Loopy For Luho, Crows Nest

It was a quiet, cold Monday lunch time visit to Luho, a South East Asian restaurant in Crows Nest. A great value lunch offer is on the cards today for lunch and with it, chicken ribs in tamarind sauce, crispy prawn tacos and a delicious lemongrass chicken curry!

After a comfortable 10 minute walk Sammie and I reach Luho, at the former site of Mama's Buoi. The site is not the only thing that they have in common. The chef Dennis Tan was formerly of Mama's Buoi too.

It's quite busy this Monday lunch time with only two tables free. We grab one and then move to a table near the window once the patrons leave. The lunch menu has a banquet special where you can pick any 5 dishes to share and it's $30 a person with at least 2 people. That satisfies our need to be able to choose and is good value too.

Our entrees arrive -first the prawn wonton tacos with chopped prawn meat, mayo and coriander and a dot of mango chilli sauce on top. These are highly addictive. As soon as I finished my crunchy taco I wanted another.

These chicken wings are stuffed with a seasoned pork mince with flavours, glass noodles and nam jim. They're crispy and tasty as well as enormous and they are cut into different sized pieces depending on whether you want more mince or more chicken.

The deep fried chicken ribs have a super crunchy batter coating. They're then doused in a sweet chilli tamarind glaze with kaffir lime leaf. The chilli is quite mild in these and I think I'd love it a bit more spicy.

With the five course set menu you can pick three entrees and two mains. Our mains were a salad and a curry. The salad is made with vermicelli noodles, Asian slaw, roasted peanuts, BBQ pork sliced a choice spring roll or tofu. Sammie hates tofu and besides which who ever says no to spring rolls? The salad is good and healthy but lacking a bit of oomph and flavour especially when you compare it to the other food and the spring rolls don't have much flavour at all and need their own dipping sauce.

And a salad is never going to compare to this glorious lemongrass chicken curry. It's utterly delicious, the sort of dish that you keep eating long after your stomach has registered satiety. There's the softest chicken, chunks of potato, slices of carrot, curry leaf in a creamy coconut sauce. Not a lick of this went back to the kitchen.

Although Sammie and I aren't exactly twin eaters we've been very sympatico on the lunch menu and when we take a peek at the dessert menu we both want the same thing. It only registers five minutes later that $18 is a bit expensive for deep fried ice cream (we were too busy cooing over dogs walking past). Then when they bring it I can sort of see why as it's enormous and about the size of a Christmas pudding. Inside is a vanilla ice cream with a thickish crispy coating and caramel sauce. We can't really finish it nor do we even really attempt to scale this enormous beast!

So tell me Dear Reader, do you like deep fried ice cream? Do you like set menus or do you find them restrictive? Are your friend food twins or do you like different things?

This meal was independently paid for.

Luho

Shop 1/77 Willoughby Rd, Crows Nest NSW 2065
Monday to Thursday 11:30am–2:30pm, 5:30–9:30pm
Friday 11:30am–2:30pm, 5:30–10:30pm
Saturday 12–10:30pm
Sunday 12–9:30pm
Phone: (02) 9438 5005
luho.com.au/