Friday, October 10, 2003

By Mackenzie Carpenter, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Since its opening in 1998 as the older, more formal sister to Phnom Penh, one of Downtown's first and best Cambodian restaurants, The Lemon Grass Cafe has become a favorite choice of both lunchtime office workers and dinnertime theatergoers, given its prime location in the heart of Pittsburgh's Cultural District.

But based on two recent visits, I would hesitate to recommend this restaurant to pre-theater diners looking to get in and out quickly while having an excellent meal in between.

There are many people who consider this particular dining spot -- which serves Cambodian cuisine with some Chinese entrees, too -- to be the best place in town for such Asian classics as Phad Thai (here known in Cambodian as Kuteiv Chha, $12.95) or more offbeat fare, such as spicy mussels with ginger ($13.95) or Haw Mook ($10.95), steamed fish in a banana leaf cup.

	Moarn Chha Kyei with Shrimp adorns a plate at the Lemon Grass Café, Downtown. (Bill Wade/Post-Gazette) THE LEMON GRASS CAFE 124 Sixth St. Downtown 412-765-2222 HOURS: 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays, 11 a.m.-10:30 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays, 3-9 p.m. Sundays. BASICS: Cambodian-Chinese cuisine in pleasantly decorated surroundings -- note the attractive decorations and a lovely mural by Washington, D.C., artist Chanchou Oeur, one of the few artists who -- along with the restaurant's owner, Bo Meng -- survived the "killing fields" of Pol Pot's regime in the 1970s. Service, at least for now, is slow. Wheelchair accessible. All major credit cards accepted. No smoking section.

But there are many wonderful places to eat Asian food in Pittsburgh, some old, like Spice Island Tea House, and some new, like Cafe Asia. Some of them have their own service and staffing problems. But when it comes to food, they are providing real competition, with interesting, inspired interpretations of this fragrant, seductive cuisine, while The Lemon Grass Cafe kitchen seems to be flagging.

The restaurant's fabled, eponymous Lemon Grass soup ($2.95) was, on one evening, mostly sweet, with barely a hint of that lovely lemony herb in its caramel-colored broth, in which plump red tomatoes bobbed enticingly. I wanted to send it back and demand "more grass, please," but there wasn't time (more on why, later).

While tiny vegetable spring rolls ($1.95) were delicate and crunchy, and chicken lemon grass skewers ($2.95) suitably smoky with flavors from the grill, a tuna lemon grass skewer tasted disappointingly sooty, the tuna overcooked. And while the skewered dishes arrived on tangy little piles of shredded lettuce and cabbage, they could have benefited from an assertive dipping sauce. The beef salad ($5.95) was a fresh, crunchy cross-section of vegetables and crushed peanuts in a flowery vinegar sauce.

The entrees yielded equally mixed results. Green curried chicken with rice noodles ($10.95) -- one of several interesting noodle dishes on the menu -- was one of the best choices, spicy and hearty, with large pieces of white-meat chicken in a soupy coconut milk sauce. But potatoes, onions, green peppers, eggplant, broccoli, bamboo shoots and green beans were sparsely represented in what was mostly sauce, noodles and chicken. The Moarn Chha Kreung ($10.95) had much more in the way of veggies to go with the chicken -- including onions, mushrooms, water chestnuts and bamboo shoots. No problem detecting the lemon grass in this sweet, spicy, complex sauce.

The Phad Thai/Kuteiv Chha ($12.95) was, as always, an addictive pleasure -- a tangy tangle of soft, translucent caramel-colored noodles contrasting with the crunch of peanuts and scallions, but the shrimp that came with it seemed to have an odd taste. Again, we would have sent it back, but there wasn't time.

There were two conservative diners with us (when it's a theater date, you can't always choose the most culinarily adventurous partners), one of whom opted for fried rice, the other for General Tso's chicken. OK, it's their loss, but often a restaurant's true measure can be found in its handling of the most standard dishes. The fried rice was unexceptional, though. And while the chicken arrived at the table looking like a pile of amber jewels, coated in a lovely sweet and spicy sauce, the deep-fried pieces yielded dark, gristly meat. I know many cooks look askance at white meat because of its lack of flavor, but in this dish, it would have provided a nice textural contrast to the crunchy sticky crust.

Did I forget to mention the desserts? There are many to choose from, ranging from Haagen-Dazs ice cream ($2.50) to more exotic fare, all of them priced at $2.95, from lychee with mandarin oranges to black sweet rice with fresh coconut to fried bananas with sesame seeds.

But I didn't have time to try them, on either night, and therein lies a tale: On a recent Monday visit, the place filled up quickly between 6 and 6:30 p.m. before a 7:30 p.m. concert at the Benedum. But in a roomful of maybe 50 diners, there were only two servers, both of them looking understandably panicked, and both very skilled at not making eye contact with a diner who had been seated 17 minutes before and had not yet succeeded in even ordering a drink. Finally, after literally getting up and all but tackling one of the two waitresses as she sprinted toward the kitchen, I placed an order for appetizers, thinking that I shouldn't overload her or the kitchen with too many orders for too much food at once.

Big mistake. I should have just left it at the appetizers. An hour later, at 7:25, five minutes before curtain time, we were standing in a long line of equally anxious-looking theatergoers at the cashier's counter, having all but abandoned our entrees and any hopes of having our check brought to the table in time to pay, get out, and make the show.

On a previous Saturday night, we had the same problem -- this time with one waitress who was trying her best to serve a half-empty dining room. We wanted to make the 7:30 Omnimax movie at the Carnegie Science Center, and she labored valiantly to accommodate us, but I couldn't help thinking, she's the only server?

Amanda Harvey, the cafe's manager, said it has had real difficulty with staffing since the summer, and most recent job applicants "weren't qualified." And, indeed, The Lemon Grass Cafe is not alone in its travails -- the economy has been so cruel to restaurants in this town in recent years -- but when a dining establishment relies on the pretheater crowd for much of its revenue, it seems baffling that it would fail at this most basic requirement: getting that theatergoer into his seat on time.

Let's hope they get some good resumes in this week.

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