Banyan Tree Review

Banyan Tree, located in a Union City strip mall, served us fine enough Southeast Asian food. I felt like two entree must have been toned down for Western palettes to ill effect.

We started with a pretty respectable roti canai: a simple, light, fried, foldable Malaysian bread and a chili dipping sauce which wasn't as strong as it looked.

Then we had char kway teow, a dish of rice noodles (like those in pad thai) with a few pieces of shrimp, calamari, bean sprouts, and egg, all tossed in a bit of chili paste and soy sauce. It's supposedly traditional street food. This was our favorite dish; we fought over the leftovers.

We also had string beans belachan (that is, with shrimp paste). These were surprisingly innocuous. The string beans were thick. They weren't crispy, yet weren't overcooked.

Although this restaurant wasn't technically Indonesian, we decided to try its rendang beef. It's slow cooked beef in a thick, coconut milk-based sauce. In this case, it was served with cucumbers. Having had rendang beef twice at Indonesian restaurants in SF, I thought this version was bland and uncomplex in comparison. My compatriots agreed with this assessment.

They gave us a decent, complimentary, sweet dessert porridge. It was purple and contained black rice.

The total was $13/person including tax and tip but not including drinks.

Original Announcement

Since Banyan Tree was the result of a last minute planning, there was no original announcement.

Comments from Other Attendees

There are some classic dishes from this region that we didn't get to order and that the restaurant supposedly does well: satays, and Hainanese chicken.

-mark