Boku Kitchen and Saloon — Restaurant in Columbia

I cannot recommend Boku. I want to, I really do, but truth is truth. Let me add that I really like Publico. The service isn't always great, but I've always been happy with the food. Somehow, the same owner is missing a great opportunity at Boku to have a hot spot in town that not only looks good, but tastes good too.

We went to Boku not long after it opened and were very disappointed with the food. Our first visit, my bf got the General Bob's chicken and it was heavily breaded and over-fried; mostly breading, not a lot of chicken. I got the spicy noodles and they were so spicy all the other Asian flavors were lost if there were any. The crab rangoons were good, but the summer rolls were terrible. They were stale and hardly anything was in them. Stale as in they didn't soak the rice paper enough before assembling OR they weren't made fresh and had been sitting out. Every restaurant knows they need to be made fresh, it is what it is. I make these at home and they're so simple, it's hard to mess these up.

Flash forward to our visit last week. My friend was in town and she wanted to go here after we listed some restaurants and we found out 929 was closed since it was Monday. We decided to give Boku a second chance. I honestly want the food to be good. It's such a neat place, great location, and great atmosphere (except the music; music can really set the mood for a restaurant's theme/vibe, this one misses the mark).

We were disappointed yet again. my boyfriend got the Vegetarian Noodles and added chicken. The chicken had 0 flavor. It tasted like the chicken they give to kids because they don't want anything on it. I think there was just salt and pepper on it and thrown on top his noodles. Not good for an Asian restaurant. any chicken you find in Asian food is bursting with flavors like sesame, tamari, soy, ginger, etc. My friend and I got sides of garlic noodles which were good portions, but they were drowning in oil and did not have a lot of flavor. The summer rolls have changed a bit since our first visit, but this time they came out cold and wet which is honestly just gross. Just make the summer rolls fresh for each order. I get it takes more time, but cold and wet rolls for your guests should not happen. We also had the spicy tuna hand rolls; they were mostly rice. If they had less rice or more of the actual tuna and other toppings they would've been good. Ratios matter. Crab rangoons were the best thing we had, again.

I kid you not, we went to COA after this dinner for a palate cleanser with some apps, we were so dissatisfied. I don't quite understand how people keep coming back to Boku unless they aren't familiar or that adventurous with Asian food. The prices for such low quality food is silly. There are take-out places with better quality food and flavor.

(photos are screenshots from video, sorry for...

Overall review: 1/5

My family and I celebrated my 20th birthday here today (September 1st). Our waitress & other staff are nice, the restaurant itself has a good vibe and I loved the lucky cat wall.

However, the food was not very good. I will say, their small plates and mixed drinks are pretty good. We ordered sesame chicken, crab croutons and egg rolls. The chicken was tender, the sauce was flavorful. Crab croutons had yummy filling & was definitely my favorite part of the meal. Egg rolls also were nice! For drinks, I personally ordered the Apple Blossom drink, which tasted like apple butter — super good.

As for the entrees, it really just went downhill from there. I ordered the Ahi Tuna Poke salad, which comes with the tuna, edamame, avocado, pepper / carrot slices on top of cabbage and spinach. The primary issue was the sesame vinegar dressing. When I imagine a vinaigrette on a salad, it would be drizzled on, given the nature of how strong vinegar is and such. But instead, the entire bottom of my deep plate was filled with the dressing, it was easily a cup of dressing put in this salad (which for frame of reference, should have been 2 - 4 tbsps MAX). The dressing overwhelmed the spinach & cabbage + made it soggy, leaving a burn in my stomach, making it practically inedible. I genuinely want to know who the hell made this salad because who in what world puts that much dressing on a salad? Like I am very curious on how that happened, and if that person has ever eaten a salad in their life.

My dad enjoyed his pho, it came as it traditionally is enjoyed with the hoisin sauce + sprouts + basil etc. My sister liked her food, I lowkey forgot what she ordered sorry. My mother got the tofu + kimchi fried rice but got it with beef instead — from what I understand, the kimchi is made in house. The kimchi served in the rice was not ready to be served and had a foul sour taste, which made it hard to enjoy. It also didn’t seemed fried, more like steamed or microwaved.

To me, the people in the kitchen do have good cooking abilities, but don’t specialize in certain Asian cuisines.

If you do want to come by the place, I suggest the drinks and small plate options the most — those entrees are very hit or miss.

PS. To our waitress — you were super sweet & I’m sorry if this stressed you out, we understand you can’t control what comes out the kitchen & I appreciate you for taking off my salad from the bill without any questions asked. I say this because you seemed sad handing us our bill 😭 I am wishing you better dining experiences bc I know waitressing isn’t for...

We were disappointed in our experience. I think the food could have been great, but our server ruined it for us. She was extremely clueless and kept forgetting parts of our order and obviously did not know the menu or what was even the basics of the food. We asked her for an order of spring rolls, and she said they didn’t have them even though they were on the menu. Then when we pointed them out, she said they were fried. I went ahead and ordered them anyways and they were normal spring rolls that were not fried. This is one of the only reasons I gave it two stars and not one. The spring rolls and the sauces were amazing. Then we asked her if the chicken was breaded and fried on the General Bob’s Chicken (my wife’s dinner), to which she said no. She said it was sautéed and not breaded. For my meal, I ordered the kimchi fried rice with chicken and a fried egg. When I asked her if the egg was fried she said “yes”. The egg is an extra on a side order. She placed our order after that. When she returned to ask us if we wanted drinks, I said yes and then also asked her if the chicken for my meal (kimchi and chicken) was grilled. She responded, “ I did not know you wanted to chicken with your meal I will go change that“. I was a little nervous at this point as we had already had an issue with the spring rolls. When she brought the meal, my wife’s General Bob’s Chicken showed up as breaded and fried chicken. Then my meal was just chicken and rice. There was no kimchi in sight, nor was there fried egg. When I asked her about the egg, she said I put that in but they must’ve forgot it. She then brought me a hard boiled egg cut in half on a plate. Clearly this was not a fried egg. I am pretty sure she messed up our entire order. But she obviously absent-minded, so we didn’t argue and ate about a quarter of our meal paid the tab and left. This might’ve been the first time in 20 years I have only left 15% tip on a check. I clearly should have, and wished I would have, left 0% tip, but could not, in good conscience, do it. I should’ve asked for a manager, but I didn’t really get the impression the restaurant cared. I know they just opened recently, but you figure somebody would be stopping to check to make sure things were going right on a brand new opening of a restaurant. In hindsight, I should’ve asked for a manager and let him/her know what happened. It was a bit unfair to not bring it to their attention, as they cannot correct things they do not know. I am pretty sure the food would have been good had it not been for...