Friends and I just got an amazing weekend takeout dinner at Asian Box. We were figuring out what to order, and this super generous ad popped up for 50% off up to $99! I wanted to get the big salmon box for $150 retail, but fortunately I was talked out of it. Instead, we went to town with 2 family boxes (1 of each kind) with many customizations/upgrades.
Overall, I consider Asian Box "Asian lite" in the following 2 ways: (1) Their flavors and scents are far less pronounced/strong than those at an authentic Vietnamese restaurant, which is helpful if you're eating at work or with friends who don't like super strong flavors. It's still tasty, just dialed back. To be clear, they don't claim to be authentic, only Asian inspired, which they indisputably are. (2) Their food is lighter/healthier than at most restaurants, Asian or otherwise. Home cooking can be healthy, but restaurants tend to be reckless with oil. I highly appreciate that Asian Box is sparing with oil. On top of that, for $2 you can upgrade from rice to steamed veg (or stir-fried veg if you prefer). Don't get me wrong, I love rice. But sometimes I need to prioritize getting another serving of vegetables in.
To avoid the dinner rush and bc my friend has kiddos, we ordered for pickup from 5-5:10. They were ready at 5:20, and they were super nice. The food was hot, except for salads which were cold, and everything tasted fresh. I especially give props for the shrimp spring rolls -- they tasted like they were JUST made, room temp instead of chilled, neither dry nor gummy. The shrimp was firm and fresh. All the vegetables in the rolls and in the boxes were fresh. The steamed vegetables were perfect, neither crunchy nor overcooked.
Other than the spring rolls (with the exception of the dipping sauce, which IMO was too dialed-back and not fragrant), my favorite was the green curry. Again, while not as flavorful as you'd find in a Vietnamese restaurant, it's very tasty and clean, the veg well-cooked and the chicken tender.
Were there disappointments? The caramelized eggs were *barely* caramelized -- they tasted like they'd been in the sauce for 5, maybe 10 min tops. They were honestly hard-boiled eggs with a tiny amount of color outside, and their centers were fully cooked, not translucent, so there wasn't even that tradeoff. In an Asian restaurant or home, these cook for an absolute bare minimum of 1 hr before they're served, and then the cook apologizes they haven't cooked for nearly long enough (everyone knows they're much better after several hours or half a day, or even the next day). Maybe there's food safety reasons not to do that, or maybe if we'd ordered for AFTER the dinner rush rather than before, the eggs would have cooked longer? Or maybe that's just how they do them here.
The other disappointment with the food was their salmon. All the pieces of salmon tasted fishy. We still ate them bc they weren't spoiled and salmon is super healthy, but Vietnamese fish should NEVER be fishy! Vietnamese traditionally use a bunch of different herbs/pastes/curries to cook fish, which may include lemongrass, ginger, turmeric, garlic, chili, pepper, cilantro, basil, dill, mint, green onions, scallions, etc etc. Unless the fish is outright spoiled, no fishiness will survive that! Even if you dial back to a little ginger and lemongrass, it still wouldn't be fishy. So yes, I was very glad we ordered a variety instead of going full-bore on the 10-person salmon I'd originally wanted. :)
There were 2 minor irregularities not related to food quality. First, our 2 family boxes should have come with 4 cookies each, for 8 total. But we only received 2 in each bag, for 4 total. OMG, their cookies were SO much better than I expected! Their texture is tender-crisp, and they're sweet without being bitingly sweet. I am sad for my mouth and happy for my waistline that we ended up having to share cookies, instead of everyone having their own (with one to spare or fight over!). :( :)
The other issue, and I suspect this was a programming glitch, is that Asianbox.com applied sales tax BEFORE the 50% discount, as if we had used a gift card for half the order, instead of their site automatically adding this weekend's 50% discount. So for the period of the promotion, they're may be collecting 2x the tax they ought to be. Hopefully they'll fix that glitch before too long, and maybe tip out the overage to their staff.
I feel their portions are healthy, enough for many adults without being too much. Extra protein is $5. I ate half of a: spring roll, entree, cookie.
At one point they used compostable instead of plastic boxes. That would be cool for them to bring back. :)
Overall, I'd give 4.5 stars, happily rounded up for today's generous discount. And I'd come back for more curry, spring rolls, and cookies! -- and maybe swap out the spring roll for a caramelized egg if I came after a meal rush instead of before.