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Boomers Café: The place to be!

Saad Adnan Khan
Photos: Kazi Tahsin Agaz Apurbo

When Boomers Café opened up, it instantly gained popularity as a student lounge, where the pool culture kicked off in Dhaka. Playing pool became a new and trendy activity for the young people to try out, given the fashion connotations that they thought the act carried. Students hung out and listened to music, and savoured the meals that came at really cheap rates. Back then, the two meal item came at eighty taka, and the three meal item at ninety taka. Students, being budget conscious, preferred getting the two meal item, because the price came to a total of hundred takas with a soft drink.

The scene has changed a bit. The "boro bhais" who played pool back then, now serve corporate houses with oversized bellies, the "choto apus" have moved on from being impressed by the "pool game" and the prices of the food also have increased exponentially. But Boomers Café still manages to provide students a space where they can let their guards down on the comfortable brown leather couches and relax amidst paintings of famous artists from the music world like Pink Floyd and James that adorn the walls. The first Boomers café opened up in Banani, for which it was an adda house mostly for North South University (NSU) and American International University of Bangladesh (AIUB) students. Now Boomers has spread all around the city, catering gustatory needs and wants of students of other universities.

With short breaks between classes, students find Boomers a convenient place to have lunch. Let us admit the fact that we love the "inauthentic" nature of the Chinese and the Thai food in Bangladesh! Boomers serves this Deshi Chinese food in generous amounts. "One of the reasons I like Boomers is because the food is filling," says Sharmin Ahmed, an undergraduate student of East West University. It will be ridiculous to imagine students finding out time to take the role of food connoisseurs, when they already have to scramble for time to do so many other things. Of course there are mixed opinions regarding the food at Boomers. "I think the quality has gone down a bit. I used to love the meals before. Not that I wouldn't want to eat there, but I think the quality was way better before. I think they put too much oil in the curries now," says Raiyan Kabir, a graduate student from North South University.

The two absolute favourites are the two-item and three-item meals that students have during the lunch hour and that have continued to please everyone since the inception of the cafe. Alongside fried rice or chowmein, they can order chedder beef, moncholian chicken, sweet and sour prawn and vegetables. Besides all these items, the Thai soup is quite popular. Some students like the variety of ice-cream as well. "I obviously don't think it's the best ice-cream in town, but they are relatively good. I really like their butterscotch ice-cream," says Rehana Sultana, an undergraduate student of BRAC University.

Despite all the changes in the recent years, Boomers Café, located in Banani, Dhanmondi and Baily Road, still draws young hungry students inside its comfortable ambiance to hang out, addafy and eat!