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Saturday, February 04, 2006
The taste of lemon grass
By Jenara Regis Newman
Thai cuisine, says chef Raki Urbina, is “aggressive: sweet, sour, salty, spicy” whereas Vietnamese cuisine is “more healthy, refined, with broths having to be made in three hours to get the flavors out, with almost every kind of food sprinkled with raw herbs on top: very organic, aromatic.”
What makes the two similar is the pervasive use of lemon grass with its subtle, lemony flavor. Which makes Lemon Grass the perfect name for a restaurant that offers both Thai and Vietnamese cuisine.
Chef Raki says that it took the family (of the Café Laguna Group) five years to finally come up with the restaurant located at the Ayala Center. He says the restaurant offers healthy food and offers vegetarian dishes like the Thai Taoho Sawei (royal fried bean curd with sweet and sour sauce) and the Vietnamese Rau Xao Chay (stir-fried vegetables and bamboo shoots) and a most refreshing healthy Citrus and Herb Fresh Lemonade Juice served in a uniquely designed pitcher.
Among the choices for appetizers are two kinds of spring rolls: Goi Cuon (Vietnamese fresh summer rolls) and Pop Piah Todd (fried Thai spring rolls), plus Som Tam (green papaya salad), Yum Pla Muk (spicy squid salad), Yum Nua (Thai beef salad), Banh Xeo (Viet sizzling crepes) and Yam Polamari (tropical fruit salad with chicken and shrimp).
Photographer Arnie Aclao and I had a taste of Pho Bo (Vietnamese beef noodle soup), Chao Tom (shrimp quenelles on sugar cane sticks), Ho Mok Thale (steamed seafood curry wrapped in banana leaves), Goi Cuon and Hoi Dua (coconut sticky rice, the Vietnamese version of our biko). For an afternoon snack, that was really too much but we downed them all along with a pitcher of lemonade juice which Arnie could not have too much of.
If we only had room for it, we would also have wanted to have a sip of Snow Mountain. Now what that is you’ll have to find out for yourself. And there’s a lot, lot more food to find out and savor at Lemon Grass whether you love your food real spicy or subtly flavored. And if you like the pictures shown on this spread, you’ll surely like the taste of them even more.
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (February 4, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
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