Red Lotus Vietnamese Chargrill Restaurant in Annerley

QUICKLY! BLOG ABOUT THIS PLACE BEFORE SOMEONE ELSE DOES~! When I find out about a new place opening, I rush to try and eat there before anyone else blogging does. This is because in the opening days, it gives your blog massive views as it is still so new, no one has really checked out the place! 

HOW ARE THERE SO MANY PEOPLE THERE ALREADY

My review for Greek on Cav a few months ago, is still one of the only blog posts about the place and so I still get obscure amounts of traffic when people check it out. That being said, Greek on Cav has a ridiculous amount of fraudulent diner reviews, notice that everyone joined up and reviewed the place in the same day and never blogged again? Suspicious much.

Wow lol. Much real. Much suspicious.

Anyway, I don't know how I know this but the restaurant is owned by the same guy who owns Red Lotus in Fortitude Valley. His sister is the lady who owns Cafe O-Mai right next door! Here is a link if you don't believe me! I really enjoyed my visit to Cafe O-Mai earlier this year, so I knew I had to go to Red Lotus. I've never been to the one in the Valley as I've always been inticed away to a different restaurant. This one was apparently opened up as a more casual dining place, and the menu is much smaller than its original restaurant. At the time of report, there is no online menu for this restaurant, so don't check out the Red Lotus website.

Their menu is absolutely beautiful, unlike most Asian restaurants. It looks like they took the time to get a really good photographer in to take photos of all their food. The menu is a large glossy mostly photo based menu. It also has lots of loving description of all the food so its perfect for people who haven't had Vietnamese food before.

Their house policy is oddly specific

The interior is all dark wooden and bright red lanterns. I think its very pretty.

Pretty

Pretty

Pretty!

So yeah, Red Lotus!

Aw yiss!

I was ponderding what to order when I saw their drinks menu, I saw lychee smoothie and then I realised . . . ASIAN SMOOTHIES!? I frantically scanned the menu for the magic words durian, but alas, there wasn't any. So out of the choice of jackfruit, avocado, lychee or soursop, I picked avocado!

Don't knock avocado as a sweet flavour until you try it! Most Asian countries eat avocado as a sweet, try it someday with a little bit of sugar scattered on top. It's smooth, creamy, mild flavour is perfect as a sweet! Especially blended with ice/condensed milk/milk/sugar and partially frozen for a creamy ice cream like confection, perfect for lactose intolerant people!

This avocado smoothie is barely noticable as being avocado. It still has that very characteristic super thickness that you only notice with avocado smoothies, even thickshakes don't come anywhere near close. It has a very, very milk taste of avocado though. Jubi was intrigued and kept drinking it as she has never had it before, she particularly liked the consistency of the drink. It was very useful to quelch the firey hotness of my Boyfriend's food later on.

So tasty!

We were a bit confused when my Boyfriend's lychee frappe appeared as it was a lot greener than my avocado milkshake. He couldn't figured out what was wrong with it but when we swapped and I drank it, I figured it out, mint! Dastardly mint appearing in my beloved lychee drink! That being said, mint and lychee is a wonderful combination and this one was delicious as all lychee frappes invariably turn out to be.

So green. TSG on the right, Jubi on the left

I picked the mixed entree to try a bit of everything since they had a choice of different rice paper rolls, dimsum, spring rolls or salt and pepper squid. I wasn't super keen for salt and pepper squid on its own so I decided for mixed entree. We decided to split each entree morsel between the three of us, one bite of each, with my Boyfriend having the first bite, Jubi having the opposing end bite and myself frantically holding together the centre.

The rice paper roll contained Berkshire pork, Crystal Bay prawns, mint, lettuce, vermicelli noodles, cucumber and garlic chives. They were short, fat and very compact. Jubi enjoyed it as she had never had any before. My Boyfriend said it tasted mostly of mint and he said he has made much better. I have to somewhat agree, as I was disappointed that they were so small. The ones I make at home are about three times that length and the same thickness. That being said the ingredients used were great and the presentation is exactly the same as how I would do them at home. Minus the shortness.

The spring roll was delicious! Super golden brown, crispy, crunchy and with a very meaty pork, carrot, vermicelli, seaweed and onion filling. This was universally enjoyed between the three of us and I remember Jubi saying, this was the best spring roll she had ever had. I think they tasted exactly the same as what Mama Pham makes.

