Lotus Garden in Vienna - Report

Four Chowhounds tried out this spot known for their hand pulled noodles. Although it's been around forever, I've never heard much good about it, so it's taken me this long to try it.

We started out ordering from a card on the table printed in Chinese only. None of those items are on the English menu,

The first item that came was deep fried shrimp balls. I was very impressed by the delicacy of the frying and the crispy little noodle pieces that decorated the outside of the balls. I thought that maybe we were in for quite a meal.

The next item was beef with assorted peppers. Some of the peppers had an interesting sour flavor, but other than that the dish was covered with a typical brown sauce that was salty and gloppy.

From the regular menu we ordered the duck and taro casserole, the pan fried cod with bean sauce, and the hand-pulled noodles with lamb. All three were idiosyncratic so a bit hard to compare with other places. However, the uniqueness was not entirely in their favor. The duck and taro was with coconut milk and some regular milk. The duck pieces were bony. The lamb was also bony and unfortunately there was nothing special about the noodles. The cod was well fried, but the 'bean sauce' in this case was simply a soy sauce-based mix in the bottom of a shallow bowl.

It's a big menu, plus the card on the table plus daily specials taped to the door where you first enter. All told, a ton of options. So maybe there's some gold to be discovered here, it's just a question of where to start digging.