Saturday, July 30, 2011

Dinner with a friend at Lotus Asian Bistro

A new restaurant opened up in Ferndale California.  Lotus Asian Bistro.  A cute little restaurant inside a small Victorian home on Main Street.  It used to be the home of La Petite Maison.  It's great to see the place open up as a restaurant again, and the food was fantastic as was the service.  I'm so glad I got a chance to go eat dinner there with my dear friend while she was here visiting.  This is what we ate tonight:
Tempura Green Beans with Tahini Dip.  
This was fantastic!  The dip was slightly spicy and the green beans were very fresh.

 Baked Vietnamese Pork Buns with Sweet Chili Sauce
Amazingly good- The bread on these wasn't your typical Pork Bun bread - it was sweet like Hawaiian bread.  Keep in mind - this restaurant is Asian Fusion - not traditional Asian food. 
 Baby Bok Choy and Spinach with Green Papaya, Dried Apple, Water Chestnuts and Toasted Almonds, Tossed With Raspberry Mango Dressing. 
This was the only disappointment of the evening. It wasn't a huge disappointment.  The veggies were all very good, fresh and a fun mixture, but the dressing didn't have any flavor.  It was pretty to look at, but I literally could not taste it.  It needed some oomph to pull the dish together.  As it was, it tasted pretty bland and unexciting for such a fun an interesting mixture of fruits and vegetables
 Wild Smoke Cured Salmon with Thai Basil, Toasted Peanuts, with Wasabi Mayonnaise and Citrus Confit.
I can't even put in words how good this was.  The description leaves out the fact that there is salmon roe and some other type of roe that looked like a green flying fish roe.  The Citrus Confit looked like it had some type of seaweed in it that was delicious. The texture of the salmon was heavenly, and the smoked flavor made it extremely rich and delicious.  The serving looks small, but it's more than enough with all of the flavor that it carries.
 Green Scallion Pancake with Pulled Roasted Duck, Asian Slaw and Hot Mustard Sauce.
This was a perfect contrast to the salmon dish.  More heavy and satisfying.  A definite comfort food.    The sauce on the pulled duck was nice and sweet and perfect with the tangy mustard sauce.  The Asian Slaw was nice and crisp and gave a nice crunch along side the duck.  And I really need to figure out how to make the pancakes.  This was a fun Asian twist on a Southern dish.
 Coconut Sweet Rice and Mango Spring Rolls with Raspberry and Vanilla Sauce
We just had to try a dessert on top of everything else.  This was very unusual and delicious.  It wasn't overly sweet, which was nice. The sauce was plenty sweet and was a good enhancement to the mildness of the spring roll.  It was perfectly cooked, crisp on the outside, moist and deliciously gooey on the inside. 
 This is also a tea house and there is a huge list of teas on their menu, but we couldn't resist trying one of their sake infusions instead.  This one was called Joy. 
Chilled Sake, Pineapple and Orange Juice.  It paired well with the spring roll dessert.
All in all Kriss and I had a great dinner dinner together.  Dinner is always better shared with a good friend.  And I think Kriss would agree with me, we highly recommend Lotus Asian Bistro to all of our friends who happen to live near, or be visiting anywhere near Ferndale California. The prices are reasonable, the food is fantastic and the service was stellar. 

You can find them at 619 Main Street, Ferndale CA.  And get this!  They do take out!  You can call them at 707-786-4900.  Click here for a sample of their menu.  Another awesome thing!  They're unlike so many other Humboldt County restaurants in that they have figured out that they need to be open on a Sunday.  I'm beyond thrilled about that!  Their hours are Friday 4 to 9, Saturday and Sunday 11:30 to 9, Monday 4 to 9 and Tuesday 11:30 to 9. Also available for special events and functions.  Go check them out!  You won't regret it.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Book Review - The Kid by Sapphire

Head on over to BlogHer Book club and check out my next book review of The Kid by Sapphire.
http://www.blogher.com/bookclub/hard-core-read-kid-sapphire?from=bookclub

Friday, July 1, 2011

Another book review - Getting to Happy

Check out my book review on Blogher for Getting to Happy here:  http://www.blogher.com/book-review-getting-happy-sequel-waiting-exhale?from=bookclub