Brown Sugar Cafe

I hadn't been to Brown Sugar in about 20 years!! Actually reading that sentence outloud makes me feel ooooold.

Brown Sugar is still amazing. I went in on a cold winter night recently and the restaurant was nice and warm. They had jazz piano playing and the vibe was perfect. The service was amazing.

The gaprow chicken is one of the best. I asked if it could be medium spicy and it was perfect. The chicken satay was delicious, tender and flavorful. The thai ravioli are filled with pork and shrimp which isn't my favorite but they were still good.

I've heard lots of good things about this spot so decided to try it recently. Got tom yum noodle soup and some fried dumplings. Soup was very flavorful, but literally had one piece of shrimp, one scallop, one piece of squid, and maybe two pieces of chicken. Felt skimpy, but maybe I'm being picky. Dumplings weren't my favorite, though the dipping sauce was good. Ambience was fine service was fine, lunch prices were on par for Comm Ave restaurants.

In the end it was fine, but maybe I'm just not that into Thai food as I'm not sure I'll be in a hurry to come back here.

As name of this restaurant,
Food had too much suger on my few orders
and did not taste sauce and ingredients itself, so that I got shaky hands and uncomfortable stomach after the meal. I don't even think they use brown rice, tasted like way too much refined suger, cheap candy sort of flavor.

30 years ago this restaurant was amazing once by the way.

10 years ago did not impressed me and this time was below average saggy suger deal.

Everyone needs to come here! The staff was extremely accommodating and ensured that my khao soi would be made with tofu. Loved the khao soi and honestly the portions are bigger than almost every Thai place I've been to in Boston. It's such a cute place, right near BUs campus.

Good service!! We got the spare ribs, pad thai, and grapow noodles. The spare ribs were the best and I would get again. The pad thai was okay. The sauce was almost soupy and very sweet. The grapow noodles were really good but definitely spicy.

Their pad Thai is unmatched. So sweet and zesty. Will say other dishes are not super memorable and it's def pricey but comparison to other Thai places around. Will always go back for the pad Thai though!!

Despite how not-Thai the name sounds (my friend suggested that "Brown Sugar Cafe" sounds much more like a bubble tea store than a restaurant), I was super impressed with how delicious and authentic my meal here was.

My friend and I came around 7:30 on a weekday. The (surprisingly spacious, really high-ceilinged) restaurant was pretty empty at the time, and we were seated really quickly. Service was very prompt, and in fact had to circle back a few times because we hadn't decided what to order yet, mostly because their menu is enormous. (Someone described it as the Thai version of the Cheesecake Factory menu, which is definitely very true.) Also, we realised not all the menus were exactly the same - some had extra pages with specials and what not - so do note that when ordering.

We started with the Brown Sugar Spareribs - super delicious! The random cherry on the plating led me to slightly lower my expectations (seems like a typical American (TM) thing to do), but thankfully this was totally misguided. The meat was super tender - each bite just falling off the bone - and it was super well cooked, with a light, smokey flavour that really brought out a lot of the savouriness of the ribs themselves.

We also had a pad see ew and the khao grapow. Pad see ew was very tasty and served as a great flavour complement to the khao grapow, by which I mean the minced pork was actually SO incredibly spicy that we were basically alternating bites to not burn off our taste buds. (The server did ask if we wanted mild but I said no, which was the right choice. Very authentic!) Really delicious regardless - the pork was super flavourful and fried in a very yummy sauce.

Portion size was also really big - we packed up our leftovers and probably still had enough for 1-ish meal each - and definitely worth the price. Also, we did remark that the comforting/relaxing ambience actually did kind of give off café vibes - although it's unclear whether that's related to the name or if they would look very kindly if we just parked ourselves here like doing work at a café.

Regardless, though, I am very keen to come back if not just to try some of the million other things on their huge menu. Looking forward to it already!

Can't quite agree with the high reviews. I am a fan of Thai food and have tried many. Here, everything was so salty that it's hard to tell other flavors.
The have the creamy Tom yum - granted it's rare to to see and they use jumbo shrimps as it should be, but other than that, again, just salty taste.
Also have to comment on their Thai style pad Thai, which feels nothing Thai at all. I wonder how their regular pad thai would taste.
Servers are not rude/too bad but definitely not helpful when you try to get advice on what's good.
I also don't really enjoy the environment, which is dark and has an old feeling.

Their "Tom Yum Goong Yai" (spicy soup with extra large shrimps), I must say, is Brow. sugar Cafe truly special dish. It is the creamy type with coconut milk inside. Definitely what distinguishes this dish from other Thai restaurants in the Boston area is the size of the Shrimps. The jumbo size make them truly special.

Beside the comments above, the ingredients seem to be all in there--lemon/lime, coconut milk, condiments, etc.

Highly recommended you try this dish. It's the best Tom Yum Shrimp Soup I've had in quite a long time.

Soft Shell Crab - Poo Pad Pong Garee (see picture below) is quite decent as well.

Came here with a reservation on a Saturday night for a birthday and we had no issues getting seated. The space wasn't too busy so we could've done without calling ahead, but better to be safe than sorry!

The staff was relatively efficient and good with service so nothing but positive things from that front. They did get one of our orders wrong however, but it wasn't a huge deal. They had a pretty large menu which made it a little difficult to choose what we wanted, but a majority of our table settled on crispy chicken pad Thai. We got two appetizers and drinks along with our main dishes and everything was pretty solid. The tea hit the spot, the scallion pancakes were deliciously crisp, and the crab rangoons were super yummy.

I went with the gaprow noodles for my entree and I enjoyed it a lot. I will say that it's extremely spicy (I got the normal spice level) and I had some difficulties eating it because of that, but the Thai tea helped out a lot. Once I ran out of drink though, I decided to bring the rest home since it was a little bit of a struggle.

We came for the birthday disco ball they offer and the experience didn't disappoint. The lights dim, music plays loudly, and they bring out a dessert with candles for $15 if we request it. The experience was great and our friend was happily surprised - awesome end to the meal!

Overall, our dinner was a lot of fun. The prices are a little steep for Thai food, but things tasted great and we had a nice time. I'd definitely recommend this place for birthdays for the unique disco ball experience!!