Red Lantern, Darlinghurst
With the closure of the Crown Street Surry Hills outlet, we decided to venture to it's surviving branch on Riley Street, Darlinghurst for a special birthday dinner.
Setting
The setting in Red Lantern is somewhere a mix of 50s Vietnamese and modern.
The front of house is a restaurant and the back of house is a bar (Red Lily). You will have to get a booking in advance for a table in the front of house. You might be able to get a bar seat at Red Lily, but they do serve a different menu.
The restaurant is rather dark. It is mainly lit by old pendant lights above each dining space. It did make photography rather challenging.
Menu
There are 2 set deguestation menus one at $69 and the other at $85. The $85 menu will only be served at the later 8pm seating. It also has a optional $145 set of matching wines. There is also an excellent drink menu with exotic and interesting cocktails.
Click to enlarge
Drinks
As it was a birthday, we decided to splurge a little on 2 cocktails.
Hulong Bay Sil - Muddled watermelon and basil with gin, elderflower liqueur, apple juice and a dash of lemon. Simply sweet and refreshing.
Uncle Ho's Accomplice - 12 year old Flor de Cana rum, Licor 43, and a dash of chocolate bitters, served old fashion style with orange zest to finish. Super smooth rum topped off with an zesty orange finish. Loved this one.
Food
We went for the $85 Saigon Scrumptious set dinner. This was a 10 course deguestation menu.
Cuon Ca Hoi - Soft rice paper rolls of smoked salmon and Vietnamese herbs. This was probably the most well constructed rice paper roll we've ever had. All the ingredients were perfectly straight and wrapped tightly into a roll. At no point did the roll start to crumble, very unlike the $5 ones you get from your Vietnamese bakery.
Muc Rang Muoi - Lightly battered chili salted squid with fresh lemon and white pepper dipping sauce. Perfectly cooked squid. Very light and fluffy and not rubbery at all. The dipping sauce went very well with the squid.
So Diep Nuong Nuoc Sot Chua - Seared scallops with tamari and kaffir lime leaf dressing. I personally can't say no to scallops. This one was another perfectly cooked dish. The tamari and lime brought a fresh and zesty flavour.
Goi Mit va Ot Cay - Young jackfruit salad with lemongrass, galangal and chili paste. I personally didn't really understand this dish. There was a lot of strips of lemongrass and young jackfruit mixed with galangal and chili paste. It did taste a whole bunch of very fibrous covered with chili. On the plus side, the sesame rice crispies was fantastic.
Service
The food came painfully slow. We started dinner just before 8pm and didn't leave till past 11:30pm. The longer the dinner went on, the more disinterested in the food we became. There were at times gaps of more than 30 minutes between courses. Towards 10pm, we were just hoping the dinner will end.
Overall
The food was good - but nothing really stood out as $85 brilliance. Dinner really shouldn't last for 3.5 hours. The wait probably was what killed the whole experience. The drinks were quite a standout. We'll be back to the bar instead for drinks and snacks. Hopefully that won't take 3.5 hours again!.
Setting
The setting in Red Lantern is somewhere a mix of 50s Vietnamese and modern.
The front of house is a restaurant and the back of house is a bar (Red Lily). You will have to get a booking in advance for a table in the front of house. You might be able to get a bar seat at Red Lily, but they do serve a different menu.
The restaurant is rather dark. It is mainly lit by old pendant lights above each dining space. It did make photography rather challenging.
Menu
There are 2 set deguestation menus one at $69 and the other at $85. The $85 menu will only be served at the later 8pm seating. It also has a optional $145 set of matching wines. There is also an excellent drink menu with exotic and interesting cocktails.
Click to enlarge
Drinks
As it was a birthday, we decided to splurge a little on 2 cocktails.
Hulong Bay Sil - Muddled watermelon and basil with gin, elderflower liqueur, apple juice and a dash of lemon. Simply sweet and refreshing.
Uncle Ho's Accomplice - 12 year old Flor de Cana rum, Licor 43, and a dash of chocolate bitters, served old fashion style with orange zest to finish. Super smooth rum topped off with an zesty orange finish. Loved this one.
We went for the $85 Saigon Scrumptious set dinner. This was a 10 course deguestation menu.
Cuon Ca Hoi - Soft rice paper rolls of smoked salmon and Vietnamese herbs. This was probably the most well constructed rice paper roll we've ever had. All the ingredients were perfectly straight and wrapped tightly into a roll. At no point did the roll start to crumble, very unlike the $5 ones you get from your Vietnamese bakery.
Muc Rang Muoi - Lightly battered chili salted squid with fresh lemon and white pepper dipping sauce. Perfectly cooked squid. Very light and fluffy and not rubbery at all. The dipping sauce went very well with the squid.
So Diep Nuong Nuoc Sot Chua - Seared scallops with tamari and kaffir lime leaf dressing. I personally can't say no to scallops. This one was another perfectly cooked dish. The tamari and lime brought a fresh and zesty flavour.
Goi Mit va Ot Cay - Young jackfruit salad with lemongrass, galangal and chili paste. I personally didn't really understand this dish. There was a lot of strips of lemongrass and young jackfruit mixed with galangal and chili paste. It did taste a whole bunch of very fibrous covered with chili. On the plus side, the sesame rice crispies was fantastic.
From this dish forth, we were getting very tired of waiting for the next dish to come and started hoping dinner would end soon.
Chim Cut Nuong - Pan fried spice rubbed quail, red radish and watercress salad.
Ca Nuong Hun Koi - Char grilled smoked fish with ginger and lime fish sauce. Great smokey white fish with subtle dressing of ginger and fish sauce.
Hen Hun Khoi - Smoked Kinkawooka mussels served in a roasted red capsicum sauce. The sauce was simply amazing - Smokey red capsicum sauce.
Ga Goi Chien Don - Crisp skin spatchcock poached in a master stock with ginger and oyster sauce. This reminds me of crispy San Dong chicken in a good Chinese restaurant.
Bo Kho - Beef brisket marinated in Vietnamese Five Spice slow braised with lemongrass and coconut juice. This was by far the most bold dish of the evening. With very strong five spice flavours and super tender beef beef brisket, it was quite the standout.
Desserts
The dessert tasting platted consisted of a mix of east and west elements. Fried banana fritters, chocolate cake, mango sago, black sesame ice cream and vanilla ice cream. All desserts were above average.
Service
The food came painfully slow. We started dinner just before 8pm and didn't leave till past 11:30pm. The longer the dinner went on, the more disinterested in the food we became. There were at times gaps of more than 30 minutes between courses. Towards 10pm, we were just hoping the dinner will end.
Overall
The food was good - but nothing really stood out as $85 brilliance. Dinner really shouldn't last for 3.5 hours. The wait probably was what killed the whole experience. The drinks were quite a standout. We'll be back to the bar instead for drinks and snacks. Hopefully that won't take 3.5 hours again!.
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