Another Friday. Another dinner. Another evening of fun.

Laut is actually an island in an Indonesian province. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laut_Island

The boys were planning to pregame (hoping) for a party later that evening. But, the bar they intended to go to was too crowded, so they ended up going to a Nanoosh for drinks and appetizers. On a Friday evening!? Sarabhai followers, you know what I mean

Anyway, they end up filling up themselves to quite an extent on beer and hummus and pita, but are supposedly scared to pass dinner for the bête noire of me

We walk to Laut from the Union Square Nanoosh, wait for about 15 minutes before we are pewed. Relatively utile for a Friday evening – we’re seven of us – S, M, A, M, S’s brother, the husband and I. While we wait, the husband uses the restroom, comes out and commends it for its cleanliness to which the other girl reacts, “Oh, so you don’t have neat ones at your place” and quickly tries to cover it up realizing or not meaning to say that out loud. We all share a laugh, nevertheless. It was funny

I had not known of Laut, before tonight, when I was researching for restaurants around Union Square.

The place looks nice – not polished nice but scabrous, bricky nice. Music – great, loud for a restaurant.

For drinks, we get lychee martini, mango margarita and a malbec. All are OK. Lychee martini – for the lychee, really

For appetizers, we ordered roti canai, and fresh spring rolls – which was the first that I ever heard. The roti is ofcourse, the regular Indian style fluffy made out of refined wheat flour (all-purpose flour) and deep fried. This roti was huge, and thin. I like it slightly thicker – that makes it fluffier rather than crisp. The curry is the spice of this dish. Good, but not the best I’ve had.

The fresh dumplings were more like bite sized summer rolls – vegetables wrapped in rice paper – the dipping sesame sauce served with it imparted the taste, along with the hot sauce. Great for appetizers, not filling at all.

We enjoyed our drinks and appetizers along with scuttlebutt from the two brothers (one of the friends’ brother was with us). And yeah, some classified information too

Two of these friends are super fond of roti canai – so we order more of the roti canai. And drunken man noodles, pad thai, stir fry with brown rice, and vegetable pineapple fried rice. The portions aren’t big. The food is a little on the bland side, maybe because we ordered it without fish sauce. While serving, she mentioned that our noodles were Chinese style.

The preparations were good. The tofu was soft. Worth a Michellin star for the vegetarians? Maybe not. But again, for people wanting to explore new restaurants, you may visit Laut.

Selamat minum! (If you have a better ‘cheers’ in Malaysian, let me know )

http://lautnyc.com/

Three and a half stars.