Bamboo Fusion - Closed

Hello my friends,

I am back with another blog and this one is a long time coming. Bamboo is now in Midtown.  The latest venture is called Bamboo Fusion on Airport Boulevard near the Loop.

If you read my blog before, you may know that I lunch with my brother and we just can not resist appetizers.  I like to order appetizers because it gives me a well balanced look at the menu.  On this particular day, there was a special where you can get an order of krab rangoon for free with any lunch or dinner purchase.  You know I was all over that.  Four rangoons came to an order and as you can tell, they were fried pretty crispy.  The problem I had with these were the filling.  It was still cold.  My brother and I can tell the rangoons were frozen and then dumped in TOO hot oil.  Good thing I didn't pay for these, I would have been angry.

Before I spotted the free appetizer, I ordered the Laab Salad as an appetizer.  So this is actually an entree but really who's going to be the food police here. Laab is basically the Thai version of a chicken salad but without mayo.  Instead, the chopped up chicken is tossed in a lemon, chilli and cilantro dressing.  At BF, it is served in what I can only describe as an iceberg lettuce "bowl."  I thought "how cute!"  However, it wasn't too easy to eat.  I would have like to have either a) rice crackers or b) more greens to eat with it.  As it was, my brother and I just scooped it up with our fork and as it as is.  Aside from that, I thought it was very tasty.  I would definitely have to order this again when I go to BF the next time.

Several of my friends were excited a restaurant in Mobile was going to serve ramen noodles.  Not the packaged type but real ramen. 

I ordered Miso Ramen.  It's Japanese egg noodle in a flavored miso soup.  There's egg and pork in the broth.  I liked the soup but I wasn't too happy with the noodles or meats.  I could have made something better from my packaged ramen noodles.  My brother has the Yaki Udon and he wasn't all that impressed with it either. 

I believe one of the reasons were were not satisfied with our ramen is because we have had authentic ramen.  We go to Atlanta a few times a year and have scoured the city for the best ramen.  There have been some hits and misses but they have all been better than what we had at Bamboo Fusion.

Let's get to service.  We were the first customers to arrive at BF for lunch.  Our waitress was nice but the pacing of our meal was horrible.  There was just a huge lag between each course.  I was done with work for the day but my brother wasn't.  Our lunch took well over an hour.  I would not recommend coming to BF unless you're not in a hurry or you order just one item (maybe a sushi roll) for lunch and that's it.