Square Lotus

Square Lotus in Bellevue, Washington was an average Vietnamese place that seemed to cater to vegetarians.  It had a Four Star rating on Yelp (but in our opinion was not deserving).  The place had a very strip-mally decor down to faux brick wall paper, wobbly tables, and plates with the Square Lotus logo.

We ordered a few things, summer rolls, tropic rolls, stir fried soft egg noodles with beef (spicy style), and  super pho bowl (pho tai bo).  

Summer Rolls

Summer Rolls: They were a few herbs on the inside away from perfection, but they were very well done here. I prefer the fried wonton to be rolled in the middle, but to their credit they did include them flattened and in small pieces in the center.

Tropic Rolls

Tropic Rolls. We loved the combination of flavors and grilled chicken, but this roll was also missing a few herbs.  It was a nice variation from the classic summer roll, but was a little bland.

Stir Fried Noodles with Beef

Stir Fried Soft Egg Noodles with Beef - Spicy.  The portion was very small compared to other noodle or Chinese places.  The flavors were subtle, they don't jump out and slap you and "very very spicy" turned into barely spicy when it hit the tablet.  That was a tremendous disappointment.  The dish was good, in an average sort of way, but at over $9 I would not order them again.

Super Pho Bowl. Pho Tai (Bo).  The Pho broth was light, flavorful, and meaty, and the bowl is spacious (a personal preference I have come to view as vital).  The dish was very meaty when ordering the "super," but we can't comment on the regular (and judging by the noodles I suspect it may be very different).  The broth to noodles to meat ration was, therefore, quite on point if you order the Super Pho.  On the dig side, the broth was quite cloudy, which my wife assumed was due to not pre-boiling the beef bones before adding them to the pot with the other components (a quick was to make cloudy Pho broth at home).   

The biggest problem was really the poor, poor service.  Although we appeared to catch them during their lunch, the staff was not attentive at all.  We also got no hoisin sauce, crushed red pepper, or anything else out on the table (nor was it brought to us for quite some time after we had our food).  It was average, but with so many Vietnamese places in the Seattle area, there is no reason to overpay for noodles and get good (but not great) Pho with bad service.  I suspect if you are a vegetarian, you like this restaurant more  because they clearly cater to you with a large portion of the menu highlighted as Vegetarian.  If I were you though, I'd keep looking, because there are better places out there that also have vegetarian fare...



Square Lotus Fine Vietnamese & Vegetarian Cuisine
3540 Factoria Blvd SE # A
Bellevue, WA 98006
(425) 679-0680

2.5 of 5

wild ginger in bellevue

My wife and I decided to visit Wild Ginger in Bellevue.  I had heard that Wild Ginger was lauded locally as one of the best new restaurants in Seattle in 2010.  As it turned out, it was Restaurant Week.  We were able to have three courses for $28, a fair price.

Wild Ginger has pan Asian fare.  Think, PF Chang's.  As we walked in, the hostess looked harried.  It turned out that an event bought out half of her restaurant, and with the Microsofties having easy access to it due to its location in the Bravern and Restaurant Week in Seattle, it was jumping.  She promised a 20 minute wait, and I responded by asking if she meant a real 20 minutes or optimistic 20.  If it was optimistic, we were out of there before dinner started.  She said real, and to her credit, we were seated at about 13 minutes into the wait.

My wife, who has been reading a book by Ruth Reichl, noted both that we were sat in the back corner of the restaurant, and that the chairs were comfortable.  This was, in her estimation, a minus and a plus (in that order).  Speaking of, we ordered fried oysters, pork (meatball) satay, Singapore beef, spinach prawns, banana bavarian cake, and pumpkin cheesecake mochi.

As for the food, the appetizers came out quickly and the pan fried oysters were good sized, fresh, tasty oysters. The sauce was sort of a jazzed up version of tonkatsu sauce.  (For those uninitiated, Tonkatsu sauce is used frequently in Japanese cuisine with, surprisingly, Katsu's [fried schnitzel-like dishes] and tastes like a sweeter version of A-1.)  The house-made pork satay, a pork "meatball" on a stick of sorts, was juicy with onion, pepper, and was grilled to display nice char marks.  It was very tasty, but its sauce was average - a basic sort of fish sauce with vinegar, a la egg roll sauce you can buy in a bottle at the Asian supermarket for $2.00 per jug.  The meatball-on-a-stick did come with a few house made pickles, which did a good job of cutting the fat and adding a nice pop of flavor.
 
The main courses were not what we anticipated.  The Singapore beef, my wife dubbed "eggplant seasoned with beef."  Frankly, it tasted like any good Szechuan beef with eggplant.  There was nothing distinctly Singaporean about it.  It was a good spice level for me, but too much for my wife - who had to give up after a small portion.  The spinach prawns surprised us too. Not necessarily in a good way.  As the picture makes clear, it was almost a creamed spinach with some fish sauce served over medium-large shrimp.  It started off pretty decent, but not reminding me of anything particularly "Asian" I have eaten, but lost its appeal after cooling.  Beyond the visual of a plate of green "gloppy" substance, it also had a bit more fish sauce than it needed.  The entree came with a  string bean plate that was no different than Chinatown for $5.  That said, it was a good rendition of the dish, and also had a good spice level. 

