I had been looking forward to eating at Bang! for some time — its reputation precedes itself in Charlottesville. Though my dinner there proved to be a mixed bag, there were some delicious highlights that made the meal worthwhile.
Oddly enough, Bang is an Asian tapas restaurant — tapas originated in Spanish food culture but have since developed their own place in other cuisines.
We arrived at the restaurant — an old, refurbished house near the Downtown Mall — around 5:45 p.m. We walked up a few steps onto a wide porch that was lined with lounge chairs. Opening the front door, we encountered a staircase that led to a cozy upper floor flanked by two sizeable dining rooms. Like the building’s exterior, the walls of the main dining areas were covered in a deep shade of red paint. The space was furnished with modern-looking, pitch-black wood furniture.
As we were brought to our seats, alternative rock — from Modest Mouse to Franz Ferdinand to the Chili Peppers — played at a comfortable volume, and the restaurant slowly began to fill up with patrons. The soothing light of overhead lamps replaced the natural sunlight filtering through the room’s vast windows as the sun set. The soothing ambiance ended up being one of the most memorable aspects of my meal.
The waitress brought us menus, which were divided into five categories: dim sum (lighter fare), vegetables, noodles, seafood and meat. Descriptions are scant — look no further than “fried rice balls with chile sauce” ($5) — the flavors, however, are anything but. My friend and I decided to go with a duo of shrimp dishes — rock shrimp with green papaya and mint ($6) as well as firecracker shrimp ($9), in addition to Thai noodles with beef ($9) and two sides of coconut rice ($2 each). Our waitress recommended that we also try her favorite item on the menu: a skate wing ($10) — a fish in the stingray family — garnished with baby Napa cabbage.
Our waitress cautioned us that dishes at Bang! come out in a randomized order, as decided by the chefs. Our first course was the firecracker shrimp, which was accompanied by the double portion of coconut rice. The rice, cooked to perfection and topped with a layer of toasted coconut, had a delicate sweetness to it. While it arguably could have been a dessert on its own, the rice’s sugary flavor contrasted well with the intense overtones of the shrimp dish. The firecracker shrimp came lightly breaded and doused in a mysterious spicy sauce, and was accompanied with a carrot and cabbage slaw. The crunchy texture of the shrimp offset the vegetables’ texture, which bordered on mushy — an unfortunate trend that would persist throughout the dinner.
Soon after, the rock shrimp appetizer was brought to our table, providing much-needed relief from the heat of our first tapa. Bang! served them with a large mound of shaved papaya interlaced with fresh mint. The dish had the potential to be satisfying, but the only ingredient my taste buds could sense was the mint. The shrimp were rather tasteless and were lost amid the textureless, stringy quality of the rest of the dish. The distant flavor of shredded papaya, meanwhile, was masked by its minty counterpart.
The skate and soba noodles were served next and proved to be sharply contrasting meals. Although the waitress highly recommended it, I’m still not convinced the fish was a good dish to order. The skate had a slimy, sinewy texture that was quite different from the flaky quality I had expected. The skate also featured a slightly buttery taste; it was as if I were consuming a spoonful of greasy mashed potatoes — partly because of the fish’s light breading.
The soba noodles were another somewhat disappointing dish. While the beef component was incredibly tasty and cooked well, the noodles themselves were a gooey, sloppy mess. They had absolutely no backbone whatsoever, and I found myself eating them only because the spicy green sauce they were drenched made up for them. At least the large chunks of celery interspersed within the dish added some textual contrast.
Luckily, we did manage to end the meal on an absolutely perfect note. Always a sucker for banana desserts, I couldn’t pass up the made-to-order banana fritters with homemade vanilla ice cream and a drizzle of caramel sauce ($6). Still warm when they were served, the sweet, crunchy fritters perfectly complemented the caramel and ice cream. The meal definitely came full circle, starting and ending on high notes.
Though we tried only a handful of Bang!’s tapas, and the results were mediocre, the variety of the restaurant’s menu means a second go-around may be in order. Pork tacos with roasted papaya ($7), 60-second sirloin with cilantro sauce ($10) and ginger-orange crab potstickers ($8) — just to name a few of the tapas dishes featuring curious ingredients — whetted my appetite and sound like potential winners. I’d also love to sample the Chinese donuts ($6) dusted with cinnamon sugar and served with homemade coconut ice cream — another made-to-order dessert that Bang! offers up. Bang! might not have lived up to expectations this time, but I haven’t crossed it off my list yet.
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