Baba Budan's Bearcat Café

A great place. Their beer selection is fantastic (and changes often based on seasonal microbrews), their staff generally knows a lot about the different beers, and their hummus is *amazing*. The staff can be a little spotty, but the long-term people - Erik in particular - are great. I love this place.

I like this place during the day.  It's quiet, bright, the coffee is pretty good, the bored staff is nice.  The food is expensive and greasy (but tastes fine), so I only really get food when necessary (long study session).  Good selection of alcohol, no complaints there.  

I'm less of a fan in the evening/night.  The place is longer than it is wide, so if there's a show going on, there's not much room to enjoy the show.  The back half of the room either strains to hear what's going on up front, or isn't interested and is part of a conversation that detracts from what's going on at the front.  It's a UC student kinda hangout, so it gets crowded and loud pretty quickly, which again, is kinda tough with the floorplan.  

No complaints in terms of hang-out-and-work-on-stuff-during-the-day-ability, but I'd rather not be there once the sun goes down.

I'm still a fan, but Baba Budan's loses about a half star from me based on my last few visits.

One thing that is infallible is the beer & drink selection. I have only had alcohol here a couple of times, but I always had to take a step back from my usual orders and stare at the menu and specials board to figure out what new treat in which I should imbibe!

But, with the exception of simple things like bagel chips and sandwiches, the food is falling a bit flat for me. Blah. Lackluster. Sub-par. Half-assed.

Today, for instance, I ordered the Baba Plate which I'd meant to order for quite some time now after recommendation after recommendation from a couple of friends of mine. The plate consists of triangles of pita served with hummus, olives, tomatoes, feta, and falafel.

The pita was great, as was the feta. I don't like tomato or olives so I won't/can't comment on that! The hummus was out-of-this-world fabulous to the point that it's probably the best I've ever, ever had. It tasted of high-quality olive oil and herbs... amazing.

The falafel was absolutely awful, on the other hand. Dry, very obviously microwaved, and flavorless. I tried to cut into them with my fork and instead of a crunchy exterior concealing a warm, fragrant center... it was squishy and began to crumble in to a dry, breadcrumb-like mess.

If the hummus wasn't amazing, I would've sent the dish back. In the future, I plan on just ordering the hummus plate and saying a big "eff you!" to the falafel.

Bottom line: go for drinks and appetizers... maybe a sandwich... but don't expect much from the food.