My Luck at Au Lac

After a long day of running around it was finally time for our reservations at Au Lac. 
While not your typical reservations required type of dining establishment, but since they do tend to have a wait on weekend evenings, I chose to be safe rather than to go and have a wait. (I hate waiting.)

It so happens that I've actually been to this Fountain Valley restaurant twice before and between each visit there has been a decent sized gap of time. Not at all based on the food being bad, but other various odd experiences...
The very first time I visited was 15+ years ago, and I had ordered "beef" with broccoli which was in my opinion "too realistic" and it kinda freaked me out! 
So I didn't come back for a few years until we had a family dinner planned there. 
On this visit our group had arrived semi close to closing time. 
The restaurant was lively and packed full of diners. We placed our orders and the food started being delivered to our table. 
Have you know I was beyond starving upon arriving for dinner, and once my entree was served I was so happy and began munching away my meal. 
Well, I'm a slow eater. Like a really slow eater. And only after getting through a few bites, the server approached our table to inform us that the restaurant was closing and that they were going to pack up our food to take with us! 
Not offering us to close out the bill and stay until we were finished. 
This upset me to no measure because I HATE being rushed when I'm eating! 

So although I had only visited twice prior to last weekend, I did have the opportunity to try several of their dishes, because my sister Jet would go all the time - she really went there a whole lot! It was her place!
The staff and her were friendly and on a first name basis. 
*After my sister got divorced it just so happened that she stopped visiting.

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Fast forward to last weekend and my most recent experience.
With a small line out the door we approached the hostess desk, gave our names and were almost immediately taken to our table that happened to have a reserved placard on it. 

The room was lively and tables were all full. I definitely noticed a change in the decor and the removal of what was once booths in the room. 
We were served water by the hostess and handed are menus. After browsing the menu for a few minutes we had all decided on what to order. 
At this point we were looking around as to where our server might be. The servers were very busy running around and we had not been acknowledged by them for a lengthy amount of time. 
Finally a server approached the table, ready to take our order. He was jovial, friendly and obviously busy. 

We ordered "Eggrolls" and BBQ "Pork" Rolls as appetizers. Dave ordered a Macademia hemp milk drink and I ordered a spicy tomato drink 
Sidenote: Upon ordering this drink I had assumed it was going to be similar to a Bloody Mary. Which I love and haven't been able to order anywhere recently. It seems the restaurants that I frequent only serve Bloody Marys for brunch, and the last time I went for brunch when they were serving Bloody Marys they couldn't make me a virgin Bloody Mary! So hence my excitement for this spicy tomato juice drink!

Cosette and Dave both ordered the Pineapple Fried Rice. Dominic ordered a "Seafood" Noodle dish and I went in looking forward to having soup and went with the Tomato Dill soup. 
After our order was placed, the food came out fairly quickly. 

The "Eggrolls" were fresh and piping hot. Crispy and very tasty as well! 

The BBQ "Pork" rolls which is wrapped in soft rice paper were good...but not as good as other "local" places that I have ordered this same type of roll. 

The Fried Rice dishes were both very fresh and flavorful. 

Dominic had no problem cleaning his plate full of noodles, and I thoroughly enjoyed my soup which was very aromatic and fragrant. It had a lovely broth and it also had a number of interesting vegetables in it that I was not at all familiar with. One being Taro Stem, which is a very porous and spongy vegetable, and one that I won't purposely seek out. 

Overall the food was all very good. And after the initial slow service, the service was also very good and attentive. But somehow it just lacked the "wow" factor. 

And let's not forget about the drinks...
Well if I ever do go back let's just say that I will skip the drink menu and stick with water. Dave's drink was just incredibly weird and bizarre. And my drink was really very bland and kinda icky. Dominic hot the nail on the head when he tasted like and said it tasted like the liquid that sits at the bottom of fresh salsa! 

After dinner we all decided to decline dessert and just called it a night. 
At least this time I wasn't weirded out by the food being too "realistic" to animal flesh, and even though we were there around closing time once again I wasn't at all rushed through our meal!


-T