Artful Vietnamese at the Lily
It can’t be easy being a Vietnamese restaurant in West Hollywood. Take for instance, Lily Restaurant, an offshoot of Lily Restaurant in Encinitas. It’s been open for six months offering good Vietnamese cooking, but judging by the number of customers I’ve seen on my visits, it hasn’t caught on with the locals.
Perhaps people think the food is too exotic. What they might not know is that Lily has an extensive vegetarian section on its menu--perfect for health-conscious sophisticates. In fact, a dinner I had composed of these dishes was my best experience at Lily.
I started with a curried tofu soup which combined fried tofu cubes and potatoes in a coconut broth reddened with spices. Imperial mock duck (it’s a dense soy product that is the foundation of a number of vegetarian dishes here) in a dark, spicy sauce provided plenty of concentrated “meaty” flavor. Tofu with water chestnuts, broccoli and other vegetables turned out to be a nice, light, gingery-tasting dish. One note to strict vegetarians: It’s seasoned with oyster sauce.
Any of these dishes would make an ample meal for one. Rice noodles come with the soup, and bowls of rice accompany the other plates. Other vegetarian options include egg rolls, vegetable chow mein and combinations of Oriental black mushrooms with broccoli or baby corn. In one interesting salad, mock duck is mixed with rice noodles, bits of lettuce, onion slivers and tomatoes. You can also have mock duck curried, stir-fried with vegetables, combined with peppers or bean sprouts or added to chow mein.
On the meat front, there’s beef marinated with lemon grass and grilled pork cubes. Both are house specialties and come with platters heaped with lettuce, bean sprouts, shredded carrot and sliced cucumber--sort of a do-it-yourself assembly kit. First you grill the pork or beef, then wrap the meat and vegetables in moistened rice wrappers and again with the lettuce leaves. Then you dip the bundles in a condiment of fish sauce, vinegar and sugar.
To finish the meal, there are two desserts: coconut ice cream that is made on the premises and fried bananas that are buttery soft and sweet inside their crisp coating.
Ann Tran, who owns the restaurant, and her brother, Hien, do the cooking. Their father, Luong, who runs the Encinitas restaurant, did the tasteful paintings of flowers and other subjects that give the restaurant a gallery look.
The prices alone should draw customers. The most expensive dish is charcoal-grilled shrimp at $6.85. Many dishes are about $4. The curried tofu soup is $4.15; the imperial mock duck, $4.50, and the tofu with vegetables, $3.95. Shrimp with sweet and hot peppers is $4.25--when I saw the small amount of shrimp on the plate I realized why the price was so low. But you get a lot of vegetables, including lots of sliced pickled jalapenos, which add a jarringly sharp note.
The restaurant recently started to serve wine and beer. Other beverages include Thai tea, fresh lemonade and the strong, French-style filter coffee that Vietnamese sweeten with condensed milk.
Lily Restaurant, 8163 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood; (213) 650-7883. Cash only. Beer and wine. Open for lunch Monday through Saturday, for dinner seven nights. Street parking. The other Lily is at 505 1st St., Encinitas; (619) 943-8649.