I have often lamented that although I am fortunate enough to live in an area with a significant number of vegetarian restaurants, I tend to visit my couple favorites without trying new places. But, I finally made it out to visit Lotus, a mostly Asian restaurant located in an unassuming strip mall in a suburb of Washington, DC. It's certainly not the first place you'd expect to find a vegetarian restaurant, but that's part of what's exciting. How glorious that vegetarian eateries are no longer exclusively in big cities or college towns or hippie communes, but in suburbs and exurbs and small towns and medium towns.
The restaurant was casual, and although it was clear that take-out was a considerable focus, a waitress greeted us at the door and showed us to a booth. Traffic was light, although I thought it wasn't too bad considering it was the middle of the afternoon.
The menu is extensive, and with no prior experiences or recommendations to go on, it took me a while to decide. My dining partner and I, as fans of the ever-popular Fried Chicken appetizer at Vienna, VA's Sunflower Vegetarian Restaurant, we settled on the Golden Chicken Nuggets. Unlike Sunflower's free-form shapes, these were more oblong - a la Chicken McNuggets, and the portion seemed smaller. I was skeptical, and I still was unsure after the first couple of bites. But, they had a nice crispy breading, and somehow, they grew on me.
The menu also included a limited selection of brown-rice sushi. Since sushi restaurants rarely offer more than the standard cucumber or avocado rolls, we were happy to try the Rainbow Roll, which featured vege-ham, tofu skin, organic carrots, pickled radishes, asparagus, cucumber, and soy protein strips. They were unique and tasty. The radishes provided a sour tang, the asparagus was crunchy, and the rice was soft and almost creamy. I would order it again.
The menu also had soups, salads, burgers and sandwiches, rice and noodles, but we decided to try two entrees to try to really see what they could do. I chose Savory Eggplant, described as "eggplants stewed with vege ham, jicama, wood ear and Thai basil in ginger sauce." This Thai-style eggplant is a dish I frequently have, and this was a very good version. Often, they sauce is too thick and cloying, or the chef overdoes the spice. Neither were a problem here. The eggplant was tender, there was just the right amount of basil, and the light sauce was just the right balance of sweet and heat.
Our second entree, the Vege-Chicken with Cashews, had "diced soy protein sauteed with sugar peas, zucchini, organic carrots, jicama, white mushrooms with cashew nuts in brown sauce." The dish was good: the sauce was light, the nuts were nicely toasted, and the vegetables were plentiful and fresh. However, beyond the fact that a restaurant meal featuring "vege-chicken" is already special, it just wasn't, well, particularly special. It was a solid dish, though.
Oh, and how could I forget? My dining companion, a vegan and French fry fan, just couldn't resist the "organic" fries on the menu. Because, as he said, "When do you get to have organic French fries!?!?" And so, we did. They were thin-cut (I hate to make another McDonald's reference here...) and lightly salted and good enough, I suppose. But I have French fries so rarely that when I do have them I want them to be delicious, and these were a hair short of that. They were not quite crispy enough for my taste, and even being "organic" didn't quite make up for it.
It's hard not to compare the restaurant to Sunflower, not only because both are Asian, vegetarian restaurants in the DC suburbs, but because so many items on the menu are similar. On the whole, Sunflower still gets my vote. Although their menu does have a few misses, they offer unique dishes and seem to provide a better value. That being said, I'm glad for the efforts made by every vegetarian restaurant out there, and I would happily return to Lotus again.
What gorgeous rolls! I would definitely eat here if I were in the area, it looks like a fantastic restaurant.
Posted by: Hannah | June 09, 2009 at 07:21 AM