Review
A one-stop Asian food festival: that was how Vivian T. Cua and her sister Vicky imagined Lemongrass Asian Bistro to be. A quaint and gorgeous little place at the ground floor of Shangri-La Mall, Lemongrass serves the whole shebang of Asian cuisine—Thai, Vietnamese, Japanese, Chinese and even a bit of Korean. However, if you think it’s simply a hodgepodge of random recipes, you’ll be surprised to discover that the menu is a careful selection of the best Asian dishes, specially tailored to fi t the more discerning Filipino taste. While their Thai dishes are the most prominent (like their best-sellers Pad Thai and Tom Yum soup), fans also flock to Lemongrass for their Japanese and Chinese offerings like Crunchy Tuna Wasabi and Five Spice Beef Brisket Noodles. Opened only last February 2011, Lemongrass was inspired by Vivian’s family and their love for food and travel. When travelling, their fi rst agenda is always to try the local cuisines and visit the local markets to discover new spices. “We love to discover and explore new tastes,” she shares. When they come across a new taste, that’s when they start to break it down, look for ingredients and then try to re-create it in their dishes at Lemongrass. Ingredients are incredibly important to them, especially because Asian food has a lot of distinct tastes and aromas and all of these come from specific ingredients. In fact, the name Lemongrass was inspired by the taste of the herb itself: fresh, clean and cool. Even their one-of-a-kind interiors evoke the same feeling. Quality and freshness definitely comes first for them and indeed, Lemongrass is able to capture the best flavors and spices that we all love.
