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Bia Garden
Rating Details »
Categories: Vietnamese, Pubs [Edit]
Neighborhood: Lower East Side154 Orchard St
(between Rivington St & Stanton St)
New York, NY 10002
(212) 780-0010
- Nearest Transit:
-
Delancey-Essex Sts (F, J, M, Z)
2nd Ave-Houston St (F, V)
Grand St (B, D)
- Attire:
- Casual
- Accepts Credit Cards:
- No
- Price Range:
-
$$
- Good for Groups:
- Yes
- Good for Kids:
- No
- Take-out:
- Yes
- Waiter Service:
- Yes
- Wheelchair Accessible:
- No
- Outdoor Seating:
- Yes
- Best Nights:
- Sat
- Happy Hour:
- Yes
- Alcohol:
- Beer & Wine Only
- Smoking:
- No
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"i thought that this place was fantastic! the bartenders/servers are super friendly (had a conversation with one about dodgeball... how…" read more »
17 reviews for Bia Garden
From the outside, this place looks like a little hole in the wall spot. But once you get through the door, down the hallway, and into the giant back room, you see the glory that is Bia Gardens.
I didn't eat here, but I did drink here. The back room does remind me of a beer hall, so it did make sense that they only served beer by the 6-pack. In buckets. And they are cheap.
I thoroughly enjoyed myself here, and the staff was amazing to not only accommodate our massive party, but also our appetite for the wide variety of Asian beers they had for us. It was definitely a New York experience, one that I wish I could recreate back in San Francisco.
Wow I paid $14.5 for take out beef cubes. They even charged me a dollar to add rice.
I am not full.
Meat was nothing special. Not the tender cubes I am used to at Saigon grill where the value and setting is much nicer.
Not worth it at all.
I applaud the chef's attempts at raising the bar with Vietnamese food, but I think it was a poor attempt at that, unfortunately speaking.
I've had good Vietnamese food before, having spent a great deal of time with the Viet community down in Savannah, and I'm sure the chef has as well having spent a great deal of time in Vietnam. But surely he must realize that his products fail to really capture that authentic taste, and may in fact be trying too hard with these dishes.
Though, I do like the venue space itself! Almost has that speakeasy concept as you come across a single table takeout-like subterranean store-front, but in fact, upon entering, you are led through an industrial size fridge to a large outdoor covered deck. It's a fun place to go entertainment wise, but the food fails to impress.
cool little spot. I'm sure most people would know by now, but all the seating is in the back and not visible from the street. Most of the resto is a covered garden and although I'm not sure how nice it will be in the dead of winter, it was very cozy on a chilly November night.
When we went the kitchen was closing, but they kept it open for our table. We ordered quickly and were happy with our choices. The beers were all fine and matched the food well as in they were all Asian pilsners and light lagers that are designed specifically for this type of food.
Pork belly was a standout, should have ordered 2, not for size, just deliciousness. Ribs were just ok. fisherman soup I really enjoyed.
Overall a decently priced fast meal in a cool little garden that left me satisfied at 1am on a Friday night and that's all I was looking for.
I liked the food okay. It's simple, rustic, nothing fancy, full of flavor. But I generally feel that if I've spent $30 on food in what presents itself as a "casual" establishment I shouldn't be leaving hungry. Yet that's what I did. Two of us ate, and ordered four "medium" plates, averaging about $15 per plate. Be warned: "Medium" is "appetizer" - I can only imagine that the "small" plates must be little more than snacks. There was only one "Big" plate on the menu when we went.
What we ate certainly tasted good, there just wasn't much of it, nor was much of it anything out of the ordinary. Nor was it particularly fancy enough - either in ingredients or preparation - to warrant the price tag.
Had the dishes come with a bowl of rice or something it might have filled up some extra stomach space - besides, there was a great deal of sauce on each dish, sauce that was just aching to be soaked up with some kind of carb, be it rice, bread, whatever. But instead all that yummy sauce went to waste once you'd finished the protein.
Adding a carb might have helped with the "leaving hungry" factor as well, though none of the dishes would have been worth their price point regardless. Mind you, price is not an issue to me - I've had great $4 meals, I've had great $400 meals. As long as there's a decent VPR (value/price ratio) I'm fine. Here, the VPR was a little lacking. And so close to Chinatown, where one can find very similar food for half the price. Maybe it won't be QUITE as good as Bia Garden, but it's all about that VPR.
