Green Bamboo January 18th 2017

Present: Megan, Jim, Karen, John, Ron, Andrew

Back in action

We started the new year back with an old favourite – the Green Bamboo in Swinger Hill.  It’s a fairly standard Vietnamese restaurant but the food is always reliable and reasonably priced.  It ticks a few other boxes for us - quiet, close-by and plenty of parking.   Although the evening was hot, the restaurant was nice and cool when we arrived - no doubt helped by the blinds being drawn. These were raised later in the evening for us to enjoy the spectacular sunset….a highlight of our first restaurant night for 2017.

We started our meal with 2 serves of Vietnamese spring rolls – a standard entrée but done well.  We then shared 5 main dishes (lemon grass lamb, caramelised pork, chicken with cashew nuts, sizzling fish fillet and stir fried vegetables with bean curd).  With steamed rice, this was plenty of food for the six of us without over-indulging.  The 2 most popular dishes of the night were the lemon grass lamb and sizzling fish.  The finely chopped lemon grass added both taste and texture to the dish and nicely complemented the lamb.   The fish had a crisp (fried) battered coating which married well with a light, sweet-style sauce. 

The other dishes were all individually nice but unfortunately they were very similar in both presentation and taste which made the banquet seem quite boring. Each dish was also very sweet and seemed to overpower the fresher elements of the dish, particularly the vegetables.          

Not surprisingly after a lot of sweet main dishes, Andrew, Megan and John opted to skip dessert but our dessert aficionados (Ron and Jim) were still keen and ordered fried bananas and Karen decided to try the fried ice cream.  The desserts were quite standard but again done well.  The fried ice cream was the nicer of the two desserts – it was perfectly cooked in fresh oil and the “cakey” coating had a lovely coconut flavour.

Overall, we would have preferred more freshness and variety in the dishes but it was still nice to be back in action and we’re looking forward to more restaurant nights in 2017!

  

China Tea House 30-11-16

•  Tea House duck pancakes
• Gone with the wind (shredded, crispy chinese broccoli leaves topped with ground spiced chicken) 
• Shredded premium beef eye fillet stir fried with pickled mustard and a complement of vegetables on a bed of fried vermicelli
• Diced aubergine and bean curd with mushrooms
• Deep fried ice cream
• Banana Fritter and ice cream

Attended by Jim, John and Ron.

The duck pancakes were delicious. The restaurant kindly obliged by making a serving of three - one each.

The Gone with the Wind was a new dish for us. It was really, really good. The crispy chinese broccoli was a great contrast with the beautifully spiced chicken.

The beef was also a new dish. It was very nice - tender and a lovely flavour from the pickled mustard, with again a contrast of crunch from the fried vermicelli.

The aubergine and bean curd was a nice combination, with a good flavour over the top from the mushrooms.

The deep fried ice cream was as to be expected, nothing special but still good.

Jim reported that the banana fritter was up to his demanding standard.

All in all a very enjoyable meal, We liked every dish and were just nicely full when we wandered off home.