 

In the end, the desserts let down the rest of the meal.  The banana Bavarian cake was dry.  It had the flavor of banana, but didn't hit you on the mouth with banana like you may expect from a desert named "banana Bavarian cake."  The mochi, don't even get me started.   The pumpkin cheesecake was more like pumpkin pie filling, and the outer layer of the mochi was so thick as to almost make the dessert inedible.  They really let down the rest of the meal, which was itself a better rendition of PJ Chang's.

The service, in a word, was average.  It didn't take anything away from the meal, but certainly didn't add anything either.  Our drinks were filled, sometimes, and the waitress came around to ask about us, occasionally.  For the first time in awhile, a server earned a tip of 15%.  Average, but below my defacto average of 20%.  I would recommend this restaurant to anyone who wanted to go to a slightly upscale version of an average International District restaurant when a group, or husband/wife, cannot decide between Thai, Vietnamese, and Chinese.

Wild Ginger in Bellevue
11020 NE 6th St. Ste 90. 
Bellevue, WA 98004 
(425) 495-8889
3.5 of 5

pho hai yen (seattle)

a 2. no, a 4. no, a 3. no, 3.25. no, 3.5. no, a 0. maybe a 5?

oh pho hai yen, how i want to love you. how i want to tell all 3 people who read this blog how they should run, not walk, to buy your bahn mi and fresh spring rolls. the bahn mi are the best in seattle, and come in a pork or chicken option. the pork, depending on the day, is either a thin-strip-less-tasty-but-still-good variety, a la the spring rolls, or bbq - which is excellent.

alas pho hai yen, i cannot. why? no, not because your pho is little better than average. or your bbq meat noodle bowls are likewise only 'good,' but because i cannot trust how you would treat my friends and strangers. your prices are an ever moving bullseye that i cannot comprehend.

your bahn mi, and spring rolls, have cost me a myriad of amounts. your menu says one thing, you ring up another in your register, and in the end it almost seems you're adding a 25% tax. an idiot tax? but i can count! your food is still a good deal, but the practice is dishonest. and i don't like it.

there is no real way to justify it. i have asked you more than once. you have shorted me an order of fresh rolls that i called in, and later when i told you (and had paid for it), you acted incredulously. you then did nothing. my last visit, you overcharged me a phantom $4 on top of the overestimation of tax and rounded up price rates. $2.75, for example, becomes $3.00 at a minimum.

so what do i do with you? first, i reflect upon my experience with other vietnamese people. while certainly a generalization, and maybe unfair, i have never met a group of more chinsy and schiester-y folks. always trying to get one up on you or cheat you (not all, but many), it's not like a flea market where it is in your face. it's not an indian or iranian rug merchant, or american used car salesman, or chinese herbalist. nay. and i have had no such problem with most thai folks, or filipino or malaysians, so it's not southeast asian. no, this seems a vietnamese thing. maybe a hold over from war-era animosity in the north (from whence pho came) or french colonial days. who knows! i expect you to make faces when i ask for sauce containers, and to give me one, or two, when i order 5 or 6 orders so i have to ask for more like the ugly, sauce-whore american that i am. but to so blatantly overcharge me, and different sums, every time?! even when your hand has been caught in the cookie jar? many times! i wish you'd learn, so you could earn the accolades your bahn mi deserve.

pho hai yen
810 rainier ave s
seattle, wa 98127
(206) 323-5570
4.5 of 5 (bahn mi and fresh rolls)
3 of 5 (pho)
2.5 of 5 (overall)

(pho) vina asian restaurant

little did i know that spokane had any real ethnic foods. sure, they have a fantastic new ethiopian place, which certainly rivals any in seattle - but pho??

yes. they have great pho. not good, not average, but great. this review is going to focus on vina asian restaurant's pho. they have other things on the menu, a hodgepodge of chinese, vietnamese, and thai-ish fare. the rest of the food looked marginally better than average, and the fresh rolls were ok. just ok. they were missing flavor in the pork. they were on the small side, and had some nice fresh herbs but not many. to be really good, they need to grill off the pork or do something to make them stand out. the sauce they serve with it could also be improved, and more herbaceous. while the fresh rolls seem be be an ok deal, compared to other vietnamese places they're on the pricy side for the portion they offer. if you haven't had fresh rolls, these are a fair rendition and you won't be disappointed, but don't go out of your way for them.

but do go out of your way for the pho!

the broth flavor was very good. so good i tried to coax my waitress into telling me about it. she wouldn't. the green onions were a nice touch, in particular as it's not unusual to order some fresh onion for 50 cents to a buck at other places. they also had the fresh regular onions too, gratis. the bowl itself was very reminiscent of hanoi pho because the broth is incredibly light, but flavorful and herbaceous. at the same time, it was better than any of the pho I had in vietnam. the sawtooth cilantro (coriander) was a welcome surprise. this southeast asian delicacy (the sawtooth cilantro herb) seems to be too expensive to be a mainstay at american pho restaurants. the warmed bean sprouts were also an interesting touch. warming them turns them an unsettling brown, but the addition of a small amount of heat keeps them from cooling down your broth! maybe if they were grilled, to add a smokey flavor, that would be the best of all worlds. (i digress.)

in addition, while a trivial thing, I love love love the size of the bowl!! the soup fits in it, with room. see. no overflow issues! it's such a small thing, but makes the experience of eating it less -stressful maybe- than even normally.

my only real dings: the restaurant was sparing on the meat they included compared to most other places and there was no brisket option.  oh well.

(pho) vina asian restaurant
2303 n ash st, #a
spokane, wa 99205
(509) 328-2197
4.5 of 5 (pho only)