To put it into perspective, consider that $15 - give or take a dollar or two - is what you'd pay for some appetizers at WD-50, Allen and Delancey, Falai, etc... just to name a few places in the neighborhood. Should Bia Garden be at the same price point? I imagine the entrees (when they finally make it to the menu) won't be as high as at those establishments, so I'm willing to give BG another whirl once they have more than one.
It's sad, since I felt Michael Bao had really hit it well with Baoguette, in terms of "updating" something - yes, the Banh Mis might be a dollar or two more than you'd find elsewhere, but that's not such a high premium for some of the best in town. Here, the "markup" is much higher - as I said, nearly double what one would find comparable dishes for a few blocks South. And the increase in quality is... nothing to write home about.
The beer concept is just plain annoying. You can only order in six-packs, twelve-packs, or cases. You only pay for what you drink, though. This is a pain in the butt for the servers more than anyone else, as they then have to carry back the five out of six beers you didn't drink when you only wanted one. And what if I'd like a different beer for my second? They have to bring out a whole other six pack. It's just an affectation, but I have very little patience for useless affectations. Let those that want a six pack get one. Let those that want one beer... get ONE beer! I figure the idea is that you'll instinctively open another one if it's sitting right there, and up your bar tab. But that's not gonna happen unless you carry a bottle opener.
All that said, I'll probably re-review when the full menu is in effect. It was good enough to give it another try, certainly, and it's a fun atmosphere. If I feel I've gotten my money's worth next time, I'll update this. But for now I'm - surprisingly, given that I've liked everything Michael Bao has done before, and that I like the concept quite a lot - underwhelmed.
If I were to describe Bia Garden with one word, it would be "FAIL"!
First fail, the beer. It's suppose to be a bear garden, yet it only has 13-14 imported beer. There are no description of each beer on the menu, just its country of origin. You can only order beer in quantities of six pack, a dozen, or a case, and it has to be the same beer, there's no mix and match, which is retarded. They'll take back whatever bottles that are not opened, is that sanitary? Their beer selection is not exactly exotic. Tsingtao from China? Sapporo from Japan? 33 from Vietnam? Woo la la, I'm so exited to drink the beer that I can buy from regular supermarkets! Yeah right! Anyways, back to the order quantity, so if we wanted 3 different beers, we'll have to order 3 six packs of each beers, that's 18 bottles of beers, sitting in giant metal boxes, sitting on a small table. Now where do we put our food? What if anyone tampers with the unopened beer?
Fail #2, the food. I've heard that their potion are small, but it's actually not small, it's microscopic. Say their spare ribs, there was 4 pieces of tiny ribs in a small plate. These are very dry ribs and they tasted fried with sugar and soy sauce. I can get better ribs in Chinatown for a lot cheaper. Their shrimp summer roll is kinda big, but it's missing a piece of summer roll's signature, scallion, the peanut sauce that comes with it is very bland. Again, I can get better ones in Chinatown for a lot cheaper. Moving on to their famous pork belly. $14.00 for 9 tiny pieces of pork flavored chewing gum? Aren't they suppose to be crispy? At least that's what it's called in their menu. Seriously! For $14.00? I can get at least 3-4 pounds of better tasting roast pork in Chinatown!
Third fail, the price. I understand that Michael Bao is trying to make this place up scale, but it's a beer garden, why would anyone sell a liver just to go to a beer garden?
Fourth fail, decor. This is suppose to be an outdoor beer garden. I can see that half of the sitting area is outdoor, but it's topped with a blue plastic tarp that flies up and down with the wind. How classy! It has a very small entrance, and a lot of people doesn't recognize it because it only has a piece of 8"x11" paper saying "Bia Garden" hanging in its window. All guests have to walk through their giant fridge. It is a nice idea for the summer, but this place opened up in late summer/early fall, and the temperature is dropping like crazy right now. So do they really expect their guests to walk through a fridge in this weather, just to be ripped off?
