Restaurant Review: Red Lantern (Redwood City)

With some friends, we went to a late afternoon movie yesterday and followed that with dinner at the Red Lantern - our first time but a multiple repeat for our friends who recommended it calling the cuisine "Asian fusion". The room is striking - very high ceiling, red lanterns hanging, and tables with reasonable separation between them.

The food overall was very good - see the dinner menu. A fascinating blend of flavors - and reasonably priced. We shared a Chiang Mai Salad to start - and began to appreciate the variety of flavors in these dishes. For the main course, I had the Cambogee Beef (Wok-Tossed Cubes of Beef Tenderloin seasoned with Lemongrass, Kaffir Lime, Galangal and Fresh Herb Salad) and it was delightful. Others had the Chicken Rendang and the Rangoon Clay Pot (sea bass) - both were delicious. The only disappointment of the evening was the Gulai Kambing lamb shank - which was a bit tougher than expected.

To accompany the food, we had the Rosenblum “Chateau La Paws" Viognier/Marsanne/Rousanne blend (Sonoma, 2006). This wine's crisp acidity and fruit forward style went very nicely with the other flavors of the food.

The restaurant is on Winslow St., about a block's walk from the downtown Redwood City theatre complex - so you can park once and have a nice evening of it.

[Note: for a (somewhat dated!) list of some of our other favorite restaurants, see this page.]