Lemon Grass

Posted by Breeze on Monday, February 11, 2008 at 8:18 pm
Category: Breeze

I have a new favorite restaurant. My husband and I had the best date Friday night that we’ve had in ages, in part because dinner was so amazingly, overwhelmingly good that we were a little giddy with excitement that we had found such an amazing new spot. We live in the land of McDonalds and Applebees, so it’s little wonder we get excited about the small places.

We unloaded the kids on two of my sisters and my brother-in-law, and started with dinner out. We were going to go to Stir Fry Cafe because we felt like something Asian but weren’t dying for Taste of Thai, our typical destination, but we were passing by the new place I had seen a sign advertising. We decided to give it a try.

I have to admit that I am a slight restaurant cleanliness snob. I’m not a fan of greasy spoons, and certainly not its ethnic food cousin, so going to a restaurant in an old, run-down shopping center that can’t even hang on to a Food City has kept me from trying Lemon Grass before. I just figured that anyone opening a restaurant there would have a shoe-string budget and thus a grubby restaurant. I was wrong. The place was fresh as a daisy.

I can’t recall ever having had better service. The server was unobtrusive, but she appeared with our entrees the very moment I put my soup spoon down. It was obvious she had been watching from the wings to time things perfectly. My only complaint is that I’m not a big fan of having someone else put my napkin in my lap, but that’s fairly trivial, and it’s obviously an individual preference for more personal space. I’m willing to overlook this for the food at Lemon Grass.

I had the Tom Kha-Kai, a long-time favorite that I have given up because my regular Thai place doesn’t make a good one, but at Lemon Grass it is wonderful. Next time I’ll ask for it to be spicier, but it was otherwise the best I’ve had. My husband had the vegetable soup, and it was amazing. It was full of broccoli and tofu among other tasty tidbits. I can’t even describe how delicate the flavors were.

Delicate was a descriptor that came up again and again. The yellow curry? Light and delicate. How, I ask, does one make a coconut curry that isn’t at all heavy? The pad Thai was great, but the yellow curry was so amazing that I was a little jealous.

Who wants to take me out to lunch?