So we spend $45.00 and left hungry. I wasn't sure if we had a very small dinner or some expensive appetizer, so we went to a Japanese place for some real food and beer.
I made a mistake by coming here thanks to all the hypes, but never again!
Come to think of it, maybe all the good reviews were written by Bia Garden's employees. What a scam!
Oh, I just remembered seeing Michael Bao walking around in the eating area through out our entire time there. So if he's walking around, then who's cooking? The Mexicans in the back? Upon our way out, he said goodbye to us. He's right, goodbye it is.
Tasty beers from all over Asia, a bowl of soul-touching curry fishballs where other bars put stale wasabi peas, lip-smacking lemongrass grilled pork ribs and well-spaced tables - Bia Garden is another hit for Michael Huynh. The hours here are limited at the moment - 6-11pm, I believe - but even though we were the first ones there at 6 sharp and they were running 15 late, the handsome host still took our name and number and told us he would call in case we lost track of time. With service like that, you bet we were back at 6:15!
Iora C. already did a great job of describing their ordering system and yes, it is best if you have a beer opener on you. My key chain hasn't seen this much action in years. We tried the Beerlao lager and 33, both of which were excellent. Most Asian beers taste crisper and cleaner to me than domestic or European ones so a 6 pack here goes quickly.
The food was solid, a world away from the crap I've had at Bun Soho and probably on par with Baoguette St. Mark's. Chef Huynh was here tonight so perhaps that's why the kitchen was running so smoothly. The beer troughs are genius - you really feel like you're in your own backyard, sharing brews with friends. So bring your drinking buddies here, order the ribs, spicy green mango salad, Singha clams and summer rolls and have yourself a rollicking good time. Oh they're cash only at the moment, but there are lots of deli ATMs around and BofA is just a few minutes' walk away on Delancey/Norfolk.
This was third stop of the day for snacks before dinner. I really like this place. You can get some tasty snacks and have a couple of beers in the back patio. It is a small small place, so don't go with like 10 people.
The food is good, and yes small, but I don't think their intentions are for you to eat a full meal here. Snacks and beers.
Pork Belly, Fried Rolls and Fresh Rolls. A sixer of 33's.
I will definitely do it again.
So you enter along Orchard st, walking down the stairs into what looks like a mini diner with a chalkboard menu above the counter. Before I could really make heads or tails of the options a cute little waitress greets us. "Three?" She opens a metal door that looks like it'd lead us thru a meat freezer.
Instead we walk thru a cute lil vestibule with beer bottle- decorated walls and up a few steps into a very serene and trendy room of tables that gave an outdoor patio feeling. Beautful artwork on the walls gave me & my crew smtg to admire while catching up and drinking the great-tasting & great-priced beer (Chang). Ok, lemme just say the ribs were fantastical! Light yet flavorful! The spring rolls I weren't crazy about (maybe cause I l8r discovered contained mushrooms) but my friends loved them. They were accompanied by a great not-too-spicy dipping sauce. Appetizers ranged from $7-$14(?) Only issue is they only accept cash.
This review is going to get me banned at Bia Garden. But who cares we don't wanna go back anyway.
You know the beers are okay. At around $4-5 an Asian beer, the price is actually v. reasonable. The food was just okay. I would say mostly sub-par but passable. Nothing made me gag. But wow our bill came out to be around $45 per person which we thought was not worth it at all! Considering we ordered 4 appetizers and 2 main courses for 4 people.
Anyway, this is why I give Bia Garden 2 stars.Firstly, the hostess. I see no reason to hire her when there is probably a high supply of competent hosts/hostesses in this high-unemployment city of New York. Everybody that was waiting for their tables were just LOLing at how ridiculously dumb this hostess was. I mean I don't even know if you could consider her as a hostess since she didn't do much. All I remember was that she was reading a chinese book about taking over the world, occasionally running outside the restaurant to shriek at her phone as if John Lennon and Paul McCartney were on the other line. I asked her what sodas they had so I could do something while waiting. The blackboard said that they had boylan sodas. I asked her and she blankly stared at me and said she didn't know and was gonna ask. 2 minutes later she came out saying they only had Pepsi. After that I passed by their fridge, I saw the soda collection with my own two eyes. Turns out they didn't have Pepsi. They had all the types of Boylan sodas. Uhhhhhhhhh how did she mess this up!
