Banyan Bar + Refuge — Restaurant in Boston

Eh, I thought this place was okay. We had a reservation and so didn't have a problem getting a table. I thought the layout, however, was a little bit weird since when you walk in you immediately have to walk up a small flight of stairs to reach the hostess's desk.

We ordered a handful of dishes, including the okonomoyaki fries, the pineapple fried rice, basil ramen, cucumbers, bok choy, avocado bao and the Hawaiian fried rice. The service was okay, the server didn't seem to come by much, he wasn't rude but wasn't overly friendly.

Here's my take on the food: Thai basil ramen - it's not ramen, it reminded me of spaghetti and it looks like some kind of pesto spaghetti when you first see it and haven't tasted it. Not overly flavorful and it has a ton of cheese on it, so beware if you're allergic to dairy. Pineapple fried rice - was drenched in sauce, wasn't a huge fan of the flavor and just didn't taste like any other pineapple fried rice I've had before. Cucumbers - they tasted like the pickled cucumbers you get in banchan when you go to Korean restaurants, except those ones are free :). Screaming boy choy - was way too spicy to enjoy the flavor of the dish. Avocado bao - I couldn't even taste the flavor of the avocado, and bao doesn't have a strong flavor (usually you put some kind of savory meat in it) so it seemed like it defeated the purpose of using bao.... and tasted like nothing. Hawaiian fried rice - nothing special, it tasted like rice, with spam, and egg, except a lot more pricy than it is usually.

Maybe I should put a bit of a disclaimer in here, I've never liked Asian fusion. To me, it seems like Asian fusion places take classic Asian dishes, and make them overly sweet or alter the dish in some way that completely distorts the origin/flavor/etc of the dish and just never works. Or, they'll take classic Asian dishes and serve them basically as any other Asian restaurant would, but put it on a prettier plate, give you a smaller portion and mark up the price 10x. The bok choy, for example, bok choy is typically served steamed... or sauteed, and just plain - and it tastes fantastic that way. The cucumbers, I wasn't sure what was so special about those as I've had pickled cucumbers countless times and they tasted exactly the same.

Needless to say I wasn't a huge fan and probably...

As a former cook & bartender I dont usually leave negative reviews but this place is just using the social media popularity of some beloved chinese dishes to squeeze money out of people that have never had the real thing.

Waaayyyy overpriced, laughably small portions, and the food was meh at best. Most dishes were too sweet with nothing to balance and uninteresting in flavor. Cocktails were boring. Worst offenders:

18 dollars for, not exaggerating here, less than 1 ounce of floppy, thin salmon on the sashimi dish

Char siu bao was bad american pulled pork in soggy white bread and pales in comparison to what you could get at any dim sum spot/chinese bakery in boston, or even the freezer isle at Hmart, for a fraction of the price

Half of a carrot, shaved and mixed with gochujang and sugar, for 8 dollars? Come on

The sauce was straight up missing on the mushroom dish, which happens occasionally during a busy service, but it was one of only 3 components in the dish

Both Sichuan 'inspired' dishes were super whitewashed and lacked even a hint of chili, which is a pretty important element in both mapo tofu and dan dan noodles

A quick note on service: if you're in a large party like I was I wouldn't expect much while the patio is open; huge space and autograt for 6+. Otherwise standard.

If you want to come here because of the location or you like the tree theme or whatever then okay, but if you care about food I would definitely go support your local chinese...

This restaurant is considered an asian restaurant when the food is not authentic whatsoever. Not a single asian employee working in the the kitchen or in staff?? They do not know what they’re doing. Not only that I did not see a single asian person in the restaurant so you can tell by these reviews nobody knows what they’re talking about. The prices were insane for what the quality was. The food options were so limited, I feel so sorry for bringing my parents to a restaurant and them not being able to enjoy a single thing. I am not kidding when I say the food was awful. They can’t even cook rice properly. The photos of the restaurant and food are so misleading. It’s not that special in person trust me. You are better off supporting a small mom and pop owned business anywhere else if you want authentic food. I have know idea how any of that was considered asian. We got the Ahi tuna poke bowl (overly sour with no flavor, tuna didn’t even taste real), mushroom bibimbap (bland and mushy), and french fries (which we thought would be a safe choice but they were smothered in a sour sauce with mussels??). Everything was so poorly made I’m convinced nobody has had asian cuisine because all these reviews are so off. This birthday dinner for my father was ruined. And as someone who is Vietnamese, Vietnamese hummus is not a damn thing so take that off your menu. This establishment needs to hire people who know what the hell they’re doing because this is...