Red Lantern and my brush with fame

I'm a fan of places with elegant names. Ever since I mentioned that there's this restaurant in Surry Hills that I'd like to try, Vay would always claim that he knows this place, but he could never get the name right. Red Lamp was it? But that's Vay for you. Always wanting credit for other people's ideas.

So we finally decide to visit this little place, with little more than directions over the phone. After a few tired "Are we there yets" from Vay, we arrive at an exotic restaurant that looked rather like a refurbished terrace house. It had outdoor heaters on the balcony, but we were seated indoors, the place had dark wooden floors and a quiet atmosphere, with accents of red. We were seated next to a fireplace, which we weren't sure was working, but I'm sure it would have been nice in winter.

So this is it, is it? I'd heard it was hard to get into this place, but I suppose being a Thursday night, they managed to accommodate us easily. The waiters attended to us swiftly, but there was something offhand about them. Vay mentioned later on that they seemed somewhat posh, in the way that they were telling us what sauce goes with what. Vay commented later that maybe the fact that we were asian escaped them.

One of them suggested we have the special of the day, five spice roasted duck with "asian greens". Asian greens? Why couldn't they just say it was served with choy sum? I mean, if they're going to use vietnamese names for their dishes, why dumb it down?

Though, I suppose they're only thinking of their audience, which, based on the crowd that night, was a majority of caucasians. Which leads me to comment on the dishes that we sampled. The entree of goi cuon consisted of a few small rice paper rolls, cut into pieces, sushi style. I tried seeing if there was anything significantly different about these, but I was disappointed to see that it tasted pretty much the same as it would have tasted if I'd had been in Cabramatta. Same goes for the goi du du (green papaya salad).

One of my favourite takeaway dishes is bo luc lac, and Red Lantern's version used "pasture fed black Angus sirloin". I found the meat a bit tough, but I suppose that was due to the cooking method. Wok frying tends to toughen meat. And they didn't offer us a dipping sauce of lemon juice and pepper! God, that's practically mandatory with bo luc lac. At $26, it wasn't cheap, for a similar dish in Cabramatta, you'd pay a max of $10. What a rip.

We actually did have the duck special. But again, there was something disappointing about how the meat seemed dry and lacking, and considering it was $34, you'd think it would have had at least less bones in the whole dish. But no, that wasn't to be.

Maybe the one redeeming feature was noticing that the co-owner Luke Nguyen had come in, and was casually helping out as if he were a waiter. I wasn't sure at first if it was him, as he seemed to be working quietly behind the scenes. No one else seemed to realise it was him either. He even managed to accidently knock over a glass as he was clearing our table.

Ah well, can't blame a guy for trying.