So on our initial walkabout M pointed out Sachi Asian Bistro as a place that I might like. It's on the slightly more expensive side, but the restaurant staff has an excellent pedigree. With chefs Andy Yang and Pichet Ong at the helm, I was expecting pretty good things. For this first go around I ended up getting their Grilled Lemongrass Chicken Bento Box.
The bento box came with a breast piece with attached wing, black rice pilaf, miso soup, a salad, and I was able to choose the chicken shu mai and a California roll. The other options you're given are a mushroom spring roll instead of shu mai and an avocado and cucumber roll instead of California roll. I'll break up this review into each component that I ate in order. First up, the salad.
So this is advertised as a "Green Salad". It's a a mixed green salad with some thin slices of cucumber, a grape tomato sliced in half, and some weird yellow dressing. I think it was supposed to be some sort of carrot ginger dressing, but it was sort of creamy and rather flavorless. Overall it was mildly uninspired, but I wasn't expecting a ton from a simple bento box salad. Next up was the miso soup.
This was a really nice miso soup. It was light and had great miso flavor while not being overly salty. It had a good amount of seaweed and scallions and also more tofu than I'd had in most other miso soups. They also added in some enoki mushrooms which was a really nice surprise. This was one of the better miso soups I had ever had in my life, and it's something I'd like to get again. After the soup I moved on to the bento box, and my first target was the chicken shu mai.
These were also really tasty. They were basically chicken and shiitake mushroom meatballs wrapped in the dumpling/shu mai skin topped with one single soy bean. They had a good flavor to them and weren't too salty. The shu mai also came with a dipping sauce that was similar to a sweet thai chili sauce. I used it to try it out, but I found that the sauce really wasn't that necessary. After finishing up with the shu mai I went on to the California roll.
This was really a disappointment. First things first, there was no tobiko on the outside of the roll. The avocado was nice and creamy, but the krab meat had no flavor. The ginger was nice, but that really wasn't enough to save this. Maybe next time I'll get the avocado and cucumber roll, but who knows. With this disappointment fresh in my mind, I moved on to the final piece of the bento box, the lemongrass chicken and black rice pilaf.
I was really excited for this dish mostly because of the black rice. I love black rice, and this was good black rice. It was flavorful, it was nutty, and it was sweet. Unfortunately, the chicken was dry. The menu talks about galangal and "Asian herbs", but the skin and the chicken meat both were fairly bland. The skin did have a nice crisp to it, but at the end of the day, bland and dry chicken just doesn't cut it.
Overall this is a lot of food. Sure, you pay a bit more, but for the sheer amount of food, it's a great value. There were definitely some highlights (miso soup, chicken shu mai, and black rice), but the rest of the meal was so lackluster that I doubt I'd ever get this specific bento box again. Maybe I'll get some of the other options, but at this point I can't justify spending that much with the risk that it's not going to be that good.
The bento box came with a breast piece with attached wing, black rice pilaf, miso soup, a salad, and I was able to choose the chicken shu mai and a California roll. The other options you're given are a mushroom spring roll instead of shu mai and an avocado and cucumber roll instead of California roll. I'll break up this review into each component that I ate in order. First up, the salad.
So this is advertised as a "Green Salad". It's a a mixed green salad with some thin slices of cucumber, a grape tomato sliced in half, and some weird yellow dressing. I think it was supposed to be some sort of carrot ginger dressing, but it was sort of creamy and rather flavorless. Overall it was mildly uninspired, but I wasn't expecting a ton from a simple bento box salad. Next up was the miso soup.
This was a really nice miso soup. It was light and had great miso flavor while not being overly salty. It had a good amount of seaweed and scallions and also more tofu than I'd had in most other miso soups. They also added in some enoki mushrooms which was a really nice surprise. This was one of the better miso soups I had ever had in my life, and it's something I'd like to get again. After the soup I moved on to the bento box, and my first target was the chicken shu mai.
These were also really tasty. They were basically chicken and shiitake mushroom meatballs wrapped in the dumpling/shu mai skin topped with one single soy bean. They had a good flavor to them and weren't too salty. The shu mai also came with a dipping sauce that was similar to a sweet thai chili sauce. I used it to try it out, but I found that the sauce really wasn't that necessary. After finishing up with the shu mai I went on to the California roll.
This was really a disappointment. First things first, there was no tobiko on the outside of the roll. The avocado was nice and creamy, but the krab meat had no flavor. The ginger was nice, but that really wasn't enough to save this. Maybe next time I'll get the avocado and cucumber roll, but who knows. With this disappointment fresh in my mind, I moved on to the final piece of the bento box, the lemongrass chicken and black rice pilaf.
I was really excited for this dish mostly because of the black rice. I love black rice, and this was good black rice. It was flavorful, it was nutty, and it was sweet. Unfortunately, the chicken was dry. The menu talks about galangal and "Asian herbs", but the skin and the chicken meat both were fairly bland. The skin did have a nice crisp to it, but at the end of the day, bland and dry chicken just doesn't cut it.
Overall this is a lot of food. Sure, you pay a bit more, but for the sheer amount of food, it's a great value. There were definitely some highlights (miso soup, chicken shu mai, and black rice), but the rest of the meal was so lackluster that I doubt I'd ever get this specific bento box again. Maybe I'll get some of the other options, but at this point I can't justify spending that much with the risk that it's not going to be that good.
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