Square Lotus — Restaurant in Bellevue

Love the food, they're very respectful of us being vegan. I am a chef and even though I don't cook meat I can see that all of their food they make is tasty and it's a seemingly good price until you get your appetizer and your meal and you're still hungry and you ordered extra vegetables they charge you for them. But then the original vegetables aren't really there so it turned out to be the same amount with different vegetables yet they charged us $2 more being regulars it's kind of irritating. One more having soup and we order extra vegetables we get it on the side cuz they're steamed and we just dump them in. But this was dry and stir-fried so I couldn't order it on the side or it wouldn't have picked up the flavor of the dish because it's not saucy. It was 50 something dollars for two people to have something that fits in a small to-go container I only ate my summer rules V2 they're the best ones and I got full so I got my main dish to go in at fit in a very tiny styrofoam container with lid. I'm going to have to start keeping to-go containers in the car again I really don't like Styrofoam. They had once made it a law in King County that restaurants had to start using paper to-go containers. It make really good ones I've used them when I was delivering meals. But maybe that's for the city of Seattle King County. It really should be everywhere. As far as restaurants go the people are nice the food is good it's just that for how inexpensive the ingredients are. They're a little stingy when you can count three florets of broccoli three slices of carrot 3 pieces of onion and you ordered extra and there's five pieces of broccoli for more money? I will admit we were cranky when we went in but we are also hungry and we're regulars and this happens a lot. I guess we go back because the food is good and they are respectful like I said of our food needs. But they really do need to be a little more generous for the money. And though I did comment that I can see that they're making their meat dishes well. I really can't speak to the amount because I haven't really experienced it and I hadn't thought about that until I was asked to make this review. I keep trying to make it shorter but it's just not happening no matter how many times I try. It's worth trying and it's definitely the only Vietnamese restaurant I trust not eating fish sauce. I've had vegan food at non vegan Vietnamese before and it always has some sort of meat pieces cuz they don't clean the pan and you can taste that rank smelling fish sauce. Believe me I've watched that be made and it has maggots in it at a certain point and it's just not appealing to me it smells like it's had maggots. Give them a try. You may have better luck with portions for what kind of food...

got the Vietnamese Rice Noodle I've been here before a few months ago - last time I got the crispy egg noodle - which I didn't really like, so I got the rice noodle this time

I started with ordering the Vegetarian Vietnamese Crepe as an appetizer, however

This shocked me at how good it was

It looked a little bit like a deep fried omelette from the outside, but it was incredibly crispy on the outside instead - kind of like a huge deep fried taco

Tihs was dripping with oil - but that's what makes it taste so good I don't have enough words to describe the outside of this crepe - the level of frying involved here was unreal Each bite was so perfectly crispy and so astoundingly flavorful I was shocked at how incredibly amazing it was This outward crust was so perfecrly golden brown I don't know if I've tasted a better fried crust on anything

The inside didn't disappoint either - I really loved the fried tofu inside The house sauce also really added to the flavor

Normally, I strongly dislike bean sprouts, but somewhow even these managed to taste amazing in this dish despite there being a lot of them The magic of oil, I suppose

At the end, I was annoyed at myself for not ordering this as the main course

When the main dish was served - I was a bit disappointed as I was expecting more of a wide rice noodle, rather than the thin-pad thai like noodles i got This whole dish actually seemed like a pad thai imitation, coming with the ground peanuts, brocoli + other vegetables, and tofu

I asked for four stars - but this was not spicy at all. It got a little bit better when I mixed in some sriracha near the end

The noodles themselves were ok - nothing too special I wasn't really happy with the fried tofu - it was way too chewy and not crispy at all Did not think it was cooked that well

Even the vegetables weren't as soft as I would expect - I normally love brocoli but I didn't think it tasted as could as it could have here

The one thing that I appreciated was the massive portion size for the price (only about 16 dollars). I was able to finish all of my dish but not with a lot of room left - there were certainly a lot on the plate

Overall, I thought the meal was ok, but I'd rather have Pad Thai, and the appetizer overshadowed...

(used to have) great vegetarian pho and options and I had a 5 star review for them and a favorite place to go. quality has declined since the pandemic especially for vegetarian options (price is up a lot, amount of vegetables and imitation meat protein reduced, replaced with cheaper noodles and sprouts, some of their original flavors gone). But last visit was not cool. First they gave me the wrong dish (it happens). Then I got served raw eggplant on my corrected dish. Paid extra for the same eggplant toppings I have eaten at this place perhaps for over 100 times over the past 16 years. Literally you could not pierce the eggplant pieces with a chopstick at full pressure. When I showed it to them my server said THIS is how it is made! If you want well done we could do it for you. They even acknowledged me being an old customer. I said this has never happened before (frankly never in my life at an Asian restaurant) and I don't want it just take off that extra eggplant (you can imagine why I won't want to eat more eggplant after chewing on raw pieces). She said she won't take it off and it is not raw and I have to pay for it. But she can make a new one. Tried showing her why it was raw. No acknowledgement just more arguing saying it was not raw. I paid for the full dish. Not going back !I told them I will pay but they just lost their old customer. They didn't really care how I felt. Raw eggplant can cause stomach irritation and not something you want to serve to your customers. Changing review to 2 star ONLY because of past history otherwise would be 1 star today. If I hear back from them I might update this review but I doubt they care. I usually don't review on negative experiences but had to make an...