Fasika
Restaurant, Bar
Hours
Daily
- 11am - midnight
Profile
$$ - average
Ethiopian/Eritrean
Ethiopian on Snelling
Ethiopian food with five or six vegetarian items. The vegetarian section is labeled "100% vegan" on the menu.
Added by starfive on Jun 1 04 (updated Jun 27)
Reviews
Various people I've spoken to have suggested that Fasika serves the best Ethiopian food in the Twin Cities. Those people are correct. Fasika is easily the best Ethiopian restaurant in the Twin Cities.
While they don't have too many veg. dishes, what they do have is delicious, and prepared with grace and quality. The menu states that all the vegetarian dishes are "100% vegan" which was a nice touch; kudos to the owners or to some previous vegans who managed to get that labeling added and understood.
My friend and I split a "miser wot" ($8.50; lentils with berbere sauce) and another lentil dish with unlisted spices (also $8.50). Both were excellent. The miser wot was spicy without being overpowering and tasted fresh and light. Similarly, the other lentil dish we had was served hot (temperature-wise) and had a perfect, delicate balance of garlic, onions, jalapenos and other spices; it's rare that one finds such a perfectly executed dish. More over, other Ethiopian restaurants I've been to have a hard time maintaining the freshness, texture and temperature of the food they served---dishes come out lukewarm, mushy or with an aura of day-old leftovers. Not so at Fasika, where everything was popping, bright and flavorful.
The injera that came with the dish was ample and tasty, without being overly sour. This was the first time I've been to an Ethiopian restaurant where I actually ate all of the injera that they gave me.
The service was warm, friendly and unobtrusive. They also gave out free small cups of coffee to every table. My only gripes are that the ambience was lacking (it seemed kind of bleak and bland like every other Ethiopian place I've been to), and at least for the beginning of our meal, there was some super-strong incense burning right in the middle of the restaurant that made it difficult to breathe. Regardless, I will definitely be coming back to Fasika in short order.
I love Fasika. The best Ethiopian in the Twin Cities. Come here with an open mind and the ability to appreciate a fabulous cuisine.
Yum! Good portions and great food. Service was okay but my boyfriend's food came out much earlier then my food did.
This is one of my favorite restaurants in the twin cities. I always get the veggie sampler & I practically devour it. I know it is large enough for 2 but I get such pleasure cramming this exotic comfort food down my throat. I usually have to beg my friends to go w/ me b/c they find the food a bit too exotic. But if you like Ethiopian food this is the place to go. Really some of the best Ethiopian food I have had.
The service was good, though it was crowded. I had the Misir Key Wot (the lentil dish that mentions spices in berbere sauce) and it was the spiciest Ethiopian food I'd ever had, but it was good. The Atkilt (potatoes, carrots, onions, etc.) was great, too. I was a bit put off by the smell at first - it seemed very "meaty" to me. During our meal, a few dishes came out for other tables that were sizzling with hot meat, which I found unsettling, but I will still go back because the food was really good.
everyone i know who is Ethiopian says this is their favorite restaurant and i really enjoy this place. if you are in rush don't come here on weekend during peak hours. the food is lovely and the wait staff has been helpful with my friends who bring here, answering questions and being helpful. the veggie sampler gets mad props.
The food was quite good, the portions big, and the prices were excellent. I was here on a Saturday afternoon at 2pm, and the service was incredibly slow. Also, my friend's dish was hot (spicy), and it wasn't indicated on the menu. She was looking for something that isn't hot.
Excellent tasty food.
I go to Fasika with my fiance quite a bit, and we always get the veggie sampler platter to share because we can't decide between all the great dishes. The last time we ordered the veggie sampler, we were delightfully surprised to get some different items than usual.
The food has always been tasty, the staff is friendly and best of all, the veggie sampler is only $12 and it's plenty big enough for two people!
This is one of the better Ethiopian restaurants I've been to (Cafe Lalibela in Tempe, AZ and Merkato in Little Ethiopia (L.A.) may be the only exceptions). And it was very busy at 7pm on Tuesday night.
The injera bread here is different than most I've had, with large "pores," but it's still quite good. As are the vegetarian treats.
I ordered the vegetarian sampler, which comes with their 5 vegetarian menu items: lentils, red lentils pureed, beans, collard greens, and cabbage. All were quite good, esp. the lentils and the beans. And there was plenty of bread, i.e., completely underlining the watts of food, as well as a full-sized hunk of bread on the side. Only the biggest of appetites could eat all this in one sitting. (Which I voraciously and rapaciously managed quite well on my own.)
The service was a different story (something I noticed in other reviews). I might have gotten one word out of the server, but if I did, it was inaudible. Though the food did arrive in record time (any restaurant would be proud), and my bill came to $12, which is pretty darn reasonable for that much food, that good, and served that quickly.
Fasika is a really fantastic restaurant- I recommend the veggie sampler, which I was told is all vegan. The injera (the bread- which is fabulous) is also vegan. With the sampler, you get a great assortment of flavorful and spicy dishes laid out on a large piece of injera and you get as much of the stuff as you want on the side, so it's really fun to eat (if you've never eaten Ethiopian food before, you pick up the food with small pieces of injera). I recommend sharing the sampler with one or two other people because it is so big.
This place was really weird. The food tasted really weird and was served in piles on a cold, rubbery pancake type thing. If you are planning on coming here, I wouldn't bring anyone you may want to impress. The atmosphere is questionable. For the service, I don't think our waitress said anything to us, at all. She also forgot to mention that they don't have utensils there, you have to eat with your hands. Come here at your own risk!!!!
Fasika serves great food for really reasonable prices, usually in quite a short time. One of St. Paul's best restaurants.
Fasika has some of the better ethiopian food in the twin cities, and some of the friendliest service. I am only a marginal fan of the cuisine, but I do think this is the best of the local offerings.
I love Fasika! We're regular visitors and the staff is super friendly and all the ladies who've been there a while could place our order without us saying a word (we're predictable). We get a friendly 'hi guys' when we hit the door and great service.
I am in BIG LOVE with the split peas, personally. I actually don't even LIKE peas but I adore how Fasika cooks them. Yum. Our usual is the split peas and an order of the stew, which is served with a scoop of delish mustard greens, too. I've had other Ethiopian that was good but my heart belongs to Fasika!