Bouga Restaurant

I went to this restaurant last night ( 8/12/11). It is advertised and Moroccan but only have a few Moroccan dishes. Rest of the dishes are authentic Persian dishes. There is no mention of this on their menu. I asked them about this as was told “we have ‘tagine’!”.

As a Persian I was annoyed that there was no mention of the fact that these dishes are not Moroccan. Additionally I can tell you as an Iranian I have eaten these dishes all my life the one we ordered were badly cooked and presented.

Come on Bouga Morocco has some great dishes so why do you have to deceive people?

Here are some of traditional Persian food on the menu. Ghel ghely, Kashk bademjan, Masto khair, Koobideh, Jojej Fillet, Ghafghazi, Chenjeh, Jojeh on the bone, Barg, Makhsous, Momtaz… I can go on, such a big shame!!!
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1 Overall rating
Food 0 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 0 | Value for money 5
Friday, December 09, 2011

I booked at Bouga for my birthday last Saturday (19th November 2011) and after reading all these bad reviews I was really scared for the decision I had made and I was about to cancel , but having invited so many people over I decided to go through with the booking.

I must say that the bouga people must have read all these reviews, because what I experienced there was nothing like it was described from other diners.

The atmosphere was amazing, the decor superb, warm and cosy, the service the friendliest and most effective the food amazing and on top of that a little cake surprise for my birthday.

Thank you Bouga for an amazing night
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Angel E - View all reviews by this user
10 Overall rating
Food 9 | Service 9 | Atmosphere 10 | Value for money 10
Friday, November 25, 2011

Went to Bouga last night with my girlfriend as we both fell in love with Moroccan food on our recent trip to Marrakesh. We were not disappointed. This place oozes charm and although the service can be a bit slow at times we were made to fell very welcome.

We started with a shared mixed-mezze (falafel, humus, zalouk...) which is probably more Lebanese in inspiration than Moroccan but was just as good as the ones I had in previous trips to Beirut. The freshly baked flat bread (in a clay oven by the front door...) is a great addition and worth the trip on its own!

We then moved on to the mains and i had a lamb Couscous and my GF a chicken tajine. The flavour-packed dishes took us right back to Morocco and left us with an urge to book a trip back as soon as possible....We finished the night with a traditional mint tea and oriental pastries although by that time it was pure overindulgence. The bill came to below £30/each including service charge and a bottle or red wine. Pretty good value I would say and definitely a go to again address in my book!
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Henri B. Jowell
8 Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 7 | Atmosphere 7 | Value for money 8
Friday, November 18, 2011

Yesterday on 17-th i was at the bouga restaurant with four of my friends.We were surprised with the warm welcome and accomodation .While i was waiting for my friends to come i have been served a glass of red wine.I also liked the food so much.The service was excellent and the prices were very reasonable.

Everything was in the perfect condition except the card machine which is not working for a while.It was very kind from one of the staff who went to buy specially for us the type of wine that we wanted.

p.s.I would recommend to all of you to visit this place it is worth of it.
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10 Overall rating
Food 9 | Service 10 | Atmosphere 9 | Value for money 10
Friday, November 18, 2011

Dreadful!

My boyfriend and I went to Bouga in Crouch End as we had a voucher from Groupon. Firstly we were told that we could only have a cold starter and a choice on three tagines, this was incorrect and when we questioned it we were rudely told to have anything. This was a blatant lie and we are glad we checked.

The starters we nice but our mains were awful! I had a lamb and prune tagine and the sauce was horrible, almost tasted burnt. The lady next to me had the same but it came out looking completely different - slightly worrying!

Service in this restaurant was really bad. The man, who I can only assume was the manager, was so rude that I had to laugh.

I would NOT recommend this restaurant!
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1 Overall rating
Food 3 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 1 | Value for money 1
Monday, October 31, 2011

DO NOT GO TO BOUGA, CROUCH END.

I don't know where to start, and I'm sure I will forget one of the many things that they managed to get wrong last night during my meal out with 3 friends.

-Appalling customer service, rude and non-welcoming.

-They managed to double up on the starters, forgot a main course and gave us tap water and charged us for sparkling water.

-Waited an hour for main course.

-When the food came it was the smallest, blandest piece of chicken swimming in oil.

-Charged us for the extra starters that we sent back.

-When they realised they'd forgotten a main course, they quickly put a bowl of chick peas and some tomato in the microwave and nuked it. This IS NOT Moussaka.

-Completely stitched us up with the voucher we had and messed up the bill TWICE.

UNBELIEVABLE. DO.NOT.GO
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BAD-BOUGA
2 Overall rating
Food 2 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 3 | Value for money 2
Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Oh Dear. What has happened to this place? I can only assume it's under new management. This place closed down at some point last year in 2010 and was empty for quite a while. This summer, 2011, it reopened under the same name.

I visited this place about a year ago, under it's old incarnation, before it closed, and it was absolutely superb. Friendly, attentive staff. Great food and good portions. A great Moroccan restaurant. So, when my partner and I saw that it had reopened, we thought that it would be nice to pay the place a visit again.

It was one of the worst restaurant experiences I've had in London. I won't say this without backing it up, so you can decide for yourself.

