Travel East Banani — Restaurant in Dhaka Metropolitan

Travel East was on my wishlist long ago, when I got to see their creative artistic decorations from pictures and immediately thought about visiting in person. They really have a nice ambiance and decoration. But the price is really high to compare with the amount and to top that they also include 10% service charge, even with that muchhigh prices.

Cantonese Fried Rice

We four people went there and ordered cantonese fried rice large one and it was around 625tk+15% which was more than 700tk! It was supposed to serve 4 people as they said, but I think it wasn’t sufficient enough as we had to order another small rice at the end. And according to the price, that’s really disappointing as we were paying A LOT just for a regular fried rice as it seemed, because I didn’t saw anything special about that rice. It tasted good but nothing special was about it. Even if it could serve four people sufficiently I wouldn’t complain this much maybe, but according to the price and amount that’s really upsetting and if I never go to Travel East again, definitely the reason would be this much high price.

Vegetable Sticky Fried Rice

We ordered this one, because it felt like we weren’t full and something was missing. This one didn’t taste good at all. The taste felt a bit weird. We liked the Cantonese one more than this one.

Teriyaki Chicken

Teriyaki chicken was the item of the day. Whereas it’s price was the lowest among all (even the fried rice 😂) the chicken didn’t seem like any typical chicken dish and it seemed really different, so everyone enjoyed it a lot. It was boneless chicken served with teriyaki sauce but the item was more dry than gravy. Still it we went well with the fried rice. If I come again here (which maybe I won’t) it will be because of this item only.

Dry Beef Chili

The amount was very poor according to the price. Including all the price was near 850tk whereas the amount was nothing. The taste was good like how dry beef chili normally tastes like, but compared to price not worth it.

Sizzling prawn

It was good also. You know, the time you enjoy a food, as long as you are eating it, but forget the taste when you’re done eating? It was like that. I enjoyed it then, but now forgot it, as it was not that special (like the teriyaki one) but was good enough. A bit spicy but not that much, so that anyone can eat. It was not gravy either. P.S. I still remember the taste of the teriyaki one.

So finally I can say it was overall a good experience considering the environment and all. Their service was really good. But personally I think charging extra for the service is not appreciable as its part of their duty. Keeping such hidden charges underneath kinda gives a bad impression for me. If I like their service, I’m supposed to give tips anyway, but why fix a...

Disappointing experience overall I would say. I went to Travel East Dhanmondi which was SUPERB in terms of everything. I expected even better for Travel East Banani given the reputation. However, I was quite let down on various aspects including food taste which was the primary reason for choosing an upscale restaurant like this in the first place. Food: With the exception of chicken Lo mein, I ordered the same items I ordered at the Dhanmondi branch- Bento 1 and Apple lime. The apple limes tasted divine and was served in a bigger glass with an increased quantity compared to the Dhanmondi branch. The Lo mein was also pretty good, a bit bland for my taste but not bad. BUT the bento was..sigh..not up to the mark at all. At the Dhanmondi branch, the black pepper chicken and mushroom alongside the House special fried rice was served in TWO SEPARATE sections of the bento which resulted in having higher quantity (for reference see my previous review). But in here, they served it all together MIXED in a single section resulting in of course a lower quantity! On top of that, the chicken was EXTREMELY SALTY along with the beef nori taco to the point I had to constantly wash it down with the apple lime! I could not taste the black pepper flavor in the chicken at all. The fried rice was okay but you can feel that it was not seasoned evenly since I got rice grains which were not completely coated in the sauce and everyone knows that is a cardinal sin when it comes to fried rice. Environment: This is a bit of mismanagement issue which I personally found offensive. So the washroom door was right next to the place we were seated. At first I figured it's the guest washroom, but then I saw that this also doubles as a staff washroom as well, with staffs going in and out at least minimum 10-12 times every hour in there. It struck me as very odd and ghetto. This is a fine dining establishment. The owners probably rack in hundreds of thousands bucks every day. The interior is fitted in with top of the art decor and they cannot install a separate washroom for staffs? I have been to enough places to know that this is not normal. Even non high-end places have separate wash room for employees. NOT that I am saying there is something wrong if guests and staffs share a bathroom but its a matter of convenience and etiquette. Since the washroom door was right next to our table it felt very impersonal and rude when 5 or 6 employees would keep on closing and opening the door in just 30 minutes alone and we were there for at least minimum two hours. I felt very uncomfortable and so did my mother and we honestly did not expect such a cheap experience. The staffs were cordial but everything else kind of killed the mood for me to ever want to visit...

Alhamdulillah.. Allahumma Barik. This restaurant has become one of our favourite place for pan Asian cuisine.

The dinner was quite memorable with good food,chaotic ambience and loud music which we tried a lot to avoid but failed.

We had Dumplings in chilli oil, Shrimp Shumai, Beef Cheese Skewer, Prawn and Cheese Nori Tacos, Nori Beef Tacos, Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup, Tokyo Beef Ramen. The drinks (mocktails) we had were Orange Mint Twist and Purple Rain.

Loved the Beef Cheese Skewers and the Prawn and Cheese Nori Tacos and Nori Beef Tacos were quite good (just one observation is that, they fried the nori sheets too much which made it a bit bitter in taste) .. loved the Dumplings in chilli oil as well.. the Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup was the show stopper. Tokyo Beef Ramen 🍜 was tasty but we don’t like ramen with coconut milk. Shrimp Shumai tasted good too. Our drinks were refreshing and comforting.

Service was satisfactory. Staffs were well trained, well mannered and efficient.

The ambience was a bit chaotic. The tables were placed too close to each other which made the place quite noisy. There was a piano and live music was playing. So overall it became an extremely noisy and crowded dining area. We love quiet places for dinners, actually every time we dine in we search for quiet and peaceful restaurants. This place was too noisy for our liking but we must consider the fact that it was weekend and the restaurants are always crowded in the weekends.

We love their food and their hospitality was worth appreciating so would definitely visit this place often. Highly recommend this restaurant.

📌Would recommend to call for reservation before visiting this place...