Anyways after waiting for about 45 minutes for our table. They sat all 4 of us at a 2 person table on the corner. It was raining that night and we were getting a bit wet. We told the hostess and the other waiters about it and they looked at us as if it was NOT a customer service faux-pas to seat 4 ppl on a 2 person table and drench them with dripping water from their roof. A few minutes later there was a waterfall behind us.
Thank god the two-top beside us left. In an attempt for self-preservation, since the staff was so slow to react to this situation that we were faced in, we personally moved our table and joined it with the newly-vacant two top. Phew.
The manager-looking person finally came and quickly explained and apologized about the situation. We ordered our food. It came. It tasted okay and the portions were okay. We finished our food. Then came a squid dish that we didn't order. I guess this was their way of showing their apology. But the squid was chewy and bland. We didn't order it for a reason. My friend even said that the comped dish just ruined her meal. We would have been okay without it. Maybe they could have just discounted our tab. I did not understand why they did what they did. If you are gonna give us a free dish, at least make it your best one right? It was just not worth the calories. We didn't even finish the comped dish. So that says a lot.
So yah that was our experience. It's okay I could get beers elsewhere.
Take a few steps down below Orchard Street and you'll find the nondescript storefront of the city's newest beer garden. There's no sign yet, save for a piece of printer paper scrawled with the name in ink. On walking in, the place seems like just a small takeout place. But walk through the industrial freezer, a passageway lined with bottles and bottles of your favorite asian beers, and you'll enter the laidback, hidden oasis that is Bia Garden.
On a Friday night, the place was busy and the wait was easily more than an hour. We were able to put our name and phone number down at the door and happily, against our expectations, they actually called us when our table was ready. Over the course of our wait, our party had grown from six to nine and the staff had no qualms about accommodating the unexpected change. In fact, they were extremely accommodating, professional and warm the whole night despite the fact that we were every bit the poor guests: within the first ten minutes, not only had I knocked over and shattered a glass candle, but we also changed our party of six to a party of nine, dwindled back to a party of seven, before settling on a table of 12. The staff of Bia Garden did not even flinch and quickly put together tables for us. No attitude, no fuss, just great service.
As for the food and drink, I was not disappointed. Choose from a dozen or so varieties of Asian beer and it will come out in your own personal cooler. At Bia Garden, you can only order beer by the sixpack, dozen, or case. While it might be a hassle for the waitstaff, don't worry too much about what to order: you end up paying only for what you drink but when the icebox is sitting right next to you, its fairly easy to go through drink after drink. I highly recommend the Beerlao lager though we also tried Beerlao dark, 33, and Taj Mahal. Bring your own beer opener for the most efficient drinking, or you will otherwise have to hail down the waitstaff every time you want to pop open a new brew. And though menus are currently sheets of water-stained paper, that's no reason to disregard food. Though pricey, we enjoyed the unadorned slices of pork belly and the crab rolls. Despite the fact that Bia has only been open for about a week, the kitchen did not fault and food came out promptly, tasty, and piping hot.
I'd definitely consider returning. The place is low-key and cozy, best for groups looking for a place to kick back with a few beers and maybe a better-than-average snack. Happily, the half open-air garden doesn't try too hard and the result is, I expect, exactly what the owner hoped it would be: a no-frills place to talk loudly, pop open a few beers, and eat some fancied up streetfood. Now... if only I could bring out the mahjong set, then it would really feel like home!
Step inside the giant steel industrial freezer door, though the icy passageway and out onto a cozy, hidden outdoor garden with long tables and benches and you've got Bia Garden, NY's very first Asian beer garden. They've got a sweet selection of imported beers from all over Asia and an enticing Vietnamese street-food menu.
We started off with the Beerlao Lager from Laos as we sampled their crab spring rolls and grilled fish jerky. Next we had the "33" from Vietnam (their most popular beer according to the waitress) along with crispy pork belly with caramelized sauce and garlic frog legs. Both beers were great, sadly all four dishes were not. They were actually rather very disappointing! We barely tasted the crab in the spring rolls, the grilled fish jerky was ok but nothing special..The crispy pork belly wasn't crispy at all and the caramelized sauce? ick, it tasted like teriyaki sauce out of a bottle. The garlic frog legs was really bland and the dipping sauce that came with it (the same stuff you get in a spicy tuna roll) didn't compliment the dish at all.
