New Asian Fusion Restaurant Opening In Braintree

BRAINTREE, MA — After several years of planning, a new Asian fusion restaurant is opening in Braintree on Washington Street where Tiki Palace used to be.

Owner Tuan Le will have a soft opening for Lychee Bistro & Lounge on Friday and will bring a unique twist to Asian cuisine he said can't be found in Braintree. Le described the food as a mixture of East Asian tastes with European and American influences, served primarily tapas-style. He also said the restaurant's vibe is somewhere between family casual dining and a more upscale experience like Davio's Northern Italian Steakhouse.

Le said the menu will be small at first to focus on quality. He said two dishes he's particularly proud of are the corn ribs and the ahi tuna tacos, served with slaw and veggies.

"It's like a rib, but it's actually made from fresh corn with scallion sauce on top," Le said. "These are finger foods. Everyone comes and has a bite, not too filling and not too greasy."

A long time coming

Le had been working to open Lychee since 2018, and originally, he hoped to open in spring 2020. But the coronavirus pandemic made hiring employees difficult. Supply shortages also continue to make food and supplies scarce and expensive commodities, Le said.

"When the restrictions lifted in May [2020], that time was very hard, Le said. "A lot of people were not willing to come back to work yet. They weren’t ready."

Le said as time went on, he was able to hire more kitchen staff. He's still looking to hire more bar and front end employees, but believes he has enough to get started.

"We feel like we can't just wait forever, because this is not just our restaurant," Le said. "We have a good number of staff. We feel we are ready to move forward, at least with a soft opening and test our system. Then we'll continue to fine tune it."

When can I go to Lychee?

Lychee Bistro & Lounge will have a soft opening beginning Friday. For the next few weeks, it will be open for dinner from 6 p.m. to 10:30 p.m., on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.

Since Le announced the restaurant's opening on Facebook Thursday, he said he's been overwhelmed with the amount of positive feedback.

"The number of reservations is through the roof already," Le said.

Le said he wasn't able to set up the reservation system in time, so for now, people can make reservations through Google Forms.

Le said if the restaurant does well, it will start opening for lunch on weekends and then add more days like Thursday and Monday. He hopes to eventually have the Lychee open seven days a week.