BackBar — Restaurant in City of Hudson

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...

It would’ve been a lovely cap to our evening. Went here for drinks - a beer for my husband and an espresso martini for me. The bartender said my drink was free as it was International Women’s Day. When my husband asked for the tab, the charge was $27! He asked to see the receipt and was shown a charge for tater tots and a burger. Never mind that we showed up past 10pm, when the kitchen was already closed. At this point he’d already paid but told the bartender that wasn’t what we ordered and she said we were being charged much cheaper than what we actually ordered. She then had a bunch of youth accost my husband out of the bar (I was outside waiting for him to settle our bill) - they kept telling us to leave, but we just wanted to make it clear that we were being ripped off and charged for things that we did not order. The young men who were telling us to leave didn’t even know the reason for what they were being asked to do. They just blindly went and did what they were told, without asking why. I asked for the manager and was told that he wasn’t around. Eventually, a guy named Nick claimed he was in charge. I asked him how much were the drinks - he didn’t even know. I had to ask him to go and get the menu to check.

Anyway, come here for lousy drinks and basically get ripped off by the bartender, supported by...

We stopped at Backbar for lunch during a day trip to Hudson. It seemed like a promising start to our day with a great outdoor area, Malaysian bites and veggie options, but was a supremely disappointing experience.

I ordered the Summer Miso Noodles that were supposed to include mushrooms, kale, broccoli rabe, and presumably, miso. What I received included no broccoli rabe or any discernable miso. They tasted like buttery noodles, and there was nothing Malaysian about them. We also ordered the cumin tots to share, which were fine, but nothing special. The tots come in a huge order, so plan/order accordingly.

Sadly, my hubby's non-veg options were equally meh, so we can only assume this is a decent spot for outdoor drinks when the weather is nice, but NOT for food. Also, the food was definitely overpriced the the quality and quantity we received.

It was such a disappointing experience, it cast a pall over the rest of the day in the way only truly terrible food can. Learn from our experience and choose one of the many other dining options in...