Asana
(776 Boylston Street, Boston, 617.535.8800) has some attention-grabbing
competition at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. Upstairs, Frank McClelland runs
L’Espalier, one of New England’s most acclaimed restaurants, and Sel de la
Terre, its popular baby sibling. And in plain view of Asana’s dining room, at
the sizzling M Bar and Lounge, clusters of foreign businessmen angle for an
opening with gaggles of younger Back Bay women, while expensively and
provocatively dressed older women gaze frankly over their giant vodka martinis
at rather younger men.
In serene contrast,
Asana offers quiet ambiance and a menu that nestles French and Asian flavors
side by side — you can start with dim sum before moving onto beef burgundy. If
a salad of tuna niçoise doesn’t strike your fancy, there’s the seared Thai beef
salad ($22), a dish that sings with clear Southeast Asian flavors. Red onion,
mint, cilantro, and bird chilies dressed with lime juice and nam pla surround
fork-tender slices of beef tenderloin, charred but still rare. Never mind the
odd foundation of Bibb lettuce hearts and tomatoes: strange bedfellows are a
theme here. An entrée of scallops meunière follows an appetizer of dashi broth
with soba, while flinty-eyed Weston cougars stalk gym-toned, Riccardi-draped
boys. (If you’re the sort of spectator who likes to flip between Animal Planet
and the Food Network, this place might be right up your alley.) So don’t
automatically pass Asana by in favor of its much-buzzed-about neighbors — this
East-meets-West success proves that lobby-level dining can be elevated above
the ordinary.
