Blossom Restaurant

For the last couple of weeks and the next four months I have been finding myself in Downtown LA on Tuesdays. I have dreamed of working in this unexplored area of Los Angeles and finding all kinds of new restaurants. Unfortunately, these first couple of weeks I haven't done that much exploring! Today, however I was excited to meet my Freshman year college roommate for lunch.  Forgoing our old favorite The Spaghetti Factory, we headed down the street to Blossom Restaurant for some quality Vietnamese food.

As usual, when I am eating out not with my husband I tend to lean toward places with foods he might not enjoy such as Asian or Indian foods. Sometimes I even go crazy and just get a weird sandwich!  In any event, when Melissa suggested Vietnamese I was totally game.

Blossom is right on the corner of Main just a few blocks from the courthouse where I have been spending my Tuesdays. It is definitely do-able if you are at Jury Duty in the general downtown area--particularly because Jury Duty lunch hours are absurdly lengthy. The restaurant has two storefronts with lots of indoor seating and a small outdoor patio that they pack tables into in order to get the best square footage from a small area.

While I've had Vietnamese food before, I was unsure about how to navigate the menu and what to choose. At first I was sort of thinking of ordering a crepe appetizer until I learned it would be more like an omelet. In the end, I ordered the shrimp curry. I was totally unfamiliar with Vietnamese curry and only hoped that it was closer to Thai than Japanese in variety.  My friend ordered a cold noodle dish with vegetables and eggrolls across the top.  I was a little jealous of hers when it came, but not after I tasted mine!

The food came to our table almost seconds after we ordered it--even before our drinks!  The curry had a great flavor with a little bit of a kick but nothing too spicy. It came with a generous ball of rice and was filled with shrimp, green beans, mushrooms and carrots in a green sauce.  I also had the Jasmine iced tea which was clearly freshly brewed possibly even from loose tea.  I never got a refill on my tea though and at $2.75 it's a little steep (no pun intended!).

The cold rice dish looked delicious as well and since she orders it almost every time, I imagine she thinks so too!  The ginger limeade she got to accompany her meal looked like a very dark iced tea and was obviously a powerful ginger flavor based on the color alone. Refreshing possibly, but definitely gingery!

The restauranteers were nice and helpful and the place was very reasonably priced. I will definitely be heading back to this place sometime soon!





Blossom Restaurant
426 S Main St
Los Angeles, CA 90013