Le Lotus Bleu Restaurant

took an hour and a half and was seriously cooling down when it arrived. The flavours were absolutely there but it was overshadowed by too much uncooked whole pieces of garlic. Plus I was super butt hurt about how long it took to come and being a shitty temperature when it arrived. I’ll probably still order it again but not for a long time when I’ve forgotten what a frustrating experience it was.

Pleasant surprise. great value, no frills.

If you’re looking for a really nice place to go for dinner, this isn’t it but if you’re looking for addictive homestyle Chinese food, this is the place to go! I’ve finally found delicious authentic Chinese. The staff is helpful and friendly. The restaurant really leaves something to be desired but the food more than makes for it.

Great Authentic chinese food!
This is not the ‘Canadian-​version’ of chinese food but the real thing, and is very good. The roasted chickens are great, the meat savory with ginger and spices. The soup is great with handmade noodles and the dunplings are also very tasty.
Prices are low and great too! I would agree ambiance wise, its a little sketchy, but I can ignore it for some good soup!

Fantastic authentic Chinese food!!!
One place that I come regularly. We usually order the noodles, the chicken and the cucumber appetizer. MUST TRY!!!

Good noodles: check
Perfectly cooked roasted chicken: check
Hygiene: ehhhhh…
Come over if you are looking to enjoy the food only, as you will be disappointed by the décor and the hygiene of the place. Also, they only have styrofoam cups if you want to drink anything.
The noodles were handmade and tasted great, the broth was okay and I wish I got more lamb in my soup. The Daokou roasted chicken was really well cooked and the meat just falls off the bones really easily, it is moist and tasted amazing.
They claim that their chicken need lots of time to cook, so they roast them in the morning and then reheat them in the microwave prior to serving. That’s complete BS. In China, you always get the Daokou roasted chicken cooked fresh. It is usually cooked for several hours and then finished in the oven just prior to serving, not using the microwave.

One of my favorite places to eat. Homemade noodles in a savoury lamb broth, so satisfying. Its the real deal! And definitely must try the sweet and spicy «hand pulled» cabbage!

If you like authentic Chinese food… Sorry, AUTHENTIC Chinese food, this place is an excellent choice. Cheap, yes, no frills, yes, but honest-​to-​goodness, REAL Chinese food. Recommended by Chinese peeps — the newly immigrated sort. It’s not in Verdun for nothing!

I love Chinese food («real» or western). And having lived in San Francisco, I’m always looking for a great Chinese restaurant. I really wanted to like this place for a multitude of reasons. And while it may satisfy some homesick cravings for those fresh off the boat, the food wasn’t good enough for a second chance.
Although you CAN dine in, don’t. The staff are indeed really nice, but this place is dingy, way overlit with one of the most disgusting bathrooms I’ve seen in Canada. So if you decide to eat the food here, take it out.
Some of the dishes (bok choi shanghi style aka with lots of garlic and the pork w/​green onion dumplings) were delicious. The double-​cooked pork was popular and might be good, too, but we didn’t get it. The lamb soup? Seriously? No way. Maybe I’m missing something but little fatty pieces of overcooked, tasteless lamb in a huge bowl of thick, pasty noodles and seaweed? It actually tasted like Chinese grocery stores smell.
Place is cheap, however (all under $ 10 with the dumplings being 20 for $ 7.50).
This one could fall down onto the one-​star side of the fence if i weren’t for the staff and dumplings, which were hand-​made by a lady sitting in the dining room stuffing them with chopsticks.
Rating Scale:
1 Star: Avoid the town in which this place is located just to be safe.
2 Star: With so many great places to choose from, why risk this one?
3 Star: I’ll try it again or consume here in a pinch.
4 Star: I go here regularly if financially and/​or calorically feasible.
5 Star: I look forward to taking my wife or friends here.

Review by SnackHappy on Chowhound:
Fantastic Big Flat Lamb Noodle Soup in Verdun
«„I didn’t even know what it was before I tasted it, but I knew there and then that I’d been missing it all my life. I’m talking about Henan Hui Mian: braised broad noodles with lamb from Henan province in China. NYC chowhounds know it as „Fantastic Big Flat Lamb Noodle Soup“ and fantastic is a pretty good descriptor for the one I had as well. The first bite I took of this famous Chinese snack had me floating off my chair. I was elated and it just got better as I inevitably made my way to the bottom of the bowl. This savoury lamb broth with its fresh hand-​pulled broad noodles and its perfectly seasoned pieces of lamb meat packs a muttony punch. The soup also contains bean thread noodle, daylily, long thin slivers of seaweed, cilantro, a few leaves of bok choy and the occasional wolfberry. You can add to it some Changkiang vinegar and a condiment made up of dried chilli flakes in oil with sesame seeds, something I highly recommend. This is one serious life-​affirming bowl of soup.
Where can one find this bowl of lamby goodness? At Lotus Bleu Restaurant in Verdun. It’s a hole-​in-​the-​wall, mom and pop kind of place with very sparse décor and harsh neon lighting. It’s anything but upscale and that’s just fine with me. What really counts is that he food is yummy and the people there are incredibly friendly and helpful.
And if all the place served were just the Life-​Affirming Lamb Noodle Soup™, that would be great in itself. But wait, there’s more! Daoko chicken is also a famous Henan dish. The preparation involves basting the chicken with a honey-​water solution, deep-​frying it and then braising it with a bunch of aromatic spices. The result is a fragrant and tasty bird with soft yielding meat and delicious almost completely de-​fatted skin. The chicken is sold by weight as is the stewed beef which is sliced thin and served with a dressing of herbs and crushed red pepper.
You thought that’s all there was to this place? Think again! They make dumplings. Damn fine dumplings. The lamb and Chinese cabbage ones are crazy good. There’s also a hot pork and rice noodle soup that, while it doesn’t hold a candle to the Life-​Affirming Lamb Noodle Soup™, is still pretty darn good, too. My sister couldn’t stop eating the Chinese cabbage with hot and sour sauce we had ordered one evening even if she was already full, and I really can’t blame her.
The menu also features some Sichuan favourites like „Boiled sliced fish in the Szechuan special spicy sauce“ and „Home-​style double sautéed pork slice“ (twice-​cooked pork) as well as a bunch of other seemingly out-​of-​place items such as Thai-​style stir-​fried noodles or rice.
On top of that the food is dirt cheap. You can walk out of there full to the gills for about $ 10 per person.
I’ve been three times at different hours and the place is never full. The patrons are almost all Chinese and almost all there for the lamb soup and the chicken. There are also a lot of people getting take-​away chicken. Don’t miss this place. It’s a keeper.“»
OK, my turn.
I have been at this restaurant 3 times now and agree with absolutely everything that SnackHappy says, especially about that Lamb Noodle Soup. I’m almost looking forward to winter just so I can go and slurp up that soupy goodness on those cold, abominable days we have in January and February!
Another dish worthy of mention is the Home-​style double sautéed pork slice” (twice-​cooked pork). Imagine super-​thick cut pieces of bacon, spiced up and sizzled up with spices and cooked with delectable pieces of stir-​fried sauted onions, and green and red peppers. (drool…)
Yes, this place is a dive, a real hole-​in-​the-​wall, no table service, you have to get up and pick up your own bowls and utensils. No drinks, except for the water cooler and syrofoam cups, so go next door to the depanneur and pick up your drinks beforehand.
Dirt cheap, huge portions, fantastic dishes, and the family that run the place are very, very nice and friendly folks.
Hurray for Verdun for scoring another foodie hit!