About Makeda
About Eat Great Cheap 2019
This article is a part of Washingtonian’s Eat Great Cheap feature, our annual list of where to eat (and not break the bank) right now. Our food editors put together the best new restaurants around DC where you can find Detroit-style pizza, Japanese egg-salad sandwiches, chicken-nugget-filled tacos, and more—for $25 or less per person.
Chef Senait Tedla’s Ethiopian cooking stands out for both its technique (her rib-eye tibs are perfectly cooked) and its intensity. Stir-fried lamb singes the tongue with awaze, a brick-red spice paste. A colorful platter of vegetarian stews—turmeric-laced yellow split peas, zesty red lentils, fiery mushroom tibs—practically leaps with flavor. And if you test an Ethio kitchen with its doro wat, Tedla’s chicken stew gets an A.