While I was researching for places to go for my work lunch the other day, I had come across Lotus Blue and seriously thought about going. Even though I opted for Landmarc, I had bookmarked this place in my head as a place to try soon because of the great reviews it got on Yelp and the fact that it seemed like a legit Chinese place in Tribeca. Funnily enough, I had drinks with Virginia that night and she had mentioned walking by this place. Since she's one of my go-to Asian food partners, I figured why not?
This is definitely not your Chinatown-like Chinese place. Of course, since it's Tribeca, it's got a bit of an upscale feel, but it's not too snotty or high brow. The menu here is Yunnan style so similar to that of Yunnan Kitchen. I was a bit overwhelmed with all the options, but ended up ordering the crispy scallion pancakes ($6), pork chive potstickers ($8), three delight cross-bridge noodles ($18) and the steamed whole sea bass with black bean sauce ($23). Yes, it was a lot of food but we somehow managed to eat everything. We actually started with the cross-bridge noodles first. I'll be honest, I didn't read the description of the dish so when it came out, it was totally not what I expected. For some reason I thought it would be a pan fried noodle, but it says directly on the menu that there is broth to it. So it was a giant steaming bowl of noodle soup. They give you a bowl of rice noodles, pork, chicken, and shrimp in a bowl and then a separate plate of vegetables and a raw quail egg. Then the waiter comes over and pours the steaming hot pork bone broth into the noodle bowl. Pretty unique. It was fragrant (probably due to this large flower floating in it) and is the kind of dish that would be really soothing on a cold night. It was definitely large enough to be an entree for 1 person. The noodles were tender and hot broth cooked all the meat, egg and vegetables well. There were some chili flakes floating around in there that gave it a kick, but it actually could have used just a bit more salt to it. But overall, it was a solid noodle soup dish. Next came the scallion pancake and dumplings. These were also both great standard staple dishes. The pancake was fried nicely and came with a honey or lime soy dipping sauce. I could have used a bit more scallion in them, but overall it was your typical delicious crispy pancake. The dumplings were also tasty. They were pan seared and had a giant thin layer of dough crust on top of it. I've seen other places do this too and I'm not sure why because that's really not that part that people want to eat. They want to get to the juicy pork filling. In any case, the dumplings were nicely filled and executed. The dough wasn't too thick and the pork was flavored well. Lastly came the whole steamed sea bass. For those of you who have read my blog long enough, you'll know that I am obsessed with whole steamed fish. I wish I ate it more often here and it's one of the dishes that I always make my mom make for me when I go home. Not only is it good for you, but it's just plain delicious. The sea bass here was steamed with ginger, scallion, and house made black bean sauce. We (well mostly me!) pretty much destroyed it and left no piece of meat unturned. It was a bit bonier than I would have liked it and I think it was due to it's slightly smaller size. Even though I don't find steamed fish to be super filling, combined with all the other food we had, I was definitely full at the end. I loved that the waiter automatically knew to bring a bowl of white rice for the fish. One of my biggest pet peeves if having to order rice at a Asian restaurant. It should always come with a meal and I shouldn't have to ask for it!
The waitstaff here was really nice, very enthusiastic and genuinely seemed happy that we were happy. I was really glad that we tried this place and I noticed that they have some affordable lunch specials that I would totally be willing to try during the work week. I was surprised at how much I liked this place since I traditionally favor more whole in the wall ethnic places, but sometimes you do want to be in a slightly nicer setting. I'm just glad it's not too uber trendy like the rest of the neighborhood. But yes, the prices to reflect where it is (I think everything was about $3-7 more than they needed to be) but I guess they have to make money somehow. Total bill: $44/pp with tax and tip
Photo Credit: Yelp
No comments:
Post a Comment