If Typhoon! sounds like a wacky Broadway musical from the 1960s celebrating the antics of WWII servicemen in the Pacific Islands, you’re not far off. The restaurant, which purports a Thai heritage, is designed around mid-century America’s idea of Southeast Asia. Perhaps most American of all, there’s this crazed focus on providing as many products for consumers as you can fit under one restaurant roof: gift certificates; catering; and even Typhoon!’s own brand of wok.

The egalitarian message spreads to the menus, which is a veritable food court unto itself: “Pacific Rim sandwiches”; “Mongolian BBQ”; bento boxes; Vietnamese noodle soups; Chinese-American take-out classics; and (eep!) sushi—all marketed under different names, but prominently featuring the “Typhoon!” name, so you don’t mistakenly think this came from actual Vietnamese, Japanese, or Chinese restaurants.

And for all the restaurant’s fuss about its Thai executive chef and posted information about the foods of Thailand, renditions are faithful only to trends. They’re trenditions. Larb has none of the ground pork that’s so brilliant on this limey, hot salad—only your choice (yours, the experienced Thai chef) of chicken, tuna, or shrimp. And these are not the tiny, dried shrimp that you could reasonably expect to find in Thai food—they’re big, bland shrimp like you’d find blackened on an Applebee’s Caesar salad. Pad see ew’s noodles are overcooked to the point of soupiness, with the same sweet sauce the kitchen drowns everything in.

Even the “Chef’s Specialties” nervously genuflect before middle-American palates. A duck curry with pineapple and grapes substitutes sweetness for a clove-curry intrigue, masking the flavor of the overcooked (we’re guessing not wild) duck without complementing it.

There are some neat features, like an extensive selection of loose-leaf teas and vegan and gluten-free menus. But in a city with Pok Pok and even Siam Society, why would anyone come here?

The answer may lie in the vast, cozy, and swanky atmospheres of its branches. An even-swankier new conceit has opened downtown called, awkwardly, Bo Restobar. We would have reviewed it but, honestly, we feel like we just did.