BoCaphe
| Cuisine | Vietnamese |
|---|---|
| Price | $$ (16-30) |
| Rating | 3/10 |
| Last Visit | June 2, 2019 |
| Location | New York: Lower Manhattan (Central) |
General Notes
The food here is actually not bad, but I did not have a great experience here. As a fair warning, I generally don't like Vietnamese food that much, so take my rating with a grain of salt. I strongly dislike the environment here. Perhaps not a terrible restaurant, but I certainly would not recommend it.
Negatives
> I am definitely heavily biased in my review of this place, since I generally don't enjoy Vietnamese food very much. Most of the ingredients (cucumber, excessive amounts of cilantro, pickled vegetables, vermicelli, rice noodle) are ingredients which I am not really a huge fan of.
> The restaurant is extremely loud and cramped. In some restaurants, cramped can translate to cozy, but here I felt quite uncomfortable during my experience.
> For some reason, their payment system was broken when I visited, so the restaurant was cash-only.
> Service was questionable. Our server did not communicate to us very well. When we received the check, for some reason we got charged an additional 18% service charge (we brought up the issue and got it removed). This was not the gratuity - they also auto-charge 18% gratuity, apparently regardless of your party size.
Dishes Tasted
- ★★☆☆ Beef/Lemongrass Banh Mi -- The beef was nice and flavorful, and paired well with the banh mi. Unfortunately I'm generally not a big fan of common ingredients in Vietnamese cooking, particularly cucumbers, pickled vegetables, and excessive amounts of cilantro. It was served with taro chips, which I actually enjoyed a lot - it was not as crispy as potato chips and had a bit of a softer center, which I felt was a nicer texture.
