Asian Rim Restaurant

As sometimes happens, Lori and I found ourselves with a free Friday night this weekend. We started at the Wine Cellar for the Friday night tasting. I really wanted to go because two of the Whitehall Lane wines were on the menu. (Whitehall Lane is one of the stops in Napa Valley on the California Wine Country Extravaganza next July.) This was one of my favorite tastings in a long time – we loved the Whitehall Lane and found several other wines we had not tried before as well.

After the tasting we decided to head over to Asian Rim for dinner. Asian Rim is located near downtown Huntsville near Huntsville Hospital in the Twickenham Square area. We arrived fairly early, so it was not terribly busy when we arrived. We were early enough for Happy Hour – which for us was 1/2 priced appetizers since we had already enjoyed our “adult beverages” for the evening.

Lori ordered the Thai Style Steamed Dumplings and I ordered the Godzilla Roll. The dumplings included chicken, shrimp, water chestnuts and shitake mushrooms steamed and served with a dipping sauce. The Godzilla Roll included shrimp tempura, crab, cucumber and avocado served with an Ugani sauce. The dumplings were quite tasty and I enjoyed the Godzilla Roll. If you look at the picture, you will notice that they added the shrimp tempura tails to the ends of the plate. In taking a step back into my childhood, I add the shrimp, tail and all and enjoyed it very much (I’ll have to tell that story one day….).

For our entrées, Lori ordered her standard at different Asian restaurants and that is their Pan Seared Lettuce Wraps. (Sorry for the picture on this one, I tried with my camera phone and it didn’t focus correctly – Lori was hungry, so I didn’t get a second chance.) I ordered the Thai BBQ Chicken. Lori also ordered a side of wok-seared spinach. My chicken came with Wasabi Mashed Potatoes. Lori really liked the chicken with the lettuce wraps, they had just a bit too much ginger for my taste, but they were very good.

The BBQ sauce on the chicken was very nice – not a typical Alabama BBQ sauce, but certainly an excellent Thai style sauce. The meal included a half chicken and was a lot of food. As is sometimes the case when cooking a piece of chicken that size, part of the breast was just a touch overcooked and chewy, not enough to create a real problem. The dish was served with Wasabi mashed potatoes and wok-seared green beans. I really liked the green beans as they were cooked well, but still crisp and crunchy. I am not a fan of wasabi and since I think a good mashed potato with lots of cream and butter is almost a perfect food, I was not a fan of the wasabi mashed potatoes. For mashed potatoes, they were well done, I just didn’t care for the extra flavor. If you are a wasabi fan, you will love this side dish.

In total, all of the dishes we ate had very nice, very clean flavors. Each was different from the other which in some Asian restaurants can be a bit of a challenge. I loved the chicken and would not hesitate to eat that dish again.

Also, the pricing is very reasonable. Our check before tip was $37.41 for the two of us (Happy hour discount was about $10 on the two appetizers). Excellent value for what we ordered. The most expensive entrée on the menu tops out at about $25.00 so, still very reasonable and many options under $20.

Asian Rim certainly gets a “come back” from me and I look forward to trying some other dishes on our next visit.