Salt Restaurant — Restaurant in Plymouth

Creative cuisine, but needs improvement in several areas. It for sure has it's merits and has the potential to be extremely good.

A group of 3 of us ordered a decent spread of dishes (did not try sushi or raw). We got fried pork dumplings, szechuan chicken, vegetable friend rice, sesame noodles, pork steamed buns, and pork ramen. Szechuan chicken was good, nothing out of the ordinary, its cucumber salad is what made it. Dumplings were deep fried, not pan fried, which was a surprise but very good nonetheless. Sesame noodles were super good (even though they were cold) a thin spaghetti type noodle, not a lo mien. Fried rice was a huge serving but very bland. We all had one bite and just packed it to go. I was looking forward to the steamed buns, but was disappointed. They were super soft, and there was very little braised pork, and not very flavorful. Would have liked to see it be a pork belly to complete the flavor profile with a rich fat. It lacked a variety of texture which made it difficult to stomach on some bites. Ramen wasn't the best, have for sure had better. Overall, I would only go back for the dumplings and the sesame noodles.

Service was strange. We all ordered different things, but it was served to us tapas style, with a different dish every 5-7 minutes. I wish they would have asked how we wanted it served because we all got our mains at different points. I wish we could have specified what we intended to share and what we intended to eat separately. The last "round" of food took about 40 minutes to come out since our last round had been served. This meant that one of the people in my party hadn't gotten any of the things she ordered until the very last round of service, roughly an hour after ordering. It made for a very segmented meal because no two people were eating at the same time.

We had to ask about our last round of food because we thought we were forgotten about, our waitress apologized (she should have checked in with us a lot sooner) and they gave us a free serving of the cheese dumplings which were a gnocchi style dough dumpling with the cheese as a sauce. It does not state that on the menu, yet they have it listed along side the pot sticker style dumplings we ordered. Two very different dishes with the same name.

When we finally got our last round of dishes, the noodles were cold, which implies that they had been sitting for a while, waiting for our last 2 dishes to be done (rice and ramen). Which doesn't make a lot of sense to let it sit and wait if they were serving it tapas style in the beginning anyways.

Drinks were very good, especially the clarified margarita (forget what it's called) and the mocktails.

I'm not going to pick on the copy-paper menus, but it would have been nice to see them on a board. The restaurant poses as middle to high end, I think the copy paper menus are out of place. Most places with rotating menus at least put them on a wooden menu holder.

Overall, I would go back with all of this in mind. Dishes for sure need some troubleshooting. I think the menu needs better dish descriptors and the wait staff should clarify the...

We dined here on Sunday night and had a mixed experience. Overall we thought the service and ambiance was quite good, however some of the food fell short in a disappointing way. Overall Salt is a decent restaurant which you can have a good experience depending upon what items you order off the menu.

Below is a summary of the dishes we tried and our opinion on each of them. Overall we though that the salads, raw bar and steamed dumplings were quite good. The items that were problematic mostly were due to how the meat was (over)cooked.

My recommendation for those wanting to try this restaurant is to stick to the raw / fresh items on the menu.

Raw Bar: Tuna Tartare Tostado: the tuna was well seasoned, not over sauced and clearly very fresh. Thought this dish was well prepared, however would have liked a better ratio of tuna to the tostado (two tostado's seemed excessive, and the sauce in between was unnecessary).

Tuna & Hamachi Sashi: This was prepared well, thought the sauce we good and very high quality fish, would highly recommend.

Salads: Kale Caesar: Thought this was the best dish that we ordered here, kale was prepared well and the salad was perfectly dressed.

Small Dishes: Gochujan Chicken: This was one of the dishes that fell short in our meal, the chicken was extremely dry (clearly overcooked) and the sushi rice was on the undercooked side with inadequate seasoning.

Szechuan Fried Cod: This was one of the better dishes we had during our dinner, the fish was perfectly fried and moist. Would highly recommend this dish.

Fish Tacos: This dish was a problematic item on the menu, the tortilla was an unsavory texture and the mixture at the bottom of the taco exacerbated the issue.

Dumplings: Chicken Dumplings: Similar to the Gochujan Chicken, the filling here was extremely overcooked to the point that it was almost inedible. Furthermore, the dumpling wrapper was over fried which compounded the dry factor to this dish.

Pork & Leek Dumplings: We ordered the steamed version of this dish, would highly recommend. Thought that the filling was well seasoned and cooked appropriately. Additional the steamed dumpling shell was a perfect texture.

Soups: Pork Ramen: This dish felt more like a noodle entre than a ramen soup. It is served as a bifurcated dish with the bean sprouts, mushrooms, scallions, eggs and pork all separated on top of the noodles and then a very small amount of broth below, which is not an issue at the onset. However, in culmination these ingredients were far too much for the amount of broth served with the dish. The roasted pork shoulder was again similar to the chicken very dry, perhaps a thinner slice of pork would have alleviated the issue here. The actual broth flavor was quite good here, so it's clearly not a flavor issue, but more of an execution problem with individual portions...

My partner and I decided to check this out for two reasons: 1) we heard good things from locals, and 2) we (Asian Canadians from the West Coast) were curious about how MA approaches Asian fusion.

We ordered the pork and leek dumplings (steamed) to share, as well as the pork belly fried rice and Szechuan cod.

While it was commendable that the dumpling wrappers were made in-house, the wrappers themselves were undercooked and hard (likely due to being too thick). The filling was tasty but tough and dense--a hallmark of overmixing your filling.

The cod was interesting. While cooked perfectly, there was the addition of what seems to be mayo on top--I'd put this on the side as it adds to the grease and heaviness to a fish dish. This was okay but I'd reconsider the mayo.

The pork belly fried rice was...not good, for a few reasons. It's super oily and greasy, and my partner and I suspect that the pork belly fat is seeping into the rice dish. This makes the dish too oily, heavy and unappetizing after a couple of helpings, even when served family-style. Between two people, it was too much rice and, IMHO, abhorrently overpriced for what it is. To improve, I'd braise and slice/serve the pork belly on top rather than mixed and incorporated into the dish. Secondly I would change the portion size to be a bit smaller. Lastly, fried rice (even with the addition of pork belly, braised chashu style) would fall more in the 18-20 USD range rather than the 28USD.

Overall, my other impressions were that the offerings are not representative of a single Asian culture but rather a hodgepodge of multiple influences--from southern and northern Chinese to Japanese to Korean to Thai--with an odd addition of a burger and fries dish. Service was okay--but not outstanding for a white linen tablecloth restaurant. Chopsticks were offered but they were disposable--which is typically associated with more casual places. I understand that perhaps the main clientele won't appreciate or notice these details but it does take away from what I imagine is supposed to be a fine dining experience.

Even though this establishment sells itself as a fine dining restaurant, the technique and service were anything but that. I'd put this more as an upscale casual restaurant but if you're looking for more authentic Asian flavours and techniques, you're much better off driving up north to Boston's Chinatown and paying literally a fraction...