Red Lantern

Almost ten years ago two of my very dear friends bought me the most beautiful Vietnamese cookbook for my birthday. At that stage I had not visited Vietnam, but it was a cuisine I would come to love, and this cookbook was to become one of my favourites. It was named Secrets of the Red Lantern by Pauline Nguyen. A Vietnamese-Australian whose family had fled Sai Gon following the Vietnamese War, the book told the history of the family from its origins to the opening of Red Lantern, their now very well known restaurant in Sydney. 

I'd read the book from cover to cover, cooked numerous dishes from its pages, and recalled some of its dishes when traveling in Vietnam in the years to come, but always in the back of my mind was the desire to visit the restaurant in person. Funnily enough it took me nearly a decade, after traveling to over 30 countries, to make the short trip over the ditch to Sydney for a food-filled weekend. Given that the book was now a cornerstone in my ever-expanding collection, a visit to Red Lantern was top of my list for my Sydney visit, and the first thing I booked in, even before choosing my accommodation. As luck would have it I also had an old friend to catch up with who was keen to try Red Lantern. Ben and I, as it turned out, had not seen each other in almost nine years - almost as long as I'd been wanting to visit Red Lantern! It was only fitting then that we choose the tasting menu - nine courses for each of the nine years of news and stories we had to catch up on!

The tasting menu started with four fragrant and punchy dishes: 

• Cuon Thit Ba Chi Gung (rice paper rolls filled with master stock pork belly, ginger and herbs) 
• Goi Du Du va Sa Lat Song (a Vietnamese papaya salad with cherry tomatoes and palm heart) - ours also had salmon 
• Banh Bot Chien (Aunty 5's rice cakes with tiger prawns, caramelised pork and pork floss) 
• Goi Chim Cut (Wok fried five spice quail)

Each was a perfect balance of fragrance and flavour, but it was the unexpected textures of the rice cakes that really stood out. This was especially awesome given that this dish was a trade for the originally planned dish of squid, which I was allergic to. By the time we'd got to the main dishes Ben's stories had moved from graduate school to a hectic consulting career 'based' in San Francisco, and mine to marriage and puppy adoption in Canada. Lucky there were some pretty solid dishes to mop up our stories: sticky and sumptuous, rich and delicious: crispy fried spatchcock, a whole spanish mackerel, the best ever caramelised pork ribs and finishing on a high with a spicy beef stir fry. 

All the food was so good (hence my inability to note the second half down correctly), and the perfect way to catch up on nine years worth of adventures - we were so full we couldn't even fit in dessert! I will most certainly be back to visit Red Lantern on my next trip to Sydney, especially as I've now been let in on a little secret about a fantastic little wine bar just around the corner.  In the meantime I'll still be making recipes from Red Lantern, and the several other books Pauline and her brother Luke have penned over the years, dreaming of adventures in Vietnam. 

Red Lantern

60 Riley Street

Darlinghurst, NSW