Kilimanjaro Café – Minneapolis, MN

For some reason, I made it to class after work in record time. I’m not sure if there was some sort of zombie apocalypse or not, but there were no cars on the road. I made it about half an hour earlier than I normally do. This means I had time to check out Kilimanjaro Café. I assumed it would be African fare of some sort, since Mt. Kilamanjaro is in Tanzania (I totally looked that up on Google while writing this review… hahaha). Maybe East African style (chicken and rice), maybe Ethiopian style (mush with injira) – I was about to find out.

I walked in and was greeted by a friendly woman who seated me and gave me a menu. I scanned the menu, which was very well described in English, and decided on a few things. It appeared most things were similar to Ethiopian food: lots of tibs and stuff served on injira bread. Then I saw they had daily specials. The one for today was the Tibs Fit Fit. I opted for that. Even though the waitress warned me it was spicy. This is Minnesota… I wasn’t concerned in the slightest.

I checked out the environs of the place. It’s very simply decorated but nice and clean. There’s a large screen television which most of the staff were quite engaged with. There’s a small bar with two or three seats near the back. And there’s a small stage with a VERY large sound system in the front of the place. I’m not sure if they use it for Karaoke or the live show for the Rolling Stones, but there are plenty of speakers going on. Weird.

The food took a little bit of time, but I really wasn’t in much of a rush (aside from having class in like half an hour). When it came out, it looked really good. The food came on a large piece of injira and also had a basket of injira with it.

There is a salad (as usual with this kind of food) with some lettuce, jalapenos, tomatoes, and some light vinegary dressing. It was perfectly tasty. No complaints on the salad, but it isn’t rave-worthy or anything. The Tibs Fit Fit is spicy chicken pieces in berebere sauce with all kinds of insane seasonings. It also has injira actually cooked right in with the chicken. I’ve never had Ethiopian food like this before, but it was really good. The spice level was much more mild than I was led to believe (this also makes me correct in my assumption), but was really quite good. There was plenty of meat and seasoning. And one thing I hadn’t seen before was a scoop of some sort of sour goat cheese on the injira. Almost like a finer grain cottage cheese. It was delicious and went really well with the spice of the meat. I really like this addition to the meal! The addition of the injira in the dish itself made for some heavy duty eating. So I basically ate three large pieces of injira. Seriously heavy – I was asleep in class about 15 minutes in, sadly.

The food at Kilimanjaro Café is delicious. Maybe not the absolute best I’ve ever had, but it was really good and I’ll be back here if I ever make it to class early again. I’d LOVE to bring it into class and eat it there. Sometimes, people bring sandwiches or Chinese food to class if they don’t have time to eat beforehand. I’d love to bust open a huge platter of Tibs Fit Fit and some injira and slurp food off my fingers and cause a scene. Maybe next time. Just go to this place. You will most likely like it! I know I did.

Top 5 things about Kilimanjaro Café
1. Tibs Fit Fit
2. Daily specials
3. Really generous portions
4. Sour goat cheese
5. Excellent menu with thorough descriptions in English

Bottom 5 things
1. Not spicy at all (which is probably good for you Nancy Minnesotans)
2. A little bit slow on service, but not terrible
3. No parking anywhere without paying
4. I was the only one eating and it was 5pm
5. I feel like Ethiopian food should be shared with at least one other person

Kilimanjaro Café
324 Cedar Avenue
Minneapolis, MN 55454