Boof

I avoided Boof for ages; their prices are high and the design of the place looks a little bit tacky. How wrong I was. Brought to you by the people behind the now closed Le Galloise in Canton, this is authentic French restaurant food delivered at reasonable prices and reasonably quickly.
Compared to the Café Rouge upstairs there is no contest. The burger, costing about as much as a standard pub burger, was by far the best I’ve had outside of a proper meat restaurant. The French Onion Soup was also packed full of flavour.
The only issue with Boof is that it doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be. The prices don’t match the décor and as a result they rarely seem very busy. There just needs to be a better hint as to how good the food really is.

What is Boof?
Simply put it is a French fast food restaurant, but like most French things it is convoluted and a little abstract. The ordering process plastered on the walls seems complicated at first but in reality is quite simple, similar to what a Subway virgin experiences I suppose.
But still they could really do with working on that sign as I feel it puts people off. Boof is usually quite subdued, well as a subdued as sitting in a bright red Lego block in St. David’s 2 can be which is a real shame as the food bursts with flavour. I had the sausage and chips, or Toulouse et frites or whatever they labelled it as and it was cracking though the thought of paying seven quid for a relatively basic meal did gnaw away at me. The food is wonderfully fresh and the service is excellent and haw-​hee-​hawing as you’d expect from a restaurant owned by the same people as The Gallois
They serve beer and wine but Boof gives the impression of being a lunch time kind of a place rather than a dinner venue. The films beamed onto the walls cement this perception.

Boof grill and rotisserie, the brainchild of the people behind the well-​respected Le Gallois restaurant in Canton and Garçon in Cardiff Bay, is one of the few businesses in St David’s 2 that doesn’t belong to an international chain.
It aims to serve up French fast food — but the prices are higher than you might expect when you see the café-​like style of the décor and compare theirs to other ‘fast food’ menu prices. That said, the quality here is way beyond what you’d get at most fast food joints, and it’s worth paying the extra.
When you walk into Boof, confused about what exactly they’re offering (unless you’ve read useful Unilocal reviews beforehand, of course!), you’re faced with a list of instructions about how to get ‘boofed’ — which is all a bit trying and unnecessary. Ignoring that, however, the food here is different to anything any other establishment in the area is offering, and it’s tasty and good quality. Don’t let the strange name or garish shop front put you off giving it a go!

This place is certainly eye-​catching with it’s giant red sign and crazy plastic modern stylings. Sadly, though, it doesn’t seem to be doing hugely well, and I think that’s most likely down to people just not understanding what it has to offer.
I mean, I’ve been there twice now and I’m still not entirely sure.
‘Boof’ to me suggests some kind of fast-​food meat product, but in actuality they serve up some really yummy restaurant-​style dishes. This is the first confusion.
The second is the list of instructions on the wall of how to go about getting ‘boofed’. I admit that these instructions were initially what turned me off the place because I didn’t spend the time reading them and instead just passed the place off as different and confusing. And so I went to somewhere simple that I understood instead.
But the food is very tasty, well priced and hot and filling; so long as it’s to your taste you couldn’t really ask for anything more. The service, too, was great once we got the hang of what was expected of us (from the provided instructions on the wall).
For about a month my brother thought that Boof was ‘food’ backwards. This place serves tasty food but its service style and décor are just all a bit confused. Like my brother, apparently.

I kinda feel sorry for Boof because everytime I am passing by, there seems to be no one in there. I think my problem is that it looks like a café but has restaurant style food at restaurant prices.
They haven’t done much to market it and draw in new people and it really must be suffering, which is a shame really because the food was very nice and the service was good, maybe because they were just happy to have someone to serve.
Atmosphere is naturally not very good.

Boof has only been open all of about 2 weeks and catches your eye straight away. Dressed brightly red with projection screens offering New Vague French films, and ironically ‘Allo ‘Allo when I was there.
Essentially French, Boof is an informal café/​restaurant/​bar/​takeaway…
Offering mostly baguettes but also Welsh steak, roasted chicken (which looked really nice as the women opposite me had it), Smoked salmon and salads on the food front.
In the way of the wet stuff you have tea, coffee, Champagne, wine, beers and soft drinks. I had a cappuccino that was disappointedly small for the £2.75 a paid for it. The handle couldn’t fit a finger through so I had to drink it with pinky finger out as I pinched it. I prayed there wasn’t anyone I knew there that day.
The waitress that served me was very pleasant and I couldn’t help but notice the chef preparing a beautifully cut steak in front the customers, something I’ll defiantly be going back for. There’s no reservation or anything like that, just be aware it can get quite busy at times there if you want to sit down.