The Golden Lotus is more about spectacle than food, but that’s not a bad thing.
Sometimes the food isn’t so important. You want ambience. It could be the pub with the dark bar, the diner with the neon and the jukebox, the Italian joint with the checkered tablecloths and the operatic soundtrack.
Or maybe this: the “fancy” Chinese place beside the mall that has held steady since the 1970s, a pagoda’d, fountained, red-and-gold-painted, dragoned, aquariumed, Buddha-garnished, Lazy-Susaned, drink-parasoled, plastic-orchided sprawl. You want the atmospheric background music, the familiar “house specials” (moo shu pork, Happy Family) and the green-tea ice cream.
If this mood strikes in Boulder, then head toward the Target on 28th and look for the joint with the pagoda motif and big parking lot — a.k.a. the Golden Lotus.
Order some tea and soup. If it’s evening, a cocktail — a simple one, maybe whiskey and soda — is in order, if for no other reason than the deja vú: Are we in Las Vegas, somewhere off the strip? It feels like Vegas, but not in a Bellagio kind of way.
If you are a vegetarian, you are in luck: Golden Lotus uses a variety of faux meats, so you can get kung pao chicken or Szechuan beef, only without the meat.
Don’t go nuts analyzing the plate of twice-cooked pork (traditional or vegetarian). Just sip and watch and remember your delight in the whole spectacle when you were 11, with the family, celebrating something or another.
Just go with it. That’s why you’re here anyway, remember?
– GOLDEN LOTUS –
Chinese. 1964 28th St., Boulder, 303-442-6868, goldenlotuscuisine.com. Sunday-Thursday, 11 a.m.- 10 p.m., Friday and Saturday 11 a.m.-10:30 p.m.
