{"id":1130,"date":"2008-07-10T00:08:21","date_gmt":"2008-07-10T00:08:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dimsumdolly.com\/?p=1130"},"modified":"2008-07-10T00:08:21","modified_gmt":"2008-07-10T00:08:21","slug":"red_lantern","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dimsumdolly.net\/?p=1130","title":{"rendered":"Red Lantern"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If you&#8217;re looking for Vietnamese fine dining in Sydney, you definitely have to head to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.redlantern.com.au\"><b>Red Lantern<\/b><\/a>, which is located in Surry Hills, a stone&#8217;s throw away from Central. I first came to know of this restaurant after coming across the cookbook written by its owners in a friend&#8217;s place in London. Titled <i>Secrets of the Red Lantern<\/i>, it&#8217;s one of the prettiest cookbooks I&#8217;ve ever come across. Apart from recipes, it contains the story of the main author&#8217;s (Pauline Nguyen) family journey as Vietnamese war refugees in Australia.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3234\/2653268774_586c84d6bc_o.jpg\" width=\"250\" height=\"301\" alt=\"redlantern\" \/><\/a><\/br><br \/>\nThe book chronicles her parents&#8217; decision to smuggle themselves out of Vietnam because of the Vietnam war in the 1970s. People like them were known as the &#8216;Boat People&#8217;. Their struggle and resilience in surviving and adapting to a foreign land is well documented by Nguyen. She also writes about her growing up years and trying to find the balance between being ethnically Vietnamese and culturally Australian.<br \/>\nThe well written and beautiful book with its fantastic graphics and well-designed layouts made me want to pay the restaurant a visit during my next visit to Sydney. And I&#8217;m glad to say I wasn&#8217;t disappointed. I was there with two other friends and here&#8217;s what we ate.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3269\/2633209679_eb0bf5d0b8.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" alt=\"IMG_5417\" \/><\/a><\/br><br \/>\nEntrance of Red Lantern<br \/>\nRed Lantern is housed in one of the charming rows of terrace houses in the suburb of Surry Hills. On foot, it&#8217;s about a ten-minute walk from Central Station. Surry Hills is a very quaint and charming suburb with nice bars and restaurants along Crown Street and Cleveland Street.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2366\/2633212883_46b4d23c4a.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" alt=\"IMG_5419\" \/><\/a><\/br><br \/>\nRed Lantern interior<br \/>\nWarm, red tones dominate with dim lighting, reminiscent of the old Asia.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3098\/2634034990_14248065f1.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" alt=\"Mussels\" \/><\/a><\/br><br \/>\nMussels with glass noodles and clear broth<br \/>\nOur entree was delicious with the mussels being fresh and the broth absolutely flavourful.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3131\/2633221719_b6a9a1dc84.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" alt=\"Vietnamese Pancake\" \/><\/a><\/br><br \/>\nVietnamese pancake with seafood filling. Loved the grilled smoky flavour!<br \/>\nWhat I love about Vietnamese food is the raw vegetables that accompany many of the dishes. It&#8217;s so refreshing to eat them!<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3012\/2633223015_5b6107d564.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" alt=\"Beef brisket\" \/><\/a><\/br><br \/>\nBeef brisket with warm French baguette<br \/>\nThe baguette had been put over a grill, thus it possessed that smoky flavour which made that just that bit more delicious in addition to it being fresh.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3084\/2634045002_3bf8c4c0bc.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" alt=\"Grilled pork\" \/><\/a><\/br><br \/>\nGrilled pork with preserved vegetables<br \/>\nThis tasted delicious with the pork being well marinated and grilled to perfection with a smoky flavour.<br \/>\nIf you have a group of four persons or more, I&#8217;d suggest going for the tasting menu as it is good value for the amount of food you get which, according to the waiter, is &#8216;a lot&#8217;. The restaurant has two seatings &#8211; the first at 6pm and the second at 8pm. Service was good and expect to spend about A$40 per person.<br \/>\nRed Lantern<br \/>\n545 Crown Street<br \/>\nSurry Hills<br \/>\nNSW 2010<br \/>\nPhone: +61 (0)2 9698 4355<br \/>\n(Closed on Mondays)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you&#8217;re looking for Vietnamese fine dining in Sydney, you definitely have to head to Red Lantern, which is located in Surry Hills, a stone&#8217;s throw away from Central. I first came to know of this restaurant after coming across &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dimsumdolly.net\/?p=1130\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dimsumdolly.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dimsumdolly.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dimsumdolly.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dimsumdolly.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dimsumdolly.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dimsumdolly.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1130\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dimsumdolly.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dimsumdolly.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dimsumdolly.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}