Typhoon Asian Bistro

Overall impression of this restaurant is Meh, OK. I came here on a Saturday afternoon and the restaurant wasn’t busy at all — only two other tables were seated. After we sat down the tables started filling up, and by the time we left all the tables at outdoor seating was taken. There were two waitresses working and the overall service was SLOW.
My boyfriend and I both ordered lunch specials, but never received our soup to start off the meal. The waitress never stopped by our table except to take our orders, bring the food, and the check. She was difficult to flag down just to receive our check.
Food was mediocre. I ordered the drunken noodles and it wasn’t as spicy as I would have liked, and the portion is small. After mixing my dish, I felt there wasn’t a lot of noodles on the plate, but most of the portion was bean sprouts. The plates themselves were too large for our table. Our table barely had enough space to fit the plates, our cocktails, and water glasses. Yep, cramped.
The highlight of my meal was the Pineapple Royale cocktail. A rum cocktail inside of a pineapple shell, yum. For $ 13 it was refreshing and worth every penny.

Food: it was okay. There’s outdoor dining available and the décor inside is nice, dimly lit and intimate. Good for dates and drinks I’d say.
I was fine with my experience. Server was friendly, although it was obvious he was interested in upselling. I didn’t feel like he was overly pushy with it, and I did feel bad because it was a Saturday night in a prime location and it was dead. So no hate on that, I understand. What I was astounded by was that the cocktail (Lychee soda) was priced normally on the receipt when I asked for it virgin. I was just in a mood for a lychee soda, and I didn’t want vodka so I was very clear for asking for 2 without the Ketel. There was no vodka in my drink, but my receipt indicated I spent $ 20 for two lychee purees, a maraschino cherry and some club. Obviously, it didn’t bother me enough to where I would complain to the server but I know the majority of customers would say something about this practice. Just be careful: they will not charge less even when the product calls for it.
Overall, way more $$ than it’s worth. $ 115 for a sashimi app that had maybe 5 pieces, a love boat for 2 ($ 65 ish), 2 mocktails ($ 20), a diet coke and dessert ($ 8). Add in tip and it was $ 140 for dinner. We don’t believe that a restaurant’s business practice should be an indicator of how competent a server is so no excuse for not tipping well.

Worst restaurant experience I’ve ever had.
Us: a table of 4 women showed up on a Friday at 8:45pm. Ordered 1 appetizer and 4 meals (2 sushi) Restaurant was about a quarter full.
We waited 40 minutes for our lettuce wraps to show up (the chicken was cold but we were so hungry we ate it anyway) and then another 25 minutes before we asked very nicely when our main course would show up. We noticed she was the only waitress (with a ton of bussing staff) so obviously we get it isn’t her fault that they are under staffed for a Friday night. Magically 3 people’s meals show up freezing. Our plates weren’t even warm. We ask why they are so cold and were told that they were waiting for the sushi to be ready (and that still hadn’t arrived). Why not ask us if we want our hot food to be served so that it doesn’t get cold? The 4^th person’s sushi came out another 20 minutes later.
People around us have food that has steam rising from their plates and sizzling… why is our food so cold!!! And they kept letting more people into the restaurant. If you aren’t able to properly serve people hot food because you are under staffed then stop letting more people in.
And yes we spoke to the manager and told her all of this but instead of comping our cold food she just yelled at the waitress and expected us to pay the whole tab! I’ve never had something like this happen. Normally, if something goes wrong in the kitchen or with the wait staff usually the manager would comp at least part of the bill and/​or offer a desert. We got nothing!

Great food and service. We were seated right away! Thank you for treating us exponentially better than PF Changs :)

Had lunch here with the wife. Definitely a fancy restaurant geared towards working professionals in the area. I ordered the crispy duck with spicy basil fried rice and my wife ordered the spicy drunken noodle. Both were available on their lunch special menu.
In terms of taste, they both tasted very clean. I thought the portion was perfect and the service was excellent as well.
The only thing is at the end, I noticed a small fee (only about a $ 1) labeled «Liquor» under state tax. I asked what this fee was for and they had no clue. Had I not brought it up, they would have charged me a $ 1 for no reason. I don’t think it was intentional and I don’t think they are the type of restaurant to do dirty business but might be a good idea to carefully check your bill before actually paying!
Overall, it was a good experience and I might drop by from time to time.

Had reservations for a Saturday night. Very nice atmosphere and a lot of creative drinks (altho I stuck with sake-​which was great) Location right in the heart of everything which is also very fun. My friend and I got the love boat which is assorted sushi and sashimi. It was great. Will definitely go back.

I see many negatives comments here. Some of them are true, but I still want to say the Asian food here may be not real Asian food, most of the food is Americanized. However, they are still delicious. Try the Salmon on fire, it’s fascinating and delicious. It comes with a small plate of crab meat as well. I personally feel some dishes here are better than those of L’Espalier across the street.

