The Critics Ate 'Bewildering and Stressful' Food This Week

The Boston Globe’s Ellen Bhang pays a visit to Woburn’s Bayberry Cafe this week for a taste of vegan Asian dishes. The restaurant’s hijiki salad has a striking presentation and the fresh summer rolls with julienned jicama have a "juicy-crisp crunch," she writes. Bhang praises the red curry seitan and adds that the kimchi fried rice is "kicky with heat from fermented Napa cabbage." She also writes that the sweet potato stir-fried noodles are delicious, sweetened with agave nectar.

The Globe’s Nestor Ramos visits Fire + Ice in Back Bay. "By the standards of 21st-century dining, a catastrophe," he writes, calling the environment "bewildering and stressful." The appetizers that are prepared in the kitchen, instead of on display in the dining room like the entrees, are "something less than an afterthought," he writes, calling the Buffalo calamari "aggressively terrible" and the sweet potato tots a "sodden clod of orange gnocchi." Ramos also writes that "everything that emerges from the hot-tub-size flat-top tastes the same." But it's crowded (noise level: "escalating calamity"), and diners are "laughing and joking."

• Bayberry Cafe Brings Vegan Asian Food to Woburn [BG]
• At FiRE + iCE, the Crowds Pour in, But Why? [BG]