This is such a cool joint that it was a real bummer we didn't enjoy the food more. I'd be willing to go back tho and try some of their other dishes. As well as the other beers. Can't go wrong with the latter right?
This place specializes in Asian beers, and the 6 of us ordered a 2 beers/person special, each of us got the Tiger Singapore beer and the Indian Taj Mahal beer. We also shared some shrimp spring rolls, bbq pork spring rolls, pork belly...and a bowl of mussels, recommended by chef Michael Bao himself (he actually came out and took pics with us!!).
The food was decent, the spring rolls wrapped well, with the usual shrimp or bbq pork, vermicelli noodles, mint, etc. They came with both the fish and peanut dipping sauces. The pork belly was a little tough and dry on the outside, but nice and tender and fatty on the inside. The mussels were yummy and came in a yummy coconut curry sauce, but they didn't have baguettes to sop up the sauce with! That would've been perfect!!!
Fun place to come with a group of friends, they only offer outdoor seating but half of it is covered in case it rains....awesome recommendation T!! =)
Although I think the food is overpriced, the vibe at this Vietnamese beer garden reminds me of Saigon and that idea keeps me warm and tropical in bad weather. I wish they would lower the price to be more comparable to other local Vietnamese restaurants, but I love the beer in the bucket and the ambience.
You first must take confidence in walking by the front door entrance that might catch you...in a surprise. When I took my first visit to Bia Garden, by the looks of it, it was a take-out place. Once you resort to how many people you need for a table (thinking there is no such), the guide leads you to back of the kitchen, walking thru hallway and last, the actual restaurant interior! It was in summer times, so the outside seating is perfect fit for the season. I didn't mind the wooden panel seating and the picnic-alike setting. Faint sound of music, servings of Chinese and Vietnamese beer! Delectable appetizers and main courses, although, I couldn't stay till the last serving of main course. Each dish seemed to take awhile. Not sure if they were making us wait to be more hungry or was overwhelmed to accommodate a 13-14 group. I will definitely go back in the meantime, and hope that I will remember the dishes I had, as most of menu were listed in foreign language :P
The place is incredibly nondescript. You really have to know the address cause there is not really a sign marking it.
I guess my problems with the place stem from the fact that it is trying to be all clever and conceptual (which may have justified the inflated prices for summer rolls) but the people responsible for carrying out this concept are militantly half-assed about it--as if lousy service and sloppily prepared food were basic tenets of that concept.
The hostess/seating procedure leaves much to be desired. We had to wait for all of our party to arrive before they let us in the practically empty dining room, while another incomplete party was allowed in without having to wait in the cramped entrance area.
The beer ordering philosophy might work if the wait staff were diligent enough to be on hand to open bottles (why not include a little opener with the bucket) and patrons could be counted on to prefer one brand over another but it seems like Bia Garden is supposedly all about lots of exotic options. If you dont want to get socked into one brand you've got to order a whole sixpack of another brand--granted, you dont have to pay for the ones you dont drink but the small tables certainly get crowded. Why not offer a couple of buckets of mixed brews so patrons could sample lots of different asian beers?
Food was nothing to write home about and some of the dishes were downright insulting. We had the clam appetizer and probably half of the clams shells were empty--and the clams werent hiding at the bottom of the bowl. The broth was kind of dishwatery. Who knows, maybe someone accidentally grabbed a bowl from the dishwashing station. My boyfriend had some sort of pork hot pot and he characterized it as pork in a bowl with dirty water and a bunch of hot peppers thrown in for color.
No dessert menu when we were there--also lots of false advertising because the napkins and chopsticks on the table were shoved into Cafe Du Monde coffee cans. When we asked about coffee they said they did not have any.
I gave it 2 stars instead of 1 because the garden design is pretty nice.
We love everything about the Bia Garden. It is very cool place, just like Saigon. The spare rib are very good and the whole fish is the best ever.. we lover the all Asian servers... will be back soon
