Lake Langano

While there is better Ethiopian food available in Chicago, you can’t beat this place for price and for providing take-​out.
When you walk in you’ll need to ask for the Ethiopian menu, which is behind the counter (they only display their Chinese menu). Although the menu did not make it clear, my order came with two sides: I ordered shiro, and alongside my shiro and injera were gomen and a yellow split pea dish (kik alicha?).
It was a ton of food, for less than $ 10. I liked the shiro the best of the lot (the yellow split peas were pretty bland).
This is a great choice when you are starving, want take-​out, and want something more flavorful and more healthy (veggies!) than most take-​out options.

This restaurant was my first experience with Ethiopian food. If I had the choice to choose another restaurant for my first experience, I would still choose Lake Langano. The food was excellent as well as the service was very personal. Watching the owner interact with a costumer that seemed like a regular while I was also there showed the nature of the restaurant being very homey. With having a limited number of seats and tables, this wasn’t a problem since this allowed for the close interaction for all in the area. I had a great experience and look forward to many more at this restaurant.

A friend and I ordered two Chinese lunch specials for carry-​out from Lake Langano, General Tso’s chicken and Chicken with Brocolli. The food was not good. The chicken was breaded and soggy. The brocolli had an «off» flavor and was very hot/​spicy. The egg drop soup looked and smelled strange so I didn’t taste it. Maybe it was good but I doubt it. The hot and sour soup was not recognizable as hot and sour soup. My friend ate a few bites of the General Tso’s chicken but we both wound up throwing almost all of it away. Maybe the Ethiopian food is better but I won’t get Chinese food here again.

This place is awesome for Ethiopian food (take-​out; they have like 5 tables, but take it and eat at home, or get it delivered). I’m often wary myself about a restaurant serving two really different cuisines (Ethiopian and Chinese), but the Ethiopian is delicious.
I spoke with one of the owners who works weekends, Dobaro, and I encouraged him to stick with the Ethiopian, although I imagine Chinese would sell better. In any case, he told me that it’s surprisingly hard to find a Chinese chef. When they do get one, then I would say it’s good for Chinese as well. But Ethiopian food is generally better than Chinese anyway!
So the food is awesome, and Dobaro is even more awesome. I think another big sell for this place is probably that it delivers! I don’t know of any other Ethiopian places that deliver. Also, this isn’t important to me, but this place is Halal! They buy their meat from a Halal butcher on Devon. So if Halal matters to you, then you finally have a place to eat some Ethiopian! If you’re skeptical, they will show you the receipt from the Halal butcher.
In summary: EAT (Ethiopian food) AT LAKE LANGANO!

I shared a giant sample platter of delicious Ethiopian food (they serve both Ethiopian food and Chinese food-​two separate chefs) with friends. It came with ample injera, the spongy pancake used for scooping up the food. There were a variety of vegetarian and meat dishes served. It was spicy and very tasty. Especially the lamb. The restaurant is small-​so probably best for carry-​out though my friends and I did eat in the restaurant itself which was fine.

I thought the Ethiopian food was delicious. Its more expensive than I was expecting but the food was good and tasted homemade.
I also am intrigued by the idea of eating Chinese food with injera bread, an experiment for next time.

I had a craving for general tso’s chicken and ordered from them on grubhub– it was a very bad experience. The rice tasted like cigarettes and the chicken was soggy and gross. The soup was good and the potstickers were greasy, but decent. I am writing this as a warning because I literally nearly threw up. When I called, the lady was very nice, but kept saying she would keep sending out more food. I told her I just wanted my money back and for them to come get the container– It reeked of cigarette. It took grubhub intervention for me to get any happiness, but I still have the nasty cigarette ‘food,’ at my house and this business never refunded me.