.
I can wait to come back for veg. lunch buffet as suggested.
Waitress was very helpful& timely. The check on coupon didn’t hurt either but it’s very reasonably priced.

My husband and I have been to multiple ethiopian restaurants and this is now our favorite. The husband and wife team that own the restaurant appear to be doing a wonderful job at offering healthy, fresh and tasty authentic ethiopian food, as well as great service and a nice relaxed ambiance. We have eaten here three times and enjoyed each experience. We ordered the veggie combo, doro wot, the traditional ethiopian honey wine and the wife’s homemade baklava (what a delicious treat!). Everything was great. I am excited to try their lamb dishes and weekday veggie lunch buffet. Give it a shot and I hope you will enjoy as much as we do.

My wife and I have eaten at some pretty good Ethiopian Restaurants in the past but this place stands out from the rest.
This establishment has managed to give its patrons an authentic «home cook» meal experience with their delicious flavors, beautiful presentation, relaxed ambiance, and friendly service, which is difficult to accomplish for most restaurants today.

I had a wonderful experience at Mudai. My friends and I threw a graduation party for one of our recently graduated buddy. We made a simple reservation over the phone for 22 people. The owner provided us a reasonable quote and we showed up in the date of. Everything was ready on time and the staff were very courteous. The food was simply AMAZING! We ordered food for 22, but the food they prepared was good for 30. We finally ended up taking the remaining food home, it was professionally packed for us. I highly recommend this place for a small party ~ 30 ppl or less.
Overall, the new owner completely turned this place around to the best.

Extremely average. We came in at around 5:30 and there was only one other table. We got the veggie combo and tej to drink.
We’ve had a lot of Ethiopian food, and everything here was just under-​spiced and fairly bland. The collard greens in particular just tasted like boiled spinach. The injera was good, but I’m sure they get it where everyone else does.
With other choices like Zeni and Walia nearby which are excellent, there’s just no reason to come here.

i have to say.
Ethiopian food is something waaaay different from what im used to eating. dont get me wrong. it was great! but different.
The server doesnt really speak english.
make sure to order the veggie platter. that plate is good enough to feed 2 people!
the bread isnt nuetral flavoring or sweet. its actually a lemony taste. (to those that are first timers wanting to try ethiopian food) i wished someone wouldve mentioned that.

So good! I really admire restaurants like this because the servers are so sweet, they really do want to please their customers, and they make excellent food.
I was in Oakland and wanted to try a new Ethiopian place. I have tried quite a few in the Bay and heard great things about Mudai. It definitely didn’t disappoint!
The prices are amazing. I felt so bad at the amount of food I got and how cheap it was. I tried the veggie combo and all items tasted great. My favorite items was the chickpea (shiro wat) so I ordered a side of that.
Will definitely return in the near future! :)

–Food was tasty and the quantity was quite a lot for a vegetarian combo.
–Parking behind the restaurant and on the streets behind the restaurant.
–The staff was very friendly.

We got the veggie combo, lamb tibs and doro wat.
The veges were cooked nice and soft, flavorful but not too strong.
The doro wat was suggested by the waitress as we liked spicy, definitely a good chicken dish and the Inerja at the bottom that soaked up all the stew sauce was really good.
My favorite was the lamb tibs, the lamb meat was very well flavored and the texture was good, chewy but not tough. The sauce was great as well.
2 meat dishes and the vege combo was plenty for two people. Though we were hungry and polished off the whole plate!
We also gave a honey wine try. It’s an interesting wine, the honey flavor seems to warm in your mouth as you drink it.
Come give this place a try if you want Ethiopian food, and the Unilocal deals are really nice too.

Food was good. but their service sucks .
We were the pretty much only customer but still making a dish & serving us took more than 45 minutes.
Also, the main owner was very rude. My friend had cold & asked him hot water couple of times & he refused to give him !! that’s outrageous.

Lamb tibs and an Ethiopian beer! Yes please!
The fact the lamb was not soaking in gravy was a pleasant way of enjoying it for me. This place has really good food and its reasonable on price and easy to find and park in/​at.
Lots of vegetarian options along with lamb and beef. I will go back as my wife loves this kind of food and said it was on the high end of taste and convenient for us to drive to=close by. I recommend.

