Bani Restaurant

It was 2007, and I was spending a few months in the Dominican Republic. I started in Santo Domingo and went to San Pedro de Macoris (home of Sammy Sosa). Then I headed north to Consuelo with a group from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). We worked in a clinic and ate mangos in our spare time. It was hot.

Then I went north, to Hato Mayor, and took a boat to Samana, famous for its beaches. My next destination was Puerto Plata, where I helped with an HIV research study for a few days. I passed back through Santiago and spent another six weeks in Santo Domingo living with a family working on the study.

Never did I go to Bani. I hadn’t even heard of Bani, located 65 km west of Santo Domingo.

Fast forward to 2022. Now I know more about Bani. Lots of people from Bani have moved to the Boston area. They call themselves “Banilejos,” which means people who are far from their home of Bani. There’s even a Banilejo tee-shirt, and there used to be a Banilejo festival each summer in the Stony Brook section of Jamaica Plain.

There are famous baseball players from Bani – Wander Franco, who plays for the Tampa Bay Rays, and the Hall of Famer Vladimir Guerrero Sr, who is from Nizao, just outside the city.

Anyway, yesterday I had lunch at Boston’s “Bani Restaraunt,” and wanted to write a review. This is my second food review, the first being of a tamales stand in Pasadena, California.

So Bani Restaraunt is a nice place. It’s located on Washington Street, a busy thoroughfare, not too far from central Roslindale (which most people call Rozzie). If you are at Forest Hills in Jamaica Plain, it’s a quick bus ride away. Inside, the atmosphere is quiet and peaceful. There are televisions but the volume is turned off. There are plants.

The proprietor had a few vegetarian options and served me lentejas (brown lentil soup) and berenjena (eggplant) with white rice. I asked for “poco arroz” (just a little rice) but my meal came out with a lot of rice (by my standards). The lentils were decent, although salty, and I had the sensation that they might have been canned. The eggplant was oily and pretty good. She offered several soft drinks and juices but I chose a water. The total was about $12. I thought about my friend Matt O’Brien’s research on prediabetes as I ate some of the rice.

Overall I’m glad I went to Bani Restaurant. Not so much because the food was life changing, but because it was a pleasant atmosphere and reminded me of my trip to the DR in 2007. And now I can tell my patients that I have been to Bani (restaurant). Maybe someday I’ll go back to the DR and go to the real Bani.

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