Bou'ote — Restaurant in New York

A couple of notable points.

The food is actually pretty good. Very interesting menu with multiple cool options. You won’t find food like this at other places in Crown Heights.

The store is physically nice; a bit of a tight space, but the decor is very cute.

Most importantly. The manager, who seems to also be the chef, the barista, and the cashier, is an incredibly difficult person to communicate with. Perhaps it’s the result of a different upbringing, a different culture, or just an overall unhealthy set of characteristics, but the manager is somehow a mix of incredibly rude and arrogant and yet also slightly kind and sweet. He makes unnecessarily rude comments, jokes about sensitive topics, and I would bet would generally make most customers feel uncomfortable. He acts this way with everyone; presenting as a caretaker who is “brutally honest” and “not interested in sensitivity” and truly comes off as one of the most off-putting human beings you’ll ever meet. At the same time, he’ll always offer a free dessert at the end of your meal and seems to pay close attention to the food to make sure it’s as precise as he likes it. Exactly that: as “he” likes it. This store seems to be his pride and joy, but as a customer, you feel like you’ve invaded his arena and will find yourself constantly walking on eggshells just to avoid having a conversation with him. If you say you like one dish, he’ll say “well why don’t you tell me what you really think about the other dish? you hated it! you can say that, i’m not sensitive!” and will leave you left speechless with no way to properly respond. I would put down money that for every day he works at this restaurant, they lose money. There’s no way most customers are willing to deal with him the first time they visit; let alone even thinking to come back a second time. In my opinion, this store would be 1000% better off if they just had someone else deal with customers. This guy is certainly not built for the job. The fact that he’s been working there since they opened and they’re somehow STILL open is purely a miracle to me.

Something to bear in mind is that the menu has zero descriptions below any of the food choices. I assume it’s to give it an “upper-class, high-tax bracket” feel but really just leads to an impossibly confusing experience where you’re forced to ask the manager (bear in mind the descriptions of him above) to explain basically everything on the menu to you, making you feel stupid and like you’re wasting everybody’s time. They treat you as if you “should” know the whole menu like you made it yourself. Very odd. (Just discovered a neat little trick; you can find the menu with actual descriptions on the internet due to this place being on DoorDash. Hope that helps.)

The coffee is meh. The cups are cool and the metal straws are a nice touch but overall, the drinks here are just “okay”.

If you’ve stumbled across this review, you’ve probably also realized just how difficult it is to FIND this place on Google Maps. The spelling and pronunciation of “Bou’ote” is profoundly confusing and leads to a definitively rough time looking for this place on the internet. Not the best branding tactic.

Nothing about the design/branding/marketing of this place screams “our sandwich menu is nearly entirely fish options” but it’s certainly true. If you don’t like smoked fish, good luck navigating your way around this menu.

At the end of the day, I decided to rate this place 2 stars. If the customer experience was better, and by that I mean if they hired literally ANYONE but the guy who currently manages this place, I would probably have rated it 3 and a half stars, maybe even 4. Regardless, I wish him well in all his endeavors, and hope that with enough time and feedback, he’ll see how much worse of an experience he offers the people around him and will choose to make the necessary changes in action and attitude to improve himself, his relationships, and probably turn this establishment into a beautiful little sanctuary right on the outskirts on...

Wednesday morning felt like a teenager: windy and just nineteen. The frosty draft was the king in Kings County. Imagining the long day ahead, I decided to start with something warm and healthy. Or at least tasty. Okay, just tasty. After all, it was my birthday — I owed myself a treat!

I headed to Bou’ote, one of the most stylish cafés in Central Brooklyn which sticks out like a Monet painting dropped in the middle of Springfield, TN.

The café is run by Shlomo, a tough-looking Israeli guy, likely with a military past, who somehow manages to blend grit and charm in equal measure. Okay, almost equal.

As I sat sipping my coffee, a mailwoman walked in. She was young, sporting a Jamaican accent, and looked like she’d been frozen solid on her route. Yet when offered a cup of coffee, she refused with a smile.

“You made me a coffee yesterday and the day before that. You’re going to spoil me!” she laughed.

Shlomo leaned over the counter, unfazed. “Fine,” he said, “I’ll make you one tomorrow. But today, I need a favor.”

I held my breath, expecting the worst. Asking her to run an errand in this weather? Surely not!

“Are you heading down Troy Avenue?” he asked.

“Yes,” she replied.

“Perfect. Could you take this cappuccino to the school crossing guard? She’s standing out there in the cold all morning — it must be brutal.”

And just like that, my day was made! What I thought would be an awkward feeling turned into the perfect birthday gift: the gift of witnessing kindness, compassion, and care in action.

Shlomo’s gesture was contagious. His cup of coffee warmed two pairs of hands — and who knows how many hearts, mine included. Warmed...

This is one of those exceptional spots where the owner is manically obsessed with serving food that feeds you on a deep level both culinarily and spiritually. Shlomie the owner is meticulous in making sure your dish is perfect and will singularly focus on each person, table and dish, one at a time. Go with patience and grace and you’ll often be rewarded with an extra slice of incredible babka chefs compliments because shloime felt like you just had to have it. We ordered the Gingy - felt like biting into a slice of a Seattle fish market with the freshest array of orange fish, down to the caviar sprinkled about. Special of the day Potato Knish - lathered with a poached egg and mustard sauce. Felt like being transported to the lower east side 100 years ago. For the grand finale the cheese blitzes transport you to a Parisian cafe which is what this place feels like the second...