Critic's Review
At a time when restaurants in East Boca are dropping like flies, Philippe Chow has opened a large, fancy restaurant in the old III Forks location. Red and Black are the colors of choice; and there are plenty of outdoors tables all over the sidewalk.
Inside the place is big, with several separate rooms. There's a dining area enclosed in glass as you walk in, with a bar area on the right. The bar engulfs the back wall; when I entered the room was very dark with big black panels on the back of the bar. They have 2 TVs, but there are some big lamps on the bar that were obviously designed by someone who didn't consider watching TV important. The have big trays of nuts; both regular peanuts and some sort of candied walnuts, so if you haven't seen Contagion yet you can nosh while you wait to get served.
There were a lot of people working at this place; I assume that they're training, but at 5pm on a Saturday there were 5 times as many employees at customers. My server was one of the trainers; I'd have to say that the trainees have little chance. I had trouble getting her attention. She tried to explain the menu to me; of course I'd analyzed it before coming so I already knew about it; the only thing she really mentioned was that the entrees were mostly for sharing; although all of the entrees also can be served for 1. On Fridays and Saturdays they don't offer their Fixed Price menu, but a new restaurant should mention it. I'm never sure why restaurants don't have the early bird menu on Saturday; it's not like there's anyone in the place at 5pm anyway and people that go to bed at 7:30pm aren't going to come any later.
Happy hour was disappointing; they advertise 2 for 1 drinks but it's only well drinks and house wine; of course she told me this after I'd ordered a beer. I paid the full $6 for the Sapporo beer.
She also muttered something about complementary appetizers being chef's choice, but I had no idea if I needed to order it or if they where going to bring them out butler style; as it turns out it just came out randomly before I'd decided what to order. They brought out 2 pieces of their Chicken Satay, which normally goes for $5 a stick. The sticks you pay for have 2 pieces of chicken on them; these only had 1; so the "free appetizer" is a $5 value. (note: They now have a $5 bar menu instead of the Free appetizers).
These are really good. This is easily the best chicken satay I've ever had; the peanut sauce is light and delicate and silky like a good hollandaise sauce. This was good enough to make up for having to pay full price for an overpriced beer.
Just as I was diving into the Satay, they removed the black panels behind the bar, which turned the bar into an indoor-outdoor bar and turned the dark, intimate room into a sunny bar with way too much light. I really don't want to see a bunch of 75yo early birders in full sunlight. Apparently they're having some problems with the air conditioning so they leave the windows closed until the room units can cool the place down enough.
I was planning on ordered the steamed dumpling sampler I saw on their Miami menu, but they don't have the Steamed Menu in Boca. So I decided to order the wok fried pork dumplings, which is what most lower-brow places call pot stickers. After the satay I was expecting something really unusual. I saw on the menu that they give you 6 dumplings for $9, which didn't seem too bad.
The dumplings arrived quickly; for a moment I sat there wondering why they gave me a spoon and nothing else. I don't usually eat dumplings with a spoon. I flagged down my server (who didn't notice me while I waited patiently initially) and asked for some chopsticks. "Oh, you probably need a setup too". Yeah.
The dumplings were disappointing; pretty small, and just balls of pork that weren't much different that what you'd get anywhere else. I didn't like the dipping sauce; peanut based, but it didn't compliment the dumplings. There weren't any condiments available, so I wasn't able to make any adjustments to the sauce. I'm not sure if it was due to an inept server or if you're not allowed to mess with Philippe's recipes.
My server works in the Miami store, where the prices are crazy high. The Boca menu is similar and somewhat less expensive, however their claim that it's 30-35% less is patently misleading. I've done an analysis on the menu prices here; illustrating that you'd be lucky to get out of this place for 15% less than the wildly expensive South Beach location.
As Chinese restaurants go, this is a pretty nice place. The bar is too bright during daylight hours with the windows open, and since I only drink beer or good wine it's not much of a happy hour for me, but you're not coming to a place like this to save money anyway. There are few places north of Miami to get higher end chinese food; now there's a place in Boca.