Mu'ooz

Mu'ooz
197 Beaudesert Road Moorooka
2/5
I have to admit that Mu'ooz was a new experience for me, the anticipation of eating something new and interesting was enough to get me giddy all week. So to fill in why that sentence makes sense, Mu'ooz serves Eritrean cuisine, for anyone who doesn't know where Eritrea is here's the wiki page. So with a not quite sure what it will be attitude i made a booking for 7 people on my normal blog dinner night (Thursday).

With an open mind our party made their way to Moorooka (which isn't too hard) and after finding the place fairly quickly (it could be tricky as it is downstairs at the end of an arcade). The first thought i had was the quietness of suburban restaurants, it seems to be endemic that outside of particular special events suburban restaurants are impossible to get noisy or rowdy (outside of the individual table of drunk guys). The atmosphere of Mu'ooz is that of the many a suburban restaurant, which a beautiful restraint that many inner city restaurants forget when decking the place out to a stylised perfection. The suburban atmosphere of Moorooka and Mu'ooz actually reminds me of the time i have spent in Newtown in Sydney, which i can say is a positive aspect of the experience of eating in Moorooka.

So onto the main part of the review, the food. So for dinner due to our large party of seven people we ordered what on the menu is called the platter, providing a mixture of different dishes (5 for 4 or 3 for 2), providing us with every main on the menu (except the lasagna) and came with Enjera (a sort of flat crepe style bread). It took a reasonable amount of time for the food to come out, i think this may have been due to the large variety of food required and of course the large quantity of food required. When the food came out it was all stews of some description, similar in texture to an Indian curry, however only two of the dishes had any heat to them and the majority were really pleasant mild dishes. The main point i would have for anyone eating East African stews in this manner is not to use cutlery. This is due to the fact that cutlery results in large ratio of stew to bread and is less fun than using your hand to grab the stew in bread.

My only complaints with the restaurant were that one of the waitresses was shy and inattentive, and that the platter servings were slightly too small, but otherwise i believe that this restaurant is worth revisiting, especially considering that it is a community run operation.

Our dishes cost $82 for the 4 person platter and $41 for the 2 person platter. There was a $3 per person corkage for the whole night (we drank several beers each)
Mu'ooz have a website with a full menu at http://www.eatout-brisbane.com.au/Southern-Suburbs/Moorooka/Restaurants/MUOOZ-Eritrean-Restaurant-and-Catering.html

If anyone knows of any other African places worth visiting i would like to know. Put a comment in with the place and address and ill check it out.