On Wednesday, May 18, Said Bulle of Jilib Jiblets will be the first in a rotating cast of Burlington-area, global-food vendors to offer pop-up dinners out of a shared kitchen space in the newly opened Maudite Poutine at 156 North Winooski Avenue.

Tickets to Bulle's dinner are by advance purchase only so he can plan ahead. For $20, diners can select a meat plate of stew with rice, fried chicken and a beef sambusa, the Somali version of an Indian samosa. A vegetarian option features a vegetable stew with two vegetable sambusas. Both come with a side salad and banana.

In a written biography, Bulle describes how he left his native Jilib, Somalia, for the U.S. when he was 15 after his mother died. He grew up working in the kitchen of his mother's restaurant. "My heart is set on having a family-owned restaurant just like my mother did," Bulle writes.



The following Wednesday, May 25, Mediha Goretic of Meza will offer a Bosnian pop-up meal at Maudite Poutine.

Will Clavelle of Burlington's Community & Economic Development Office is helping to develop the kitchen as an incubator space and connect small food businesses with Leah Collier, co-owner of the restaurant.

Maudite Poutine is open Thursday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. While other cooks will also use the restaurant on the four evenings when it's not open, Wednesdays are specifically for food from around the world, Clavelle said.
Some of the cooks also participated in the multicultural takeout-dinner series previously organized by the now-defunct North End Studios, but the two projects are unrelated.
Clavelle expects that the series will include food from Iraq and Dale Boca's Argentine menu. He and Collier welcome inquiries from those who have other global cuisines to share.

"Ideally, we'd have some monthly regulars and other people looking to test the waters," Clavelle said. Every Wednesday, he hopes that a different national flag will fly from the restaurant's flagpole.