Boosa — Restaurant in Melbourne

Boosting Boosa

When working from home Boosa is my local coffee shop and at times my breakfast, brunch or lunch venue. Now with the addition Of Boosa After Dark it is also a fabulous local choice for dinner in East Bentleigh. Currently only running on Friday nights at 5.30 or 7.30 After Dark is offering an a la carte or set menu choice.

Being vegequarians we chose to create our own menu and had many options to choose from.

To begin with we shared Crispy Fried Eggplant with Tahini, Pomegranate and Pickles, the Golden Haloumi with Turkish Yoghurt and Pomegranate Molasses and the Mini Pitas with Falafel, Creamy Yoghurt and Schug. Each was delicious but both of us nominated the haloumi as a favourite, simple but so scrumptious. I could easily eat the haloumi rather than popcorn watching a movie.

For mains we paired the Roasted Cauliflower with Amba and Tahini with the star dish of Chriameh, which is Spicy Moroccan Barramundi with a Moroccan Red Sauce and Challah. The fish was just superb. The depth of flavour in the sauce was amazing. The cauliflower was cooked to perfection. This was simply a fantastic meal.

So good was dinner we were brave enough to attempt desserts. While my partner went for the trusted warm Chocolate Brownie with vanilla ice-cream with Halva fairy floss I decided to try something completely new and ordered the Homemade Knafeh served with vanilla ice-cream. The sweet cheese pastry is dangerously good and filling, even I couldn’t finish it but I certainly tried. I want to know how the pastry is made.

Mix in the family feel, you are always welcome at Boosa, and great service from Brodie, Corinna and the entire team the restaurant was alive with full tables and a very happy vibe. It feels good to be here and that is always a plus when dining out.

There is something special about having a local that you can just stroll to but still enjoy the best quality food on offer and After Dark offers a variety of flavours that are worth trying. I suggest you book in soon. Hopefully there will be more days to choose from in the not too...

Where to start with Boosa? In an industry competing with a deluge of other top quality eateries, it's hard to produce such fine margins in order to lure fanatical foodies to one's own. I'm convinced Boosa has figured out the formula. This place is truly a gem in a locale that, to be fair, has been upping its output of high standard cafes in recent years. However, Boosa still manages to go above and beyond. It all comes down to the passionate, outgoing and hard-working head chef and owner Eitam. This guy will bend over backwards to make patrons feel welcomed and happy. All his staff are friendly and full of character and the joint runs like a well oiled machine, even during busy peak times. Oh, and my god, what a menu. This carefully curated selection of middle eastern inspired dishes (but still very much Melbourne-esque) are works of art in their own right. Such bold flavours, bursting with herbs, pomegranate, tahini and other levantine staples. I've been coming here for a while now and it's clearly the best that Bentleigh has to offer as it stands. It's easy for businesses to burn out and become stale after a while but at Boosa, the ever changing specials and variety keeps you coming back. Merchants down the road could really benefit from taking a leaf out of Boosa's book, but we'll...

Quite sad to say this place isn't what it was or my memory of it was better. We visited Saturday lunchtime - which is when the pressure can make or break many places - and the poor single waiter was run off his feet despite some support from other staff.

Our table wasn't wiped down, the glasses we got were dirty and one had to be replaced because it had food on it (waiter was lovely and apologised). Our chai was large but very weak. The best item, Tel Aviv shake, was delicious. If you have $10 to spare, get it. Bear in mind all items are very pricey - is this in line with inflation or beyond? hard to say.

Chicken shawarma was really bland, tabouleh with no seasoning/citrus, plain tahini with practically no spices, some good chicken and some funky bits. Very expensive for what it is. Same goes for the halloumi smashed avo which also lacked some seasoning/punchy flavours and was overwhelmed by the amount of avo.

I want to support interesting, culturally diverse menus, but today the food really didn't...