Kapow Noodle Bar — Restaurant in Boca Raton

I heard so much about KAPOW prior to visiting. The restaurant had write ups and a lot of press. South Florida is so starved for good affordable Asian cuisine that I couldn’t wait to drive up from Fort Lauderdale to check out the Boca location.

Regarding the FOOD, I had Cucumber Salad, a Pork belly bun, Chicken Wings, and Shrimp Pad Thai. The only stand out dish was the Pork belly bun. It was really very good. I wish I had stopped with a Sapporo beer and a Pork Belly bun though. How is it even possible to mess up a Cucumber Salad and Chicken Wings?! I think the sesame oil they used was rancid because both the cucumber salad and the chicken wings had a bad after taste. There also was an imbalance to the sauce in the cucumber salad. There were a lot of shrimp in Shrimp Pad Thai to be sure. But, they tasted bad and were not fresh at all. Two fresh limes, doesn’t make up for serving bad shrimp! My friends both had the Chow Fun which I personally thought tasted much better but we all agreed we would never come back.

Regarding the PRICE, I split the bill 50/50 with one other friend and it came to $80.33. This figure is written in such a way on the bill to confuse the customer which is really BAD MOJO! I added a 20% tip so I am literally NOT EVEN CERTAIN HOW MUCH I PAID! I feel I was deliberately mislead when it was time for payment. The electronic system had choices of 25%, 20% and something else BUT THE TIP WAS ALREADY ADDED. This is completely unacceptable to mislead customers in this manner. The waitress did not earn a 20% tip much less more. Suggesting an additional tip with such a bad experience is utterly hogwash.

Regarding the SERVICE, to better capture the actual experience, I suggest the owner change the name to “Kapluey!” The waitress was impatient so she starts with, “NO, we don’t have Mai Tai’s here!” They have a full bar! BUT you are so busy and inappropriately staffed for a busy Sunday she can’t be bothered to go ask or have the bartender fake me a Mai Tai, instead suggesting I have something off their special cocktail menu. Are you drinking it or am I? For the record, the bartender at Strike 10, the bowling alley across the park, can make a Mai Tai! The waitress is either blithely unaware of what a Mai Tai is and therefore badly trained or she just doesn’t care. If I had to guess, the fake smile is the tell.

This restaurant was the equivalent of getting your Schmeckel caught in a zipper. It starts out bad, is a painful experience during, and you know right from the start it isn’t going to end well. Had the the food not been so remarkably Extra Mediocre, which is a compliment to it, I would have corrected the poor service when a manager came to ask how everything was! But at that point, you no longer deserved the opportunity to correct it. You created the problem in the first place and I paid for it. What a waste of time and money!

If this is the best Mizner Park can do, you might as well stay...

4 stars bar, 1 star food. So I give it 2 stars as average.

Great location in Mizner Park. downtown Boca Raton. Beautiful shops and open walk space, a pretty stylish bar and good design, nice menu. Feels great sitting outside and live band. However, those are all the good points. Once you start ordering. It quickly goes down hill from here.

First shock is menu price. $17 for a bowl of Vietnamese pho is a new high for me. All noodle dish averaging $17- $20. Well, you gotta pay for the nice location I guess.

We ordered Duck Pho, Rock Shrimp Pad Thai, Mushroom Chow Fun, and Tonkotsu Pork Belly Ramen.

Starting with the duck pho. This is a disaster. For $17, this bowl is the size of an appetizer, the soup is bland, noodle wasn't cooked thru, soup wasn't even hot enough to soften the bean sprouts. So it was just floating there raw, a few basil leaves would be nice. Instead of the regular Vietnamese garlic chili paste, they serve it with the Chinese dau ban jiang, a fermented bean paste, which is creative and it even looks nice, but I put a small amount into the soup and I knew it was a really bad choice, dou pan Jiang is such an unapologetic and overpowering kind of strong flavor that it completely changed the whole noodle soup's character, does not go well with the fresh limey, light fragrant taste of a pho noodle. It was probably good intention but an obvious wrong choice.

Rock Shrimp Pad Thai would not be so bad if it isn't the sweetest pad thai I have ever tasted. It really should be on the dessert menu! Seriously, why does all Thai Restaurants in South Florida think Thai food should be all sweet and neglect all other layers of Thai food flavor? Lucky the dau ban jiang works in this dish.

The worst one is the Tonkotsu Ramen, the chef is so bad here that he doesn't even realize the word tonkotsu means pork bone, and it has to be in a rich pork bone soup. You cannot put a piece of pork belly on top of a noodle and call it tonkotsu. It's like putting a slice of lime on top of cheese cake and calling it key lime pie. The stir fry vegetable is burnt so the soup becomes bitter, and the noodle isn't even ramen. It's just some egg noodle bought from a Chinese grocery store. Soft and soggy noodle.

To my surprise, the chow fun isn't that bad, and this is the hardest one to make. The bok choy is crispy, sauce flavor is balanced. But I still can't give credit to the chef though. It just happens that they bought the chow fun noodle and it was pretty fresh. No they did not make that noodle. Every noodle here are bought from a Chinese grocery, or distributor. Chef clearly has no clue what Asian noodles are suppose to taste like let alone making them.

Kapow Noodle Bar will continue to be a busy place simply because of the location. But the food is such a shameful representation of Asian cuisine that it feels...

We have been long time fans of Kapow since the the old Mizner location on the west side, and like the new location across the street even better located at the front entrance of Mizner by Valet parking.

Among our 100 visits we usually start with an appetizer of charred Edamame and Shrimp Har Gow, accompanied with a chili soy sauce that is so good you may want to drink it. As we usually do, we ordered another appetizer of this awesome Dim Sum dish.

Since my girlfriend loves Sashimi style Tuna, for the second course, we ordered a study of Tuna which comprised of Tuna Tartare with crispy rice and also a Tuna Poke bowl to satisfy her Rare Tuna urge.

We ordered our usual entree of a whole Crispy Hoisin Lacquered Peking Duck with thin pancakes (Chun Bing) that we like to paint with hoisin sauce and stuff with duck meat, scallions and other accompaniments. The legs on the dock are so good we even bit into the extra crisp bones and knuckles. A must to try is their Ginger BBQ Duck fried rice dish which is the best Fried Rice in town. A marriage made in Heaven with their Pinot Noir There are too many other options, all equally good such as barbecue ribs, assortment of noodles especially with NY strip, with a good Taddei Cabernet, Chateau Capeburn, other Meritage blends and also good whites with Sushi and Sashimi. A good Wine list comprised of several good selections to pair with their extensive menu.

Kapow Boca is very well run in all aspects Food, Wine, Service with veteran servers such as Elliot. We have to commend expert management and veteran experienced ownership for all the above attributes.

Kapow noodle bar offers The Best Asian fusion especially their Dim Sum dishes, Peking Duck, fried rice and noodles and more in the Tri-County area. The overall vibe & ambience is young chic and the Hottest Latest restaurant under a new Partner involved that has made it the best restaurant in Mizner Park, so hurry up and tell them Billy Wisdom...