Lotus - Falmouth, Maine

Excellent Chinese food is difficult to come by in Southern Maine. The best I've found is at Lotus, located in the Shaw's plaza on Route 1 in Falmouth. We've had numerous meals there over the years, and while it is not as good as what you will find in Boston or San Francisco, it has earned our repeat business when we are seeking a quick, casual Chinese meal.

On our most recent visit we shared the Scallion Pancake, Vegetable Dumplings and Spring Rolls. The pancake consisted of sliced scallions between sheets of flour dough, deep fried and served with a soy ginger sauce for dipping. A bit greasy for my taste, Benkay's Seafood Scallion Pancake is more interesting and less greasy.

The Spring Rolls are an adequate version of the traditional rolls. Filled with cabbage, carrots and mung bean noodles, deep fried and served with duck sauce. The Vegetable Dumplings, chock full of ginger, carrots, cabbage and mushrooms, had a doughy wrapper that was a bit thicker than I prefer. The best dumplings I've enjoyed in Southern Maine are served at Miyake. Surprisingly, they are frozen and re-heated, but they have the thinnest, most delicate wrapper that holds tiny, sweet Maine shrimp. Of course, no dumplings - not even the ones that Gourmet Magazine recommended in San Francisco's China Town - have topped the ones I found in Las Vegas at Noodle Asia (in the Venetian Hotel). So good, they made my Top 10 Best Food Experiences of 2007 list.

The Hot & Sour Soup, holding the traditional bamboo shoots and Chinese black mushrooms, was just slightly more than lukewarm. Triple Taste in Bird's Nest was filled with large shrimp, though the hard, inedible noodle basket was not what we were expecting. Other versions of this dish we've had (the best at Rama in San Diego) consist of edible thin noodles twisted into "nests," paired with vegetables, shrimp and served in an Asian broth.

Hunan Shrimp, a simple dish of steamed shrimp, sauteed with onions, ginger and topped with an oyster and Hunan pepper sauce, is one of our favorites, as is Vegetable lo Mein, a noodle dish with snow peas, bok choy, carrots, white onions, scallions and shiitake mushrooms in a chicken broth and soy sauce. More flavorful, but less healthy when prepared with MSG, we opt for it without and add extra soy sauce at the table.

Lotus also serves sushi at the sushi bar and in the dining room, as well as traditional Japanese cuisine. I prefer to eat sushi at restaurants that specialize in raw food; I'm always concerned about the freshness of the raw fish from restaurants that offer it as an "oh by-the-way" menu offshoot. We tentatively tried a few pieces on a visit several years ago and decided that we prefer the sushi elsewhere. I have yet to venture off the Chinese menu to try the Japanese offerings; when I elect to dine at Lotus, I'm usually in the mood for a Scorpion bowl and traditional Chinese, both of which are done well at this neighborhood restaurant.

As I munched on the complimentary pineapple at the end of the meal, I broke open the fortune cookie to reveal the following message: "The only thing worse than being talked about is not getting talked about." I couldn't agree more...