It was a spur of the moment invitation from old family friends and former bosses that brought us to a Chez Lien Vietnamese Restaurant in Saint-Constant, a place my mother had been to a few times and really enjoyed. Chez Lien is a chain, but she says that they have different owners and vary in quality. The one in Saint-Constant is the cleanest.<\/p>\n
I’ll just make a parenthesis here to say that I started working for my bosses more than 20 years ago. I can’t believe it’s been that long! I last worked for them 14 years ago. We are still close and I can’t believe their boys are all grown up and starting to have children of their own. It makes me feel about 10 years older than I am.<\/p>\n
Anyway, back to Chez Lien. They have a basic but mostly authentic Vietnamese menu with some Thai and ‘Chinese’ items as well as a very opinionated server. My mother gets a kick out of him. Everyone else had a combination fish and seafood platter with soup. I went for one imperial roll and the lemongrass chicken saut\u00e9. I wanted rice but when the server told me he was bringing me vermicelli, I felt it best not to argue. My mother said that I would have heard about it for five minutes if I’d argued with him for wanting the wrong carb with my meal. That sounds unpleasant, but he was hilarious!<\/p>\n
The hearty roll came with fish dipping sauce (a clear and sweet sauce made with fish but not tasting like it at all) and a nice salad with a yummy peanut dressing. My dinner was very late coming out; my companions were halfway finished with theirs when mine arrive. But it was worth the wait! I had a huge plate of perfectly saut\u00e9d veggies and nice pieces of chicken swimming in a thin and fragrant lemongrass sauce that had just a bit of kick to it. I threw the noodles in to absorb some of the yummy sauce. Mmm! I adore lemongrass!<\/p>\n
Chez Lien serves a variety of fruits deep fried in a wonton wrapper as dessert. Only two of us opted for dessert. My mother chose banana and I chose apple. Dessert was a bit ho hum, needing a little cinnamon or nutmeg, but the sweet sesame sauce made it pretty special. The coffee was very good, albeit a little too close to tepid to really savour.<\/p>\n