Friday, July 17, 2009

Finally, another restaurant review (Pics coming as soon as I'm not on an iPhone)

So we're trying something new today and I'm posting via my iPhone while I guard the front gate of the pioneer village. Yeah I know I'm supposed to be doing something period, but you can only crochet for so long before your eyes fall out or something. Anyway, I took these photos quite a while ago when my collegues and I decided to have an after school shindig and go out to eat. My good friend and fellow food finder Maribeth Clarke suggested we go to Asain Star on Fort Union. I have to admit I wasn't absolutely sold on the idea since I really have to be in the mood for Chinese and going to eat out with Emily usually fills that quota pretty fast, but I had not yet learned the ways of Maribeth and her mad retaurant finding skills, seriously, every place she's taken me to has been incredible, another of which I intend to post about, but you all know how that goes.

The restaurant itself is rather chic and kind of overlooks a long hill. It's really not what you expect a restaurant to look like, with huge 2 story windows and sort of modern styling. The interior is very clean feeling with two huge well-kept aquariums. The hosts were very cordial, and seemed to recognize that Maribeth is a returning customer and I feel they grated us well.

The parking lot is pretty horrendous since they're on a funny-shapped lot and have a funny-shaped building and people in Utah like rediculously large cars. I admit, I never understood the SUV craze, even though my parents have two of them. *shakes head

Anyway, as it turns out the parking lot is worth braving. I loved that it had all the usual dishes found at the every day Chinese joint, pus dishes from Japan, ant I think other cultures as well. Like I said it was a while ago, and we stuck to the common stuff, and the sushi. Mmm, sushi. They had flying fish eggs on their California rolls, I love that.


Some of the must haves at this place are the lettuce wraps, the honey chicken or pork, the gyoza, and above all the Walnut shrimp, which is really saying something considering how I feel about walnuts and shrimp; although my caution is to plan on sharing the shrimp, since I think a whole order of it would be a bit overwhelming, simply because it's fairly sweet, and quite rich. You need something to cut that sweetness.

I have to give them full marks for presentation, too. The garnishes were quite stunning, large flowers that looked like they were made from a shaved jicama or something and died lovely colors. We took them back to school to show the culinary students we liked them so much.



The icing on the cake, or maybe the fortune cookie in this case, was that we had a leftover buffet of awsomeness the next day. This is a real test, I think to have food that will stand up to a night in the fridge and the microwave. All in all this place gets a pricey thumbs up.


I think the best plan of attack for this restaurant is to do like we did and go with several friends so you can do it family style and try lots of things. Also, make it a special occasion because cheep is one thing this place is not.

2 comments:

Thora said...

I'm impressed you wrote this much on a phone! I tried sushi for the first time the other day, and it was really quite good. I was suitably impressed.

violanut said...

It was a REAAALY slow day at work, and I lost my crochet project.