AW Asian bistro's variety pleases

JOHN STARK

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BELLINGHAM -- AW Asian Bistro forced me to reassess two of my longstanding prejudices about restaurants.

I've learned to become leery of lengthy menus. Restaurants often seem to get the best results when they focus on a few well-conceived dishes, instead of trying to offer some of everything. Besides that, reading through a long menu is an annoying way to start dinner.

I also tend to believe that an ethnic restaurant should concentrate on one ethnic food variety, although this is old-fashioned. In Seattle, Wild Ginger has been getting raves for years by ignoring culinary boundaries.

1138 Finnegan Way, Bellingham
715-3028
11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday;
  11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday;
  11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday;
  11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday
Price range: $10-$25

AW confronted us with a lengthy menu that included pad Thai, Japanese sushi, General Tso's chicken and Vietnamese egg rolls, among many other things. But the flavors quickly dispelled my qualms.

As appetizers, we ordered Vietnamese egg roll, $4.95, and tekka maki spicy tuna roll, $7.50. The Japanese tuna roll, with raw fish and avocado, delivered the fresh, subtle flavors we expected from this dish. The egg roll was especially delicious, with a rich, spicy filling of pork and wood ear mushrooms in a crispy wrapper, perked up with a side sauce of red pepper flakes in a sweet base.

With those egg rolls such a hit, we decided to try a Vietnamese main course too, and it did not disappoint. Vietnamese curry chicken, $9.95, combined lemongrass and sweet potato in a sweet, savory coconut milk sauce, with perfectly-textured chicken breast slices.

Garlic noodles and steak, $14.95, combined what the menu called "Korean style steak" with a heap of thick noodles stir-fried with green onion, garlic and soy sauce. This is a simple dish, with a good-quality six-ounce steak that was nicely-grilled and subtly seasoned.

Unlike so many Asian restaurants, AW doesn't ask customers to determine the level of spiciness by choosing one to four stars. That's all to the good. I'm willing to let a trained chef decide how to balance hot pepper with the other seasonings in any dish, and the chef's judgment in the dishes we ordered was just fine.

This restaurant occupies a corner location in one of Fairhaven's new old-style red brick buildings, and its décor follows the trend toward lavishness and away from the bare-bones approach that once distinguished so many Asian restaurants. It makes the place suitable for a special-occasion meal, even though at these prices, a special occasion doesn't have to be a splurge. Japanese dishes tend to cluster at the upper end of the price range here, while the Chinese and Vietnamese dishes tend to be low-to-medium-priced.

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POSTED: Thursday, Jul. 24, 2008

AW Asian bistro's variety pleases

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