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July 18, 2008
Lantern
Wow. I mean, wow: we got reservations at Lantern with less than two hours notice. On a Friday night.
Did I mention less than two hours notice? Friday night? This...has never happened before in my experience with Lantern.
We were planning to hook up with Michael and Naoko for a little pre-movie meal (the ultimate objective of the evening being the film Mongol), and I thought I'd give it a shot.
And that shot swooshed like the most beautiful trey from forty feet out. Nuthin' but net, baby.
And how was it, you may ask? As well you should.
As usual, Lantern did not disappoint; but, alas, it also was not spectacular. For appetizers I had the salt and pepper shrimp while Trang had a Thai-style crab cake special. My shrimp was good, but no more so than the same versions I've had (and at much less cost) at some Dim Sum places. The crab cakes were good but did not touch, for example, those that we've had at Magnolia Grill. For an entree Trang had the Lemongrass BBQ'd Niman Ranch pork tenderloin with cool rice noodles, lettuce cups, Vietnamese herb salad, chile-lime sauce and roasted peanut hoisin. I think she enjoyed it but felt that it did not blow away stuff we've had at cheap Vietnamese joints. I had the Seafood hotpot with slippery noodles in lobster broth with NC shrimp, halibut, fresh squid, manila clams and fresh lime leaf. I think this was the best thing we ordered and was the perfect fit for the evening: despite being a hot pot on a hot day, it was a very refreshing yet filling dish. It offered very clean flavors of the sea.
I never got to discuss Naoko and Michael's dishes since we had to rush to the film. Mongol tells (with, I suspect, some real license) the story of the coming of age and rise to power of Ghengis Khan. I'm glad I saw it on the big screen, first because it is beautifully photographed, with stunning steppe vistas that clearly establish this film as the medieval Asian answer to Dances with Wolves and, second, because I am not sure what is left after the photography, which always plays a diminished role on the small screen (no matter how nice your flat screen may be), is particularly compelling, if only because of the material the film's makers had to work with: I suspect that in all truth Ghengis Khan was an extremely intelligent person with a stupendous will to power, but I am not convinced that there was much else to him.
At the end of Mongol everyone lived happily ever after ...unless they happened to reside in the civilized world.
Posted by dag at July 18, 2008 3:50 PM