The Bong Show

This fusion joint almost has it together

Comments (0) By Lee Klein Thursday, Mar 25 2004

...continued from page 1

Colby Katz

Caviar of the salmon variety

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Bong Asian Fusion Cuisine

150 E. Palmetto Park Road
Boca Raton, FL 33432

Category: Restaurant > Asian

Region: Boca Raton

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Details

Call 561-368-3338. Lunch 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday. Dinner 5 to 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, till 11:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

150 E. Palmetto Park Rd., Boca Raton

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While one page of the menu touts fusion fare, another lists "traditional" meals like chicken teriyaki, sweet-and-sour pork, and pad Thai, which translates to "Thai fry" and is the starting point for most diners' entry into that country's cuisine. What makes this dish so popular is what makes Oriental cooking so appealing in general, which is the ability to achieve a delicate balance of hot. sour, sweet, and salty flavors in soft and crunchy textures while retaining the individual clarity of each ingredient. Pad Thai typically juggles salty soy and dry shrimp with sweet morsels of pork, a shot of sugar, and tart tamarind; its chewy, rice-stick noodles and softly scrambled egg are counterpointed by crisp peanuts, bean sprouts, and scallions. Bong's pad Thai utilizes fresh shrimp and snippets of chicken breast in place of the dried shrimp and pork. This mutes the contrasts a bit but yields an otherwise satisfactory plate of food.

Bong offers ice creams flavored with red bean or black sesame seeds, but when it comes to the rest of the desserts (crème brulee, macadamia crusted cheesecake, and chocolate cake), the pretense of being an Asian restaurant finally falls away. The switch in ethnicity is more newsworthy than the chocolate cake itself, which was notable only for being eminently average and of the commercially mass-produced variety that relies on an extra-heavy infusion of sugar to keep moist during a long shelf life. Dining at Bong, in fact, is like going on a date with an average Joe or Josephine. The foods are decent but not distinctive enough to warrant a second encounter.