This is my first review cause it was so disappointed this place is. No service came before checking out. Even no water served. Even the worse they over charged more money with no reason.

Went here for a date night w/​my BF on a groupon. But the groupon menu seemed to only have everyday take-​out options. So we ordered an appetizer & our entrees off the regular menu. The shrimp ragoons were ok, but I prefer regular crab ragoons that you get from Chinatown & other restaurants. We also had Uni shots which I think you have to have a taste for. It’s a quail egg in some liquid and seasonings. Didn’t taste bad per se, I personally didn’t like it much, but my BF did. I had pineapple fried rice with beef in a pineapple shell. It was good, the pineapple gave a light sweet flavor to the rice, but the rice & beef needed more seasoning on their own. My BF had the crispy duck which was DELICIOUS. Highly recommend that dish. And we shared a ginger fried ice cream, which was also really good.

Typhoon has chill atmosphere and great sushi to complement. I had the shrimp tempura roll and it was fantastic. Pair that with a hot green tea and mochi for a great meal overall. The wait staff comes at intervals frequent enough for a relaxing meal, but not if you’re in a rush (although if you mentioned that, I’m sure they could accommodate). Prices didn’t match, just because for the location and service, it was inexpensive! For its location, it’s not busy on a Thursday night, so it’d be my choice compared to the out the door lines along the street.

We ate here this week on the spur of the moment and made the fundamental mistake of not checking Unilocal before going in.
My wife the sushi expert ordered 4 items. She couldn’t finish 3 of them as they were way too fishy and just off/​poor. She knows her sushi having had great experiences in all the cities we’ve lived in (NY, SF, Austin) as well as many stops along our travels including Sushi Mecca aka Tokyo.
As the non seafood eater I had the beef rolled in pancake which was acceptable.
The server was friendly but kept trying to sell more especially to me since I only ordered an appetizer. But even if the server was Taylor Swift we wouldn’t come back for the poor food at high prices.

This restaurant is conveniently located near the Boston Public Library. Saw it on Groupon and decided to give it a try (without checking it out on Unilocal first). They claim the dinner is 3 course but 1) it is 1 appetizer + 2 entrees + 1 dessert for two people. 2) portion is like lunch size 3) the selection is very limited and half of the entries are either noodles or rice dishes. I had the curry shrimp which was a little undercooked with overcooked veggies; My husband had the lemon grass chicken. That dish was more like a grilled chicken salad w lettuce and some chicken pieces still had skin and fat. What was edible was not enough to be a dinner entrée. When we got the check we noticed that tip had been already charged into the bill at 18%. Wait staff were nice but the food was mediocre and the experience disappointing. Would not recommend.

We went here on a Groupon and were happily surprised how good the experience was. The ambiance was very relaxing; we never felt rushed. We started with the Shrimp Rangoon which was well prepared and not greasy, with an amazing chili sauce. For entrees I had the Pad Thai, which was very good but not in the top 5 I have had and Lesly had the Chicken Thai Curry which was very flavorful without being ti spicy,
I did order one mixed cocktail which was pretty pricy so heed that warning and maybe stick a nice beer or a glass of wine.

Do you love the taste of panda express but hate their low, low prices? This is the place for you. All that mediocre taste while slimming down your wallet. Even this asian didnt get a blush off their «alcoholic» drinks. Staff was friendly and atmosphere was nice, almost deserved the 18% tip they force onto your bill.

This is my third time coming here for dinner and sadly my last!
We ordered:
— Chicken wraps (good as usual)
— Lemongrass chicken (overcooked this time)
— Kung pao shrimp (good)
— Green tea flavor fried ice cream (was actually vanilla flavor)
Customer service:
It started out well, but then slowly progressively got worst. Our waitress and her trainee were not attentive. My boyfriend is low maintenance and don’t usually pick up these things when we go out to eat, but even he noticed the poor service. We can understand if the restaurant was packed, but there were only 4 – 5 tables of customers last night! We thought this was very unusual since there was a full staff on duty.
Anyways, we tried to be positive after our main course, but then came dessert. The green tea flavor fried ice cream that we always ordered tasted differently this time. We noticed right away the flavor was vanilla and the coloring inside wasn’t remotely a hint of green-​ish. Our waitress was trying to convince us otherwise. Her defense was that maybe it tasted different because it was a new brand. WTH? We suspected they either messed up on the order or they ran out of green tea & hope we didn’t notice the vanilla flavor. I wouldn’t be making the flavor screwup a big deal, but her blatant lie of a response was a complete insult. It shows a lack of respect for customers. I can’t imagine what else happens in the kitchen in a daily basis.
To top it off the night, I asked the waitress to pack my leftover Kung pao shrimp, but she forgot to give it to us after we paid and left the restaurant. I will not be recommending my friends and colleagues to come here again based on food and customer service.

