One of many bustling Asian cafes on Carrington Street, tempting passers by with pictures of dumplings and other menu favourites in the window, Lotus and Bamboo has a welcoming and casual feel. Big smiles, and a bigger aquarium; paper menus on the wall and free green tea all set the stage for a Taiwanese feast. With eight of us sharing dishes, feast we did.
Entree:
Taiwaness [sic] Style Spring Roll
Taiwanese Style Pickle Cucumber
Marinated Bean Curd
Traditional Sticky Rice Dumpling - Mushroom, chestnut, shrimp, belly pork Vegetarian Sticky Rice Dumpling - Vegetable meat, chestnut, mushroom, bean curd
Lily Flower and pork rib soup
Main:
Pork Meat Ball and Marinated Egg Noodle Soup
Lily Flower and Pork Rib Noodle Soup
Pork Knuckle with Rice
Tawainese Style Deep Fried Chicken with Rice
Authentic Taiwanese Style Beef with Rice
Beef Stir fried Rice with Taiwanese BBQ Sauce
Stir Fried Calamari with Vegetable
Salted Egg with Bitter Melon Hot and Spicy Tofu
Entrée:
The Taiwanese style pickle was sweet and semi-spicy and the cucumber was popular with everyone. In contrast to the light South-East Asian tofu we’ve been enjoying, the bean curd was firm and chewy and only lightly flavoured from the marinade. Taiwanese style spring rolls were fairly similar to the standard Chinese variety.
The “dumplings” were exceptional. Not exactly dumplings per se, they were in fact balls of sticky rice wrapped in palm leaves – a dish called a chung. Both the vegetarian and the traditional were delicious and the palm leaf cup made them easy to share among friends.
Soups:
There was a varied range of soups on the menu, many pork-based like the two we tried. The broth in both soups was quite mild but grew in flavour as the ingredients had time to seep. The marinated egg in particular added a lot of character to its soup. Lily flower had a unique taste – delicate but surprisingly bitter. By themselves, the soups made for pleasant entrees, or they could be reinforced with a generous serving of noodles for a hearty main course.
Mains:
The stir fried beef and calamari were both well handled and tasty, as was the deep fried chicken with its light batter and salt and pepper seasoning. While the stir fry beef was clearly Chinese-inspired, the Taiwanese style beef, in its thick sauce, was more reminiscent of a European stew, like ghoulash. The pork knuckle was not as challenging as it may sound, with beautifully tender, somewhat fatty meat that came easily off the bone. It was complemented by a sweet brown sauce, made using palm sugar.
Bitter melon and salty egg was a dish to be remembered. The salty egg, which formed a kind of thick sauce, was delicious. The bitter melon which was, well, bitter. Very very bitter. Most of this dish remained uneaten by the end but we did have a lot of fun watching each other trying to eat it. An acquired taste, perhaps?
Possibly the best of the mains was the tofu. With a good soft texture, it was served finely diced and stirred in with the chilli sauce. It took longer than the other dishes to make it to the table but it was worth waiting for.
Overall:
Lotus and Bamboo had a menu catering to a range of tastes, and at $15-25 each was value for money. Alongside regional delicacies like “marinated intestine”, were more broadly appealing Taiwanese specialties and a selection of familiar Chinese-style classics. On the whole, dishes tended to be lightly flavoured. While we had the one disappointing entree and the bitter melon was more of an adventure than a meal, the food was good and the casual atmosphere was suited to enjoying it with friends.
