Shahd Alhamdan
Saudi Gazette
Jeddah’s resident sweet-tooths are enraptured with the city’s newest dessert shop, Bsbosati, on Quraish street Near ‘Joha Corner’.
Everyday, a long, seemingly never ending queue snakes out of the store’s front door right up until closing.
“Brilliant idea,” “wow,” “unavoidable,” and “I’ll get fat if I don’t stop eating,” were just some of the comments to be heard from people entering the small dessert shop that opened in 2014 and sells basbousa, but with a twist.
Basbousa is a traditional sweet from the region, and is made from cooked semolina or farina soaked in simple syrup.
The shop sells unique types of basbousa, such as basbousa with dates, Oreos, Tuffi, Kit-Kat, and Nutella, with one kilogram costing around SR60.
There is also basbousa with cheese, and traditionalists can still get classic, plain basbousa if they wish.
Bsbosati also sells dates, cakes and Arabic coffee, and is open everyday from 5pm until 1 am.
Manager and creator, Yousef Shams Aldian, explained that they named the shop ‘Bsbosati’, because basbousa is their products and they are passionate the sweet.
“In a family gathering, I volunteered to make a homemade basbousa rather than letting my big sister, but I made it differently,” Aldian said. “The family members liked it and told me to open a shop and from here the idea came. I shared the idea with one of my relatives who liked the concept. Together, me and Sami Abdulaziz, we started the business.”
At the beginning, they only had one employee, but currently employ more than nine people across the business.
Aldian said three new flavours would be added to the menu next year, and that soon they would start working on a new Bsbosati branch.
You can find out more about the store on their Instagram account, @bsbosati.