Lemongrass Viet-Tai Restaurant
1729 State Route 10 East Morris Plains, New Jersey Phone (973) 998-6303

Hidden within a store front location on Route 10 East in Morris Plains, New Jersey, Lemongrass is an interesting Vietnamese-Thai restaurant.    When I arrived the restaurant was almost empty, but by the time we were finished there was not an empty seat. As an appetizer, I had one of my favorite culinary inventions – crispy fried wontons filled with cream cheese…the portion was generous and it was very tasty.  Even though I was almost full, next was on to the dinner entrée.  I ordered the pad siew, which is a dish of flat rice noodles pan/stir fried with beef, egg, bean sprouts, and carrots in a spicy type of soy sauce topped with peanuts. It was a very good dish as well.  In lieu of dessert, I ordered honeydew melon milk bubble tea with tapioca bubbles/pearls.  The drink was sweet and refreshing, but the giant tapioca pearls were a bit of an interruption every time one was caught in my giant straw. Other than that it was a great experience.
 
Lemongrass is a great place. I went on a week night and can only imagine that it is probably quite busy on a Friday or Saturday night. Don’t forget to bring a bottle of wine as it is a BYOB. I will definitely return soon to order some of the more adventurous items on the menu.  I am sure I will order the crispy wontons again and perhaps try one of three salads listed on the menu - Mango Salad, Green Papaya Salad or the Lychee Salad.  Maybe next time the Fried Bananas with Ice Cream for dessert.  Again, Lemongrass it is a great place – nice atmosphere, interesting menu and very reasonably priced portions.


Wikipedia - Thai cuisine blends five fundamental tastes: sweet, spicy, sour, bitter and salty. Some common ingredients used in Thai cuisine include garlic, chillies, lime juice, lemon grass, and fish sauce. The staple food in Thailand is rice, particularly jasmine variety rice (also known as Hom Mali rice) which is included in almost every meal. Thailand is the world's largest exporter of rice, and Thais domestically consume over 100 kg of milled rice per person per year. Over 5000 varieties of rice from Thailand are preserved in the rice gene bank of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), based in the Philippines. The king of Thailand is the official patron of IRRI.