Restaurant Review

Brown Sugar Café
129 Jersey Street
Boston, MA 02215
617.266.2928 tel / fax

Sometime around 8 o’clock on Sunday night I found myself huddling around a metal pole on a sidewalk near the Fens. While most Americans were doing Sunday night things, like watching Andy Rooney try to talk and keep his teeth in at the same time, I was just getting around to preparing dinner.

In the case of my dinner at Brown Sugar, the preparation consisted of a twenty minute wait on a sidewalk. Luckily they had a large metal heater on the sidewalk so we wouldn’t be cold. Unluckily the large metal heater was not on.

While I stood on the sidewalk I thought to myself, a restaurant must be pretty damn good to have a 20-minute wait at this hour on a Sunday, and to invest all this money in a heater that they aren’t even going to use. Once I got inside, I found out that yes, this restaurant was damn well good enough to have a wait like that on a Sunday night.

The menu at brown sugar is numbered, and the numbers go way up, past 50, past 80, past 110 even, and 110 dishes is a lot of Thai to try. The whole menu is available for takeout and delivery, you can check it out at the restaurants exceptional website, http://www.brownsugarcafe.com/.

We started with the Thai Spring Rolls ($4.95), they came with a special house turnip sauce, and some vegetables sliced up and arranged to look like a flower. For dinner my intelligent and witty girlfriend got a Bird of Paradise ($13.95), which had five different kinds of seafood in a hot and sour broth. The bird of paradise actually came in tinfoil shaped like a bird – vegetables like flowers, seafood like birds — really, these people are culinary Rodins. I almost disappointed when my rice wasn’t molded into the shape of Uncle Ben.

The spring rolls were not only attractive, but also delicious. The wrapping was light and flaky and the stuffing fresh and flavorful. The Bird of Paradise won rave revues as well, although the thin sauce made eating it somewhat tricky.

I ordered the Brown Sugar Mango Curry ($10.95), because I love Mango, and it contains the name of the restaurant. I’m a firm believer that restaurants don’t include their names in dishes that are excellent, much as no father would name his ugly baby Junior.

The Brown Sugar Mango Curry, the dish had two peppers next to it on the menu, indicating intense heat. The menu does offer to alter the spicing to suit anyone’s personal tastes. I didn’t request a change but the waitress must have sensed weakness and given me a white man mark down, because the dish came tepid enough for me to actually enjoy it, certainly not two pepper strength.

The curry sauce was rich, and came over a variety of vegetables and fruits. The sauce didn’t overpower the natural flavors of the exceedingly fresh ingredients, but worked to complement them. The chicken was equally well prepared, drenched in the sauce it made for a terrific eating experience. The portion, accompanied by rice, was adequate, filling me up, but it tasted so good I was sorry when it was gone.

The service in this place was that magic combination of incredibly attentive and nearly totally invisible. Our waitress managed to take our orders and satisfy our desires, while never intruding in our conversation at all. My glass was always full, but my attention always on my company, just the way I like it.

Christmas lights line the windows and the lights are kept low, creating a hazy relaxed atmosphere. The furniture looks like they stole it off the neighbors’ decks, with plastic tables and equally sophisticated chairs. The simplicity of the furniture ensures that the place avoids a stuffy atmosphere.

There were several large parties dining when we entered, and the staff seemed more than willing to accommodate them by combining tables. While the people were occasionally raucous it wasn’t annoyingly loud, just enough to reinforce the casual atmosphere and free everyone up to have a good time. The open floor plan and lack of booths don’t make it easy to create an intimate environment, but the great food and low lighting make this a good date choice.

There is a little bar in the back where they mix up some knock-out exotic drinks, but there is no seating at the bar, so you should not plan on Brown Sugar for a night out drinking. Rather, plan on Brown Sugar for some delicious food at a reasonable price in a relaxed setting.