Located at 1713 NW 15th street (at the corne of Broadway) in Portland, Oregon, Blossoming Lotus serves up unique hearty upscale vegan dishes in a casual environment.
Atmosphere
The dining area features high ceilings and lots of natural light. Our experience was indeed a unique combination of casual/laid back (the atmosphere) and fine-dining (the food and presentation). Each table is rather close to your neighbor, which is a testament of both how well the space is used and how successful business is. Still, it can get quite loud during peak hours.
Blossoming Lotus Dining Area
Menu
Blossoming Lotus has several menus, including a lunch menu, a dinner menu, a dessert menu, an extensive drinks menu and a brunch menu on the weekends. We visited on a Monday evening for dinner and were delightfully overwhelmed by one delicious-sounding dish after another.
Peanut Butter & Jelly Smoothie and Green Lantern Juice
The dinner menu is extremely varied and features numberous salads, rolls, soup, sides and hearty main entrees and includes raw and partially raw food.
Baked Brie with Sourdough Bread and Apricot Preserves
We found it very difficult to narrow down what we wanted as everything sounded so good. We finally decided on baked brie with sourdough bread and apricot preserves to start. The presentation was beautiful and the mixtures of textures and flavors was amazing. When we go back I would definitely order this again…but there were also so many other yummy-sounded dishes I wanted to try. Sigh, here we go again. 🙂
Jackfruit and Quinoa Stuffed Poblano Peppers with Sweet Potato Puree
For our main entrees, Mindy ordered the jackfruit and quinoa stuffed poblano peppers that came in a sweet potato puree and I finally settled on the red bowl with grilled eggplant, spiced chickpeas, roasted beets and quinoa, which came with a lemon tahini sauce.
Red Bowl with Grilled Eggplant, Spiced Chickpeas, Roasted Beets and Quinoa
Again, both the presentation and the meals were fantastic! Whoever created these meals, did an excellent job in blended the flavors.
For dessert we wanted to try their signature soft serve ice-cream but it being the hot day that it was in Portland, the lunch crowd gobbled it all up by the time we had arrived. So we opted for the chocolate cheesecake instead and we were not disappointed – I don’t know how they managed to make this decadent dessert so creamy and chocolatey!
Decadent Chocolate Cheesecake
Service and Prices
Our waitress was very friendly and happily answered all our questions about the menu. She also somehow seemed to anticipate our needs, offering more sauce for my dish and bringing us to-go boxes at the perfect time. The food was always brought promptly with a beautiful presentation and a smile.
We will be happy to enjoy another meal at Blossoming Lotus (we want to try weekend brunch) the next time we find ourselves in Portland.