Boston's most popular Ethiopian restaurant, serving an authentic and exotic menu in the South End.

In Short
The city's most popular Ethiopian restaurant, Addis offers a menu of highly seasoned stews and fried meats, served atop an edible platter of injera (a spongy, pancake-like flatbread). Diners sit on tiny stools around intricately woven basket tables and enjoy a large selection of vegetarian dishes, including butecha (a mash of chickpeas, lemon juice and green pepper). Honey wine and cardamom-flavored coffee are among the drink options.

The second location of Addis' exotic-ethnic eatery, this Ethiopian destination brings the heat to Cambridge.

It's easy to see why this longtime South End favorite expanded. The crowds come in search of spicy vegetable and lentil dishes, a variety of African beers and wines and, most popular of all, the injera bread. Supping from bowl-shaped wicker tables known as mesobs, devotees revel in the elbow-to-elbow, communal dining style the dishes encourage. And be prepared to get your hands dirty. With no silverware, you'll be digging hands-first into dishes like Doro Wot, a chicken dish made with lemon, red peppers, ginger, cardamom and nutmeg. It's enough to make you feel like you've been transported to Ethiopia; or, failing that, the South End. Close enough.