veggieburgh

Pacific Ring, the year-old pan-Asian restaurant on Murray has a lot of potential. Like its neighbor New Dumpling House, its menu features both sushi and Chinese cuisine, and like NDH, its vegetarian options are hit and miss. This review is based on the Chinese side of the menu; we’d like to return to review the vegetarian sushi options.

We began with a pot of lavender tea ($4) in a beautiful glass pot warmed by a votive candle. Lavender bits floated atop the honey-infused water, which the waitress refilled with hot water throughout our meal. Sweet-averse readers should be warned that the honey is pretty strong, but overall the tea had a pleasing scent and flavor.

Meanwhile, we contemplated the atmosphere. I really liked the dining room filled with plants; jade, birds of paradise, and small tropical trees fill the space. The wallpaper’s a bit busy and the soft hits of the eighties played on soprano sax are grating (think Kenny G playing “Endless Love”), but otherwise it’s modest and traditional.

We began with two soups: noodles in vegetable soup ($3), and hot and sour soup ($1.50). The noodle soup consisted of a flat broth desperately in need of salt and noodles too floppy to eat with the spoon. Josh commented that it tasted like cabbage water. Adding salt brought it on par with Campbell’s. The hot and sour soup was beautifully presented with shitake, scallion, and tofu, but completely tasteless.

Luckily, the wild mushroom tofu ($11) made up for the soups. Made from four varieties (oyster, shitake, button, and beech), the dish also contains asparagus shoots, red pepper, tofu, and a basic brown sauce. The tofu had a crispy shell comparable to that served at Bangkok Balcony.

Finally, our veggie moo-shu ($9) came with surprising wrappers: tortillas. The veggies had a nice crunch, but unlike the soup, the moo shu overall had a clingy saltiness that made us pretty thirsty.

So, while the mushroom dish is the only one we’d recommend, we’re hopeful that the sushi side of the menu is tastier. If we return, we’ll update this post. But otherwise, at these prices, we generally recommend Hunan Kitchen.

[3 veggies]

Recommended dishes:

• Wild mushroom tofu
• Lavender tea