In the past two weeks, I have had two wildly different experiences at Asian restaurants in Boston: one authentic and one fusion. The first one began as B and I started our quest for the best BROWN (aka peking duck) in Boston. He googled "best brown boston" and a restaurant called King Fung Garden was revealed. We quickly cross-referenced the search result with YELP and saw comments like "best hole in the wall in Chinatown"... even further piquing our interest, we saw on the restaurant's website that you had to order BROWN 24 hours in advance... I mean, the preparation and deliciousness that implied... just epic. We made a reservation for 3 two Saturdays ago and brought along our perennial good sport and fellow foodie, DrS.
As we drove up to the restaurant, trepidation began to mount as the restaurant looked to be half the size of my apartment and was adjacent to a massage parlor providing happy endings. We walked inside and saw that there were only five tables held together by masking tape, two of which were filled with the loudest, trashiest, 22 year olds that I have almost come to blows with over their obnoxiousness. The restaurant was BYOB - so I brought a classy bottle of pinot noir, while B brought 1/4 of a bottle of Johnny Walker Black - not only was the restaurant BYOB, but apparently there was no ice, tap water or real cups as well... hmmm.
We ordered scallion pancakes, dumplings, a pork dish that was recommended by our waiter and, of course, the three course duck. The scallion pancakes were amazing and so was the pork dish; however, the dumplings were mediocre at best. Then, our peking duck arrived. Crisp skin and tender meat, scallions, cucumbers, hoisin sauce and pancakes... mmmm.... magical. After we'd scarfed down all of that food, S asked for the check. "Oh wait," our waiter replied. "There are two more courses of Brown." Well, lo and behold, a duck stirfry dish arried that was strikingly, suspiciously similar to the pork dish, followed by a nice duck soup.
Even though the other clientele and decor left something to be desired, the food was great and the service was attentive. I would give King Fung Garden 7 out of 10 stars.
As the three of us were walking home, we stopped for a drink at Mistral and I mentioned that there was a restaurant that I'd walked by in the area that looked interesting called Red Lantern. B stepped out for a smoke and reported back that behind Mistral and down a shady alley, he had seen a sign for Red Lantern. We left Mistral and discovered a magical Back Bay alley that none of us had ever seen before. A Mexican restaurant, Zocalo, with an outdoor patio full of people drinking margaritas and a trendy Asian fusion restaurant named Red Lantern. Sheer madness that three such hard-core back bay dwellers as ourselves had never even heard of these places!
So, fast forward a week, my friend R and I decided to check out Red Lantern. I stepped inside and looked around: the decor was spectacular and very cool in NYC/Las Vegas/Tao sort of way. Although the crowd at the bar looked suspiciously reminiscent of Post 390, the drink list was amazing. Oh scorpion bowls, how I love thee. R and I ended up sitting at the bar in front of the kitchen and ordered hot and sour soup and singapore street noodles... which were both excellent. Probably the soup was slightly better on the margin than the noodles, but a great meal nonetheless. I would give Red Lantern 8 out of 10 stars and promise to be back soon!
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