- Location: 65 Commercial Street
- Closest Station: Liverpool Street, Aldgate East, Shoreditch High Street (Depends where you’re coming from)
- Reservations: Book here
- Cuisine: Middle Eastern vegetarian (vegan on request)
- Occasion: Saturday brunch
- Cost: £-££
Commercial Street is the ultimate litmus test whether you will succeed as a restaurant or not. A lot of establishments have come and gone. Restaurants always need to be innovative and offer their diners something they keep coming back to again and again.
I’d been hearing the chatter about Bubala. The chatter can go either way to be honest. It’s usually (more often than not) really hyped up and in some rare occasions SO worth the hype.
Pleased to report, Bubala fell in the latter category- totally worth the hype. We luckily got a table for 2PM on a Saturday. Place was packed. Interior is cosy, inviting and chilled vibe. Exactly what you need for a Saturday. There were groups of all sizes and diners of all ages, even tiny tots
Full vegetarian menu (vegan on request): at no point did we feel like we really needed some meat dishes on the menu. I love Middle Eastern food, the concept of sharing, a bit of this and a bit of that- enjoying, chatting and spending times with the ones you care about and the garnish of food that complements such occasions. Could anything be better than that? ❤️
We were recommended to order 8 dishes between two. To be honest, we could’ve done with 1-2 less dishes. We were quite full ? But the piggies ? that we are, we managed to almost finish all!
Highlights were (more so because they took me by surprise):
- Shitake and oyster mushroom skewers, the glaze on them was perfection ?
- The hot favourite dish of the moment: Halloumi with black seed honey (massive slab of that halloumi!)
- Confit potato latkes…because potatoes ❤️ and I am ALL for the confit potato trend! YAAAS
- Coconut Malabi with Hibiscus and Sesame Brittle. That brittle brought the dish to whole other TEXTURE level ?
