Bar Q

Bar Q, Anita Lo's new restaurant in the West Village, doesn't look like your average bbq restaurant. Everything is crisp and white - the walls, the seats, the linens. The food also isn't what you'd find in your average bbq restaurant...all of the dishes have an asian twist to ithem: baby back ribs with a korean-style sauce, kimchee seafood stew. Everything on the menu sounded inventive and promising, so I was expecting a lot. But, i was sorely disappointed. Every dish i had was underwhelming and slightly off, and at a minimum of $20 an entree and $11 for a small plate, that shouldn't have been the case. We started with the baby back ribs and the unagi and scallion fritters. The ribs were all bone and very little meat and what meat was therewas quite tough and chewy. The unagi and scallion fritters were extremely bland and tasteless and every bite was all dough and no fish. I might as well have been eating a greasy funnel cake with a slight hint of fish flavor.

I ordered the Tea Smoked Chicken with Sweet Rice and Chinese Sausage for my main entree and that was also mostly forgettable. The chicken was on the dry side and the skin was incredibly oily. The chicken was seasoned unevenly, some bites were bland and some bites were very salty. The dish came with a bed of sauteed chives, which were tasty but soaked in a puddle of residual oil from the chicken.

The only redeeming part of the meal was my cocktail. I got a bubble tea spiked with vodka and it was frothy, green and refreshing. I won't be coming back here for dinner, but I'd recommend stopping by for a nice drink at the bar.