Falling for a new restaurant is a bit like finding romance
after you've had your heart broken: harsh experience makes you tread carefully.
That first date with someone gorgeous and attentive is fun, but you still go
home wondering - where's the fatal flaw? Banq Restaurant in Boston's South End
initially looked like a dreamboat: it boasted a stunning and highly original
interior design (called 2008's best new restaurant in the world by Wallpaper
magazine), a menu fusing mostly South Asian flavors into pretty
French food, and a sweet location in the red-hot SoWa district. But each
subsequent date revealed new imperfections. The bar was a cramped,
claustrophobic misstep in the design. The kitchen was maddeningly inconsistent.
Ultimately, the menu concept just didn't hold up: its chichi novelty was fine
for a one-night stand, but not compelling enough for multiple return visits.
Banq noticed its calls weren't getting returned and bravely
underwent a makeover barely 20 months after its debut. The result is Ginger
Park (1375 Washington Street, Boston, 617.451.0077), which boasts
minor but significant plastic surgery, a new chef, and a very different menu.
The suffocating bar has been opened up, its rear wall removed, making the
entire restaurant feel more harmonious, airier: superior feng shui in one
stroke. Patricia Yeo, a chef who endured a decade in the bruising Manhattan
restaurant market, has retreated to Boston's slower tempo to helm the kitchen.
She serves small plates from all over Asia, generously sized enough to
encourage sharing. (Differentiators from similarly themed neighbor Myers +
Chang include Indian, Malaysian, and Indonesian flavors, as well as plainly
European dishes like a hanger steak and chicken-liver mousse.)
Also extraordinary is the presence of dishes drawn from Chiuchow
cuisine - rarely seen in a Boston fine-dining setting - which Yeo recreates
from her childhood. One extraordinary example is the silver pin noodles ($14),
a garlicky stir-fry of thick, cylindrical rice noodles with a bracing heat from
bird chilies and a sauce punched up with tau cheong, a
salted-soybean condiment. Beyond its intense flavors, it boasts marvelous
textural complexity: chewy/slippery noodles, the spongy/creamy texture of
"snow" (previously frozen) tofu, the firmness of barely fried mushrooms, the
crunch of bean sprouts and scallions. It's the kind of dish over which your
dining companions will tangle chopsticks - one fascinating enough to make you
think, "I'll definitely give this one a second date." Who knows? This might
even be the start of a beautiful long-term relationship.
