BŪCCANN — Restaurant in Philadelphia

I discovered this restaurant through Instagram reels. I wanted to go as it seemed like it had a nice vibe. I wanted to also try their mojito tower and the food looked very enticing. This place serves Carribean/Latin inspired cuisine and is located in northeast Philly. For starters we had the island shrimp, mofonguito flight, croqueta de platano maduro, platano relleño, and calamari. All the food tasted great and beautifully plated! The island shrimp tasted great but is basic. The dish consisted of crispy butterfly shrimp served with house made slaw. The following dishes are my favorites during the visit and I highly recommend. The mofonguito flight consists of a trio of fried mashed plantains topped with ground beef, stewed chicken, and shrimp drizzled with chili and fresh guacamole. The Croqueta de platano maduro is a ripe plantain croquettes filled with shredded chicken and cheese served with creamy cilantro aoili. The platano relleño dish consists of baked sweet plantain stuffed with shrimp and is topped with house special sweet creamy chili sauce. The calamari dish was pretty basic as well but I really liked it. Their calamari is lightly breaded, well seasoned and perfectly crisp. The dish is served with ketchup and Chipotle aoili. We ordered a lot of appetizers as we find the portion to be on the smaller side (as pictured). For cocktails, we ordered a mojito tower. We were able to select 5 out of the 8 flavors offered. We selected: Coconut, Tamarind, Passion Fruit, Strawberry, and Mango. We wanted Guava but they were out of the flavor during the visit. The drinks tasted great and refreshing but we find the drinks to be on the weaker side. I also had the Mango Henessy cocktail which was not bad but again on the weaker side. I actually prefer this specific drink to be on the weak as I am not really much into the taste of Henessy. The price of the food and the drinks were not bad. I felt we ordered a lot of items for the amount we paid overall during the visit. I forgot the name of the server but she was really pretty, friendly and very attentive. She also had a really nice smile. The place is decorated nicely and is clean. The music was a little loud. The place also offers hookah which I believe is paid cash only. I would definitely go back to this place for the food mostly although I would try the drinks again (maybe it was just a miss for the visit). I rate this place a 4.7 out of 5. Feel free to visit their FB and IG pages BŪCCANN...

GOOD: I've lived in the neighborhood many years and what the Owner has created here is a beautiful restaurant on a common corner. This corner desperately needed some spicing up. I went yesterday (Wednesday ) night around 9:30. The place was jumping. People were eating outside, the bar had a nice crowd, and a DJ was playing in the background. I stayed for about an hour -- the Mojitos were well made ($8). They do have a Happy Hour weekdays from 4-7 where drinks are $5. People were having a great time, some people were dancing. The crowd was nicely dressed. The two young female bartenders were very efficient. I didn't eat but the food looked well made.

NOT GOOD: The music was too loud and I wouldn't want to eat dinner inside. The bar has gigantic televisions which are too big for the bar and absolutely nothing interesting was even showing on the TVs -- just some boring programming. I don't know why people are still doing the 'gigantic TV thing." Get rid of that and let people interact! Lastly, and probably most importantly, although the two female bartenders were efficient, they were not at all friendly. In the hour I spent at the bar, I cannot recall either of them smiling once. The girl that gave me my Mojito never thanked me for the tip I left. They had absolutely no eye contact with the customers and they never engaged in any friendly back and forth conversation with the people at the bar. They displayed absolutely no personality and acted more like they were doing the customers a favor for being there. Bartenders make or break a place and if they want to make it, they need to bring in older, friendlier bartenders. Once you get past the "these girls look nice" stage, you see that they don't bring any personality to the place whatsoever. I had read this in a previous review and I experienced...

Who smokes hookah with a baby on their lap and no one has a problem with it?? Well not a baby may be 2 or 3 years old. Whole experience was just a mess. First, nothing on their website mentions hookah but that's the first thing they offered when we sat down. No thanks. Decided to stay anyway and that was a mistake. They had dynamite shrimp on the website but not at the restaurant..um ok. Ordered lobster rolls from the menu in the restaurant, oh we don't have that...um ok. Ordered mango henny drink, came to the table with a huge bug in it..they took the drink, apologized and brought out a new one. Now this is when the lady came in with the little girl. Everyone knew her so assuming she was family or someone that works there. They brought out a hookah and a booster seat for the little girl so i guess this is the normal routine...unbelievable. She sat next to us with about 2 or 3 waiters/waitresses having a conversation as she smokes hookah with her kid on her lap, or in booster or someone elses lap. Now the food, I got salmon with rice and beans. The gravy, yes gravy it was not a sauce as stated on the menu taste like flavorless egg foo young gravy from the Chinese store. Same gravy was used for the beans. It's a no for me, i ate it but would not order it again. The Pollo frito was good according to the person I was with. Service was very very very slow (not crowded) We had to ask for everything, even dinner. Waitress took drink and app order never came back for dinner order. Had to ask them to remove empty dishes, ask for more water, ask for a box, ask for the check...a mess. Staff was polite, service is slow, food is basic, atmosphere is smoky due to hookah even though they have a no smoking no vaping sign..guess hookah is different lol not for me...smoke is smoke. Enter at...