January 12, 2012

• Orientation on 8th Street

  Two new Asian restaurants recently opened on opposite sides of Eighth Street in West Des Moines. Fifty years ago, that would have been considered suicidal. Game theory was still new back then and only applied to “zero sum” games – your neighbor’s customer was your lost customer. So no one built a business near a similar one. My father, a college professor, laughed at the fools who opened a McDonald’s on Merle Hay Road less than a block away from an established hamburger joint, the name of which I can’t recall. By the time baby boomers owned automobiles, fast food restaurants were sprawling in flocks and non-zero sum (“win-win“) games were the rage in game theory, economics and politics. With the election of 2012 pitting “end sum” against “win-win” gamers, I visited both Taste of Oriental (TO) and Lemongrass to see if Eighth Street was big enough for both.

  TO moved into a building that The Q vacated, with minimum changes. A small sushi bar had been constructed but The Q’s art work, of blues musicians, hung prominently. High def TV’s were tuned to sports and business channels. The bar’s menu added inexpensive saki, plum wine, and wine flights. The dinner menu alone listed 199 different options. That’s challenging. Training chefs, a peripatetic lot, to prepare so many dishes can be daunting. TO seemed to be staffed for the challenge. I counted more restaurant workers than customers on two occasions. Yet no one provided a napkin when setting my table or answered a question directly.

  Some of the 199 options were not available – miso soup, a basic with sushi, on one occasion. When eating alone, everything I ordered was served simultaneously. When eating with others, dishes were served one at a time. It was explained that cooking orders one at a time was a specialty of the restaurant. Nothing I did eat impressed me.

  

  Tired raw fish was served on simple, plastic plates with uninspired garnishes. Knife work was sloppy, too many pieces of sashimi were overly chewy. Tempura shrimp were bland but nicely crisped. Cheap crab sticks were ubiquitous though prices were not inexpensive. TO also served Chinese, teppanyaki, udon and terriyaki.

  

  Compared to Wasabi Chi, Sakura and Haiku, three other new sushi options in 2011, TO seemed like a step backwards.

  Things were quite different at Lemongrass. A sensibly sized dinner menu listed just 47 choices from cuisines of the Indochinese peninsula -Thai, Lao and Vietnamese. This restaurant moved into a very comfortable venue that previously served as a European bakery and a Pakistani cafe. Its charms include a working fireplace, patio, natural light, and a shaded parking lot. Lemongrass’ wait staff was small enough to stay busy and competent enough to anticipate needs and extend special courtesies. Water glasses were quickly filled and always iced. When I asked to take leftover curry home, a new portion of rice was added to my container, for balance – the quality that makes Thai food special.

  

  The soups, curries, larbs and stir fried dishes I enjoyed at Lemongrass all balanced three or four flavors – sour, sweet, salty and bitter. All employed fresh herbs and vegetables and the requested degrees of spicy heat. They reminded me how much good Thai food in Des Moines resembles the comfort foods one eats in Thailand.

  

  That’s not usually the case with other cuisines. My only complaint was that the menu did not indicate the presence of peanuts in some dishes, a serious oversight for the growing number of people with peanut allergies.

  Taste of Oriental

  1250 8^th St., West Des Moines, 225-1343

  Mon. – Thurs. 11 a.m. – 2:30 p.m., 5 p.m. – 9:30 p.m., Fri. – Sat. 11 a.m. – 2:30 p.m., 5 p.m. – 10:30 p.m., Sun. noon – 3 p.m., 5 p.m. – 9 p.m.

  Lemongrass

  1221 8^th St., West Des Moines, 440-4709

  Tues. – Thurs. 11 a.m. – 2 p.m., 5 p.m. – 9 p.m., Fri. – Sat. 11 a.m. – 2:30 p.m., 5 p.m. – 9:30 p.m., Sun. 11:30 a.m. – 8 p.m.

  Side Dishes

  Living History Farms’ “Uncorked” event January 14 will feature La Quercia products, Stam gelato, Iowa cheeses and wines.

  • 3:26 pm
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