Food was phenomenal. For food we ordered the crispy duck and lemongrass roasted chicken, for drinks we had the James Bond and Red Chamber. Food was way over expectation and the drinks were just all right.
Just the food would’ve been 5 stars but the music and the wait staff brought my experience down. The music didn’t go too well with the overall ambience (mixture of some latino songs, some jazz songs, some asian songs) and confused my interpretation of the general vibe they were trying to give off.
The service was bleh. We weren’t seated very politely and our waitress tried to push us into ordering more food.
The food alone made this visit somewhat good.

This place was just okay. Stumbled upon it while walking around Back Bay and wanted to get out of the cold. Tried the pad thai (I prefer mine spicy, so I was unimpressed with the mildness) and sushi (salmon/​avocado, shrimp tempura, and a dynamite roll.) The shrimp tempura and salmon/​avocado were decent, but I wish I hadn’t ordered the dynamite roll. Paying more for a specialty roll I expected a better tasting and unique offering, but the flavors did not mesh well (yellowtail, garlic chilli, cucumber, and kaiware.)

Great for large groups! Also, great for large groups who like sake bombs!
Made a reservation via Open Table for a group of 14 a few days in advance of a birthday celebration. The restaurant called to confirm the day of the reservation and also required a credit card for a $ 50 deposit for parties that size. This was a little frustrating — I don’t like giving my cc info over the phone — but I understand the need and they promptly refunded my card upon arrival.
The service was excellent! Not only were our food & drink orders taken in a timely fashion, but we didn’t have to wait long either. AND the waitress was very helpful in the sake bomb process — she accurately estimated how much sake and beer we would need and even took a video of the whole group sake bombing! Some restaurants discourage sake bombs so I was happy to see that we were welcome to partake (this was more or less the reason this restaurant was chosen).
Good food, good value, great service. Definitely recommend for a big party.

Tries to do too much… doesn’t quite get it done
Typhoon has a great location on Boylston St. It is easily accessible by T and if shopping at Pru/​Copley and easy walk. Offering pan-​Asian cuisine, Typhoon is a sushi restaurant at the same time as a Japanese and Thai noodle joint. The service is good, attentive and helpful. The ambiance is nice, clean and fun.
Unfortunately, Typhoon tries to do too much and doesn’t quite pull it off in any one category. The sushi is pretty good but doesn’t reach the heights of other mainly sushi restaurants in the area. A good comparator is Douzo. Douzo offers more innovative rolls with excellent quality to the simpler offerings of sashimi and nigiri. The sushi is fresh at Typhoon but just doesn’t rise to the level of greatness. Even the appetizers fall just a bit short, the avocado salad had too much mayo and not enough avocado. Typhoon also offers a number of noodle dishes. The pad thai was underwhelming and not better than the average pad thai you’d get a small divey Thai joint.
Overall, Typhoon does an ok job at pan-​Asian cuisine but doesn’t quite achieve greatness in any category.

I made a Valentine’s Day reservation for this place, and well, we had a good time.
Drinks were ordered over and over, and that got the night off to a good start.
The regular menu was not available, but they had a downsized menu from what they normally advertise, and then a prix fixe menu. My husband is a vegetarian, and loves sushi, but there was nothing on the menu that was vegetarian, which was fine, but we asked our waitress about vegetarian options. She then said that they can turn any sushi platter on the menu into vegetarian fare, and so we ordered the Dinosaur.
Our two friends ordered sushi, but I can’t remember which one they ordered — it was really good, and I had stayed away from sushi for about two years because of a nasty experience at another place.
I got the crispy duck in garlic sauce, and my two friends got the salmon and then the seared scallops. All dishes were tasty, and highly recommended to anyone going to Typhoon Asian Bistro. Duck was tender and succulent, the sauce was rendered well and not too thick, and the sauteed veggies were fresh and crisp. I had to ask for sriracha… it’s a crime not to. And I’m of Indian descent. We love our spice.
Desserts…oh dessert. We ordered the fried banana, and the chocolate mousse cake. A dessert martini was also ordered… which we all took a sip of. Tasty stuff.
Then we got the bill. The «vegetarian» sushi was the same price as the regular Dinosaur sushi ($ 42). We were a little shocked that they didn’t take into consideration (at first) that this sushi had no meat in it at all, and was still the same price. We asked the waitress to amend that, and they did, which was nice of them but we were just a little taken aback is all.
Other than that little hiccup, we had a great time and would return again!
**Service was good otherwise — a little slow at times, but it was Valentine’s Day — date night for every couple in the world.