Pagu

Cuisine	Spanish, Japanese
Price	$$$ (31-50)
Rating	4/10
Last Visit	Nov. 12, 2019
Location	Boston: Central

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General Notes

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Pagu is a strange restaurant serving up Japanese and Spanish influenced small plates. The decor, menu, and overall vibe of the restaurant feels very sleek and modern, but unfortunately the food itself doesn't have the same flair. The food is pretty disappointing and falls flat on flavor. Aside from the curry crab croquetas, everything I ordered was an item my server recommended, and nothing really stood out. I will probably not be returning here.

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Positives

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> The interior of the restaurant looks super sleek, especially the bar, with the bottles arranged against the wall. There's also a counter and clear view of the kitchen, which looks really nice.

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Negatives

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> As a whole, the food is quite underseasoned. Almost every dish (except for the ramen) felt like a touch more salt could have lifted the dish up so much.
> Most of the dishes also feel quite unbalanced. It's hard to put a handle on what exactly feels wrong. A couple of the dishes needed more acidity to round out the flavor and brighten the dish, while some others just tasted plain wrong.

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Dishes Tasted

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• ★☆☆☆ Guchi's Midnight Ramen -- Rita's pork, 6-minute soy egg, umami oil. I can't quite put it in words, but something about this ramen feels very off. The flavors feel very imbalanced. The pork has a very nice taste but the texture not pleasant.
• ★☆☆☆ Cheesy Wafflato -- Smoked mozzarella, caramelized shallots. Pretty bland, needs some more flavor contrast (I can't really taste the candied shallots, which would have added a nice touch). The texture is also not great - it's crispy for sure, but it's a sticky/mushy kind of crispy and isn't the most pleasant.
• ★☆☆☆ Squid Ink Oyster Bao -- Panko oyster, norioli, shiso, purple cabbage. Pretty disappointing - the oyster was virtually nonexistent, and the "oyster" was almost entirely breading. As a result, the ratios are off, with too much bao. The taste is decent, but needs a bit more seasoning and acidity.
• ★★☆☆ Curry Crab Croquetas -- Coconut, jonah crab, aji amarillo. The taste is pretty good - the crab and coconut combination is nice. I'm not a big fan of the accompanying sauce, which has a weird texture that doesn't pair well with the croquetas.