On Wednesday night I headed to Basho on Boylston Street for Paint Nite (more on that in the next post). I had passed Basho several times on my way to Citizen Public House or Tasty Burger, but had never been in.
You can spot Basho by its giant tangerine sign over the door.
Inside, the bar area is on the right side of the space. There are high top tables and a small divider separating those from the actual bar. The bar area has two huge TVs. If you can't get a ticket to an actual game at Fenway, you can watch here and likely hear the cheers from the ballpark over those giant green walls.
Basho's dining room has a very zen feeling to it, using only black, white and lime green.
We were seated at a small table for two in the center of the dining room. Each napkin has branded chopsticks folded into it.
I started the evening with one of Basho's signature cocktails, the Snapdragon. It was rum, strawberry puree, lime juice, white cranberry juice and a lime twist. It tasted like a melted down Jolly Rancher. The drink was overly sweet. If you squeezed the lime into it, it was slightly less sugary.
I adore the red stemmed glass!
To start, we each ordered a few pieces of tempura. Basho has a great list of proteins and veggies available to be fried. Each selection comes with two pieces. All of the vegetable options are only $2 dollars. I ordered avocado, green beans and cauliflower.
The veggies were all perfectly battered and fried, but the dipping sauce was too runny and didn't have a strong enough flavor. It was like dipping the veggies into water.
My dinner date ordered shrimp, sweet potato and broccoli.
For our entree, we split the Udon noodles with tofu. Though I thought this dish was vegetarian, it is actually made with fish sauce, FYI.
Though the noodles smelled strongly of fish when our waitress placed the dish on the table, you didn't taste that at all while eating it. The noodles were thick and very slippery! This is definitely not first date food. The veggies in the dish added a really nice texture and crunch.
When we told our waitress we were in a bit of a rush to make it to Paint Nite, she quickly returned with the check which included a cute doodle.
I really loved our experience at Basho. The dining room is elegant and serene and the food was excellent. I am scouting places for my birthday party in September (yes, already) and this is definitely on the list.
Have you ever been to Basho?
