Visiting Hudson for the day, my partner and I had one shot at dinner in this quaint town. We looked through many menus, and settled on Backbar—we love spicy southeast Asian food, and complex vegetarian options. In hindsight, I really wish we had picked probably any other restaurant in town. I ordered the small mushroom soup, and (6) fried chicken dumplings; he ordered a tofu and spinach curry, and (6) fried edamame dumplings. That’s it. No drinks or anything. This meal cost SIXTY FIVE DOLLARS. I can’t. The dumplings were the highlight just because they were fine, where everything else actively sucked, and yet they were no more special than the gyoza from Trader Joe’s. The ~mushroom~ soup had 4 slices of one large mushroom in it, and otherwise was a bland coconut milk-based broth with so much enormous woody lemongrass pulp in it that I had to stop eating about 3 inches from the bottom of the bowl because it was like swallowing fish bones. The tofu curry had tasteless tofu slathered in unseasoned coconut milk and garnished with a few raw spinach leaves. I was so appalled by this meal that I researched the restaurant further when I got home, and as far as I can tell no Malaysian people are involved in this Malaysian restaurant, which I should’ve taken the time to read about beforehand. That’s a HUGE red flag, and explains so much about this subpar experience. The two stars are for the ambience, which is nice, and our waiter who was kind and attentive.