On arrival, we were asked if we were ready to order almost immediately. We asked if we could have a couple of minutes. When we were ready, we ordered a mixed hot Mezze starter since it had a bit of everything, and two tagines. We had ordered Hummous just to fill the gap before the starters too. Fourty five minutes passed and all that had been brought to our table was a huge flat bread.

We then asked a waitress where our starters were, or at the very least our Hummous, she said they were coming and then plonked a bowl of Hoummous on our table. Another ten minutes passed and another waitress passed our table and asked if everything was ok. We said we still hadn't got our starters. It was then that the manager stepped in and said that it was because they were busy that we hadn't received our starters. That is not an excuse.

When our starter eventually arrived, it was luke warm, over cooked and missing half of the items from the menu. When we pointed this out to the manager he got flustered, grabbed the nearest bowl of calamari from the open kitchen top and went to poor it onto our plates! We stopped him, stating, we've already got that, what about the rest of the items on the menu. He then said "they're coming, they're coming". It was becoming their catchphrase.

It was at this point we noticed the tables around us having an equally terrible time, if not worse because they weren't saying anything to the staff. We shared a few words of common ground with our neighbouring table who had had to wait about an hour for starters and then sat for about fourty minutes with two bowls of cold cous cous on their table which had been meant for their mains.

We wanted to cut our losses and just pay for the starters and cancel the mains. Not possible, we were told and as if by magic, as soon as our starters were taken from the table our mains were pushed in front of us. These were probably other customer's mains since we had arrived after some of the people there, who were now getting irritated that we had somehow got our mains before everyone else. One table next to us asked the waitress "what is going on, where are our mains?", to which the waitress replied, "this isn't my section, so I don't know." To make matters worse, a table of about twenty people arrived in an already busy restaurant and it seemed that there was some kind of argument now going on in the kitchen between the chefs. Another neighbouring table were now in hysterical laughter because of what they were experiencing. We later saw them outside, saying as they left, "that was absolutely terrible".

In fairness, the mains were quite nice, if not slightly small for the price. We were offered a free drink for the shambles that had occurred throughout. We refused to pay the service charge which resulted in a few exchanges of words until we reminded the manager that we still didn't receive the full starter which we were promised. The staff were polite enough but just completely clueless as to what was going on. I couldn't believe that some of the waitresses were standing around staring blankly into space with the absolute chaos that was going on elsewhere. The place also has the potential to have a great cosy atmosphere.

I wish these guys luck for the future but I certainly will not be returning, especially with so many other fantastic Moroccan style restaurants in the area.
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Nick
3 Overall rating
Food 5 | Service 1 | Atmosphere 2 | Value for money 2
Friday, September 23, 2011

This is probably the worst restaurant I have ever been to in London.

20 of us went on Saturday night. We were told to pre-order the week before, but upon arrival were told the menu had changed so would have to order again. When a couple of ordered Cobras beers did not arrive, we were told they had run out, but later in the evening saw one of the waiters walking around with two bottles. When questioned, the waiter just got angry with us. It took an hour for orders to be taken, two hours from arriving for starters to be served, and to top it off, one main was served instead of a starter, and several mains turned up 20mins after the mains. Some of the chicken meals were also completely cold and very stingy portions.

A belly dancer appeared in the middle of the meal, which was fine until she suddenly produced a live snake which she also draped around some guests shoulders. For half of us, this was plain terrifying and also unhygenic in a restaurant.

Seriously one to avoid. If you want good Moroccan food, go to Souk Medina in Ceovent Garden or Moro in Exmouth Market
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3 Overall rating
Food 3 | Service 1 | Atmosphere 4 | Value for money 3
Monday, September 19, 2011

We had a miserable evening at Bouga.

The music was exceptionally loud and we couldn't hold a conversation (it was nightclub volume - and I like nightclubs - just not while eating dinner). There was a belly dancing act, which would have been fine but the music turned up even louder for nearly 40 minutes. All those around us were sitting in silence. We both left with splitting headaches.

The restaurant was also massively under staffed, the poor waitress was running around doing her very best while the manager arrogantly swanned around doing nothing to help the situation. As such, even though we were desperate to leave it took a long time to get the bill, by which time all the pubs around were closed and we couldn't even go and have a drink to cheer ourselves up! A thoroughly awful evening, the only solace being that everyone around us seemed to have a similarly miserable time. A real shame as the food itself was very nice.

Definitely somewhere to avoid.
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3 Overall rating
Food 7 | Service 6 | Atmosphere 0 | Value for money 0
Saturday, April 24, 2010

we went to bouga last night and i trully wish we hadnt bothered!

we ordered the bouga feast for 2 and had to wait ages for it to arrive (we got to the bouga at 5.45pm and finally left at 8.50pm) the staff were very sparse and unhelpful and when the waitress brought over the lamb tagine to our table she spilt some of it over my hand and leg (tho no real damage was done) the food was very tasteless and unimpressive and the service very sloppy and slow. 1 particular member of staff kept on giving glaring looks to some of our guests with us,and u felt very unwelcome (even tho our bill came to over £285.00) i couldnt wait to get out of there! There must be better moroccan restaurants out there im sure, as this 1 lets the culture down badly!
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yvonne caple
2 Overall rating
Food 2 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 3 | Value for money 1
Sunday, March 07, 2010