Review: Boi
New York Press It happens all too often. A restaurant that
offers "high-end" versions of humble originals–like the dim sum at
Vongerichten’s 66 or db bistro moderne’s short rib and foie gras
burger–leaves you dissatisfied, craving the low-brow ancestor. Such
was my experience at Boi, a Vietnamese restaurant in the East 40s
that’s elegant in its aspirations but ultimately unmemorable. On a
frigid Saturday night, my visiting parents, sister and I filed into
Boi’s warm, railroad car-shaped dining room. I should have known that
the smart décor and the proliferation of upscale types at neighboring
tables were harbingers of things to come. Perhaps
unjustly, at Vietnamese restaurants (and at most Asian restaurants, for
that matter), I look forward to gratis hot tea. Like red sauce Italian
or wooden bowls of fried won ton wrappers with duck sauce, the tea
ritual may be something injected into foreign cuisine by the American
appetite, but that doesn’t change the fact that when I go out for
Vietnamese, I want tea. I ordered some from the
waiter, a nice guy with dark, spiky hair and intelligent eyes. He
returned with four rattling cups and saucers. Flung over each rim was a
flaccid pouch on a string. "They’re Mariage Freres," he said, mispronouncing the name. "It’s supposed to be very difficult to get here." When
I was working as a hostess at a Boston restaurant, we served Mariage
Freres tea. That’s one place where I know I can find it. I’m also
fairly certain that if I really wanted Mariage Freres tea, I could
probably get it elsewhere, too. As a rule, I am turned off when it is
suggested that I assign value to something simply because it is
"difficult to get here." Mad cow disease is said to be difficult to get
as well. The tea, the only kind served at Boi,
was the tutti frutti-tasting "Marco Polo" (or in fancy speak, black tea
flavored with Chinese and Tibetan fruits and flowers), which cost $4 a
cup, about as much as a no-frills Vietnamese lunch in Chinatown. In
another snafu, the "hot" water at Boi was actually lukewarm. During
this whole transaction, we tacitly acknowledged that this act of
pretension did not bode well for the meal to follow. We
were right, to a degree. To echo a sentiment seen in this space last
week, the conflict here is between food that doesn’t make the mark and
a staff that happens to be wonderful. Everyone we dealt with was a
pleasure, and the atmosphere was thoughtful and sweet. It’s just too
bad that after witnessing sincere effort and ambition, our consensus
remained that the restaurant didn’t fly. Our
meal was family-style: an appetizer, two salads, a side dish, a large
soup and an entree to share. Six dishes in total, which sounds like a
lot, but wasn’t. Portions at Boi are slightly precious, and don’t pack
a punch on the quantity scale. The side of tofu xa, spicy
lemongrass-crusted bean curd ($5), was two thin slices of tofu in a
lemongrass sauce. Although the sauce was layered with flavor and showed
off the skill of the chef, the bean curd itself was bland. Plus: Two
slices? The salads we tried, goi tuyet with sea
mushrooms, shrimp, crab meat, celery, cabbage, tomatoes and cilantro
tamarind vinaigrette ($12); and goi ga, cabbage salad with chicken and
onion in a citrus dressing ($8) were very fresh, and had some
unexpected flavor moments, like the clean smokiness of the crab in the
former and the sharpness of the Vietnamese cilantro in the latter.
Though not exactly disagreeable, the salads were for the most part
forgettable. Cha gio, crisp squares stuffed with shrimp, crab, pork,
shitake mushrooms and jicama ($7), deserved more credit. What we
expected to be just another gratifying dumpling turned out to be an
interesting packet of concentrated flavors. After savoring a bite, my
mom and I both sensed a surprising effect, as though the chef managed
to reduce the meats to their pungent essences. The
dish that managed to silence our chatty family was the expertly
prepared old standby, a delicious pho bo: Vietnamese beef broth with
slivers of beef, rice noodles, green onion, and Asian basil and
coriander ($11), in a portion large enough to yield a small bowl for
each of us. Unfortunately, the entree that followed, grilled lemongrass
pork with rice vermicelli, mixed lettuce, mint and roasted peanuts
($15), brought us back to the Vietnamese lunch counter. Sure, it was
good, but even better at $5 in Chinatown. The
meal’s final noteworthy item came in the dessert course. Jackfruit
toffee pudding with vanilla ice cream ($7), from Citarella’s pastry
chef, has already been written up for its merits, and holds up to the
hype. The dense, sticky pudding was rich with cooked sugar flavor, and
the vanilla ice cream was fantastic. Less impressive was the sesame
gelato sundae with caramel tahini sauce ($7). The gelato was
overpowered by the bitter sesame of the tahini, which wasn’t toned down
sufficiently by the caramel. Perhaps the flavor of sesame could shine
in a non-sesame-on-sesame combination. On
paper, the textures and flavors of our third dessert, lychee fruit
gelee with ganache and banana ($7)–the freshness of lychee and gelee,
the bitter heaviness of ganache, the starchiness of banana–sounded
fabulous. On the plate, the lychee gelee was a series of gloppy alien
green scoops, the ganache was cloyingly buttery, and the banana was
marrowy and slimy. This pastry chef obviously has skills. He should
boot this item off the menu and replace it with something worth eating. Boi
deserves credit for trying to take Vietnamese food to the next level,
but the dynamic that brings flavor and texture together to make a truly
satisfying dish was missing. I’ve had high-end Vietnamese that works;
I’ve had low Vietnamese that’s thrilling. Until Boi hurtles its
in-between status, a meal here isn’t worth straddling the line for. Boi
January 27, 2004
246 E. 44th St. (betw. 2nd & 3rd Aves.) 212-681-6541
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