So we’re leaving for Portland the next morning. I says to my woman, I says, «If we don’t go for Ethiopian tonight, we’re going to have to wait a whole week to eat it again!» It’s seriously that bad, a sickening addiction more powerful than the most vile drug. She senses the urgency, so off we go to Mudai, our first visit to this establishment.
It’s slightly more rundown than the other Ethiopian joints in the area, but no biggie. It’s taking forever for the girl to bring over the menus (though it’s empty but for 3 tables) – I go to grab them myself. When she finally makes her way over, I wonder aloud if there are any Wot dishes besides Doro Wot. She repeatedly points to the Lamb Tibs and Kay Tibs, insinuating that these are the same thing. «Um, no they’re not», I’m thinking, and politely assert that Tibs is stir-​fried and Wot is a stew (and superior in every way). She’s quite insistent, and she is the Ethiopian in the conversation, so I concede and order a Lamb Tibs along with a Kitfo and a Veggie Combo. Our water tastes funny and there’s a film of mystery oil floating thereon. We don’t get straws until the end.
Shortly after the girl leaves, my woman points out the cockroach that’s rapidly working its way down the wall beside me – soon the little fellow has leapt onto the greasy plastic table protector and is inching its way toward my legs, so I move quickly to brush him to the floor, and then snap, crackle, pop, he’s crushed under my foot. You know what they say, where there’s one, there are a thousand, but I’m working diligently to convince myself that the ingredients of the food I’ll be eating have been safely stored in the refrigerator until now. Oh please.
Honestly though, I’m strongly considering an exit move at this point, but we’re already invested by now (sunk cost, I know).
On to the food:
***LAMB TIBS — Tender, lean lamb meat chopped and cooked in a spicy cayenne sauce. Served with injera, an Ethiopian flatbread.
Just as I feared, the Tibs ends up not being a Wot. Grrr, there goes the meal, should’ve trusted my instincts. Oh well, Tibs generally isn’t awful, though in this case the meat is abnormally tough and seems to be swimming in an unusually sizable pool of red oil that contributes nothing to the flavor. There is a lot of it to make up for it being mediocre, I guess.
***KITFO — Ethiopian steak tartar made from selected lean ground beef, seasoned with spiced butter, cardamom, and mitmita, a powdered hot pepper. Served with homemade cottage cheese and injera, an Ethiopian flatbread.
When this comes out raw, I realize that they never asked if I wanted it cooked or not (there is the option at this restaurant). Look, I’m no wuss, I’ve eaten it raw before and am willing to do so again if necessary, but I’d much rather have it medium rare. To be fair, this is a quite liberal heaping of raw hamburger meat, and the flavor isn’t horrible. Just so… raw. What is this I’m seeing about it being served with homemade cottage cheese? I received nothing of the sort.
***VEGETARIAN COMBO — A combination of four items from above. Served with injera, an Ethiopian flatbread.
The Gomen (collard greens) are extremely fibrous and funky tasting, not yummy. The rest of the veggies (chickpea stew, yellow lentil, and cabbage/​carrot/​potato) are slightly chilly, which is annoying, and the cabbage/​carrot/​potato is really sloppy and the potatoes are quite undercooked. The salad is under-​vinegared, bland, and slightly unfresh. The underlying injera, meanwhile, is dried out and even crispy at the edges and too thin, and they only give you a couple pieces on the side, expecting you to pay $ 1 for each additional piece. No thanks.
ALL IN ALL:
The food just isn’t delicious, plus there’s something unfortunate about each and every dish. And I frankly can’t help but imagine an extended family of cockroaches dining on each item in our meal. As a fitting conclusion to this experience, as we ask for a doggie bag for the leftovers, the girl literally scoops all of the soggy injera strips, raw ground beef, red Tibs oil, and sloppy veggies into one vomitous heap, with no attempt to partition or maintain the integrity of any individual dish. We take it home, promptly depositing it into the dumpster outside.
Never again, Mudai. You had your chance.

From the outside didn’t expect it to be so pretty. I love their lounge with traditional furniture and décor.
I believe what my man got was Lamb Tibs. He likes that spicy cayenne. They offer cans of fruit juices that are good.
I got the Vegetarian Combo and this is just fun to eat. Don’t do it if you’re in a rush. Relax in their lounge, have a glass of Tej and take your time wrapping it all in your fingers. That wrap has a sourness and sponginess I haven’t experienced before. All this is new to me. The staff was friendly and accommodating for us newcomers.
Nice to try something new for a change.
4 stars

I was so glad to find this place during my last visit to San José.
I remember the injera having a more richer and developed taste than what I had tried before. The sandwiches were a great option to-​go. I had a spicy dish and was very pleased with it.
Also, if you haven’t tried Ethiopian beer (and like a little sweetness), I would recommend one. I normally don’t drink much beer, but I enjoyed the Meta beer.
Looking forward to future visits!