The Big Bamboo Cafe

The new deck is awesome this time of year AND the beers are cold. Simple stuff. Nice taps. My friend frew up here a couple years ago. Proud of him.

CAUTION: This review is only for drinks.

We arrived at happy hour requesting to sit on the balcony overlooking the beautiful parking lot for happy hour yet we were told its at the bar only. Ok. After getting to the bar and finding out the happy hour specials were nothing we were interested in, we requested a table overlooking the parking lot to order specialty drinks.

We each order the shark attack. This was the biggest let down of any specialty drink Ive gotten in a long time. It was basically orange juice and soda water. That's right, OJ and soda water. No vodka. Horrible taste. Id be happier with tang. The one saving grace to this was that we are south of the mason Dixon line so it would be cheap. WRONG. It was $11 with tip. Id be drinking for $7/drink in NYC right now for something that doesnt give me reflux if I weren't at this BIg Bamboo place.

Save yourself the time for drinks and go to Flatbread across the street. Yeah, they have annoying live music as well, but they have better outdoor seating and better specialty drinks by far.

We loved this place.  We walked in behind a group of older people who didn't even look at the menu before doing a u-turn out of the restaurant - they didn't even see the restaurant part of things, they saw the bar that you walk by to get to the restaurant and didn't give it another thought.  We assumed that the WWII/Pacific/bar feel was too much for them.  Ok, we went about it In a more adventurous approach, since many places in the world that have the coolest food and memories don't have the canned chain restaurant feel about them.  Though we get our fill of those restaurants too.

We ate off of the lunch menu, which was much shorter than the dinner menu, but covered the need for all.   My husband had a grouper sandwich and I had the grouper platter, the kids had cheese pizza.

We eat early, so we were pretty much the only ones there, i think that one other table was taken.  We kind of got that McHale's Navy/Summer Rental vibe.... Relaxed environment, but with an attentive staff.  Our food came out very quickly, it was hot and yummy.  Our food/fish was fantastic and everyone finished everything on the plates.  The kids rated their pizza highly acceptable and they ate every bite.

I would suggest that if you aren't expecting an Olive Garden or Cracker Barrell type restaurant that you give this place a chance.

Also, spend some time walking around the restaurant to look at all of their WWII memorabilia... Love letters, photos, airplanes, vintage film cases, posters, government notices, newspapers, household goods and ration books from WWII, etc.  We had a great time explaining the items to our children.  We're glad that we gave this place a chance and will likely give it more chances in the future.

Warning, this place is kind of hidden in the Cologny Plaza, on the second floor. Keep an eye out for a chalkboard with specials and an arrow pointing upstairs near the steps to the second floor... It is easy to walk right by without noticing, we set out to find this place because of word of mouth and the HH restaurant guide, so we kept looking until we found it.