The dim sum was huge, considering its size, if everything else was squished into a ball, the dim sum would occupy more space. The dim sum was also well recieved although it was a touch plain, as noted by Jubi, as she had hers without any soy sauce. It was very meaty and moist with pork mince, shredded carrot and onion for the filling. 

The sauces from top to bottom on the right hand side of this photo are soy sauce, Vietnamese fish dipping sauce and then peanut sauce. The soy sauce was ordinary stuff. The Vietnamese fish sauce was well balanced with a hint of chilli, my Boyfriend disagreed saying it was tasteless. The peanut dipping sauce was terrible, it was very bland and most peanuts with a lot of sweetness.

L-R rice paper roll, spring roll and dim sum
Top to bottom, soy sauce, fish sauce and peanut dipping sauce

Jubi ordered the green papaya salad with Berkshire pork and Crystal Bay prawns. She was pondering the tofu but then baulked when she realised it was deep fried and she didn't want the papaya salad plain. The green papaya salad was pretty average by my expectations, consisting of shredded green papaya, mint, carrot, Berkshire pork, Crystal Bay prawns and dressed with some type of citrus and sugar. There were also three unstale prawn crackers on the side that were tasty.

Mmm tasty

My Boyfriend had no idea what he wanted until he saw the lemongrass chilli chicken stirfry, Then he decided he really, really, really wanted it, because there were five levels of spice, just normal thanks (mild), heroic (medium), legendary (hot), god like (off the chart hot). He thought he could have god like and I laughed and disagreed, in the end he got legendary, which was a great idea. 

This was because when I was taking a photo of his meal, I touched a piece of chicken with my thumb, licked my thumb and could not feel my tongue for about five minutes even sipping the avocado smoothie. I have solid spice tolerance, his is better than mine, but my Boyfriend started crying from how hot it was. He managed to finish about three fifths of it before he couldn't handle it. I took for an excruciating fifth and then he took over for the final fifth mostly consisting of onions, two pieces of chicken and capsicum.

That being said, this meal while being suicidally spicy, was very flavoursome and well balanced in flavour. I wanted to continue the food even though I could not feel my tongue. At one point, I was punching the air because of how hot it was. This dish consisted of chicken, capsicum both red and green and onion as well as Jasmine rice. I can't figure out what else is in the sauce besides chilli, garlic, lemongrass, soy sauce and crushed peppercorns.

So fucking spicy

I got the HLS chicken, honey, lemongrass and seasame as well as some other unamed ingredients in the marinade. It was a boneless, splayed maryland chunk of chicken with a drumstick bone attached, cooked over a charcoal fire to give it that delicious smokey flavour. The chicken was so tender, juicy with a crispy skin that tasted of charcoal and lemongrass. The side salad was very flat in appearance with red onion, tomato, mint, green capsicum and cucumber, it was okay. It wasn't something I would be happy to recieve as a main, but it was a good addition with the chicken. I got some jasmine rice with Vietnamese dipping sauce as well.

Tasty~

My Boyfriend and I decided to get dessert, deep fried ice cream with a choice of sauce. I got forest berries and he got chocolate. The deep fried ice cream actually came out faster than our mains. The batter was a fragrant coconut laden mess although it wasn't the dark golden brown of the pictures. inside the menu. My berry sauce was tasty, tart and sweet, with mostly crushed raspberry. His chocolate sauce was better, rich and thick. We both recieved vanilla ice cream inside ours.

Berry haemtypsis

Chocolate snot

Red Lotus Vietnamese
Appearance: 8, shiny wood, tasteful Vietnamese pictures and gorgeous red lanterns everywhere. There was a lot of light and so it was easy to see our meals.
Service: 3, our waiter was quite abrupt and rude, which is odd because the waiters and waitresses of this restaurant are the same ones that work in Cafe O-Mai next door and they have impeccable friendly service. Our waiter was quite inattentive, frequently seen lurking around the front entrance, seemed put off by some of our requests like asking for more water or getting our water jug replaced since it was taken away. 

When we were ordering dessert, I asked for the menu so I could see what we could get for the Asian flavours and he brazenly replied sesame, vanilla and something else. I had read the menu once and I knew that there was at least black sesame, taro, jackfruit, durian and taro ice cream. I was asking mostly to find out what sauce I could have. I asked if we could deep fried ice cream with berry sauce and chocolate and he replied that he wasn't sure if there was any berry sauce, so he took my order as chocolate. Rude.
Food: 7, I would have scored this an 8 if it was slightly larger in portion size. The food is very tasty but not as good as my mum's. I would, however, happily go back here with friends who wanted to try Vietnamese food.