This is sort of "part 2" to my review of my July 4th movie going experience. As we left the theater…read morein Manville on that brutally hot day, my old friend abruptly brought up the fact that he still owed me a meal for driving him up to Paramus a few months ago so he could buy a used car. At the time, he told me he'd buy me dinner for helping him out. I told him he didn't need to buy me dinner. If I can help someone...friend, family member or acquaintance...I'll do it out of the goodness of my heart, not because I'm expecting a recompense. He insisted he was buying me dinner. Being that it was July 4th, and I doubted any restaurant would be open, I was suspicious that his offer was a conman's grift to get out of buying me food. Then again, he had brought it up. I felt guilty for doubting his sincerity.
We drove to restaurants in Gillette and Basking Ridge. All closed. We went to Gabriel's Fountain in Martinsville, where we had previously eaten. We saw people and assumed it was open. As it turned out, they were only serving ice cream, not regular food. I love ice cream, but given I had eaten a tub of popcorn, a box of cookie dough candy, and a Coke just an hour or so previously, I wasn't really in the mood for ice cream. Truth be told, I wasn't in the mood for food period. But I thought I could down a bowl of soup somewhere and relieve my friend of this burden of "payback." So we soldiered on.
Miraculously, a diner was open in New Providence. My friend didn't want diner food. In Murray Hill, we found an open Chinese restaurant that looked relatively cheap. My friend didn't feel like Chinese food. He checked his phone and said there were 3 restaurants in Summit that were open for business, and they had good reviews. At that point, I just wanted to go home to my air-conditioned domicile and crash, but...we continued on.
In Summit, 2 of the restaurants he had read about on his phone were closed. The 1 that was actually open had a line in front of it a half mile long. I said, "I'm not standing on line in this heat for anything. Let's just go..." "Look, try the main street! There has to be something open!"
On Summit's Springfield Ave., we parked on the street (no parking meter tolls on this holiday). Some people were out and about on the street, and some places actually did look like they might be open. In spite of his earlier expressed antipathy towards the partaking of Chinese food on this torturous (weather-wise) evening, my friend steered us through the open doors of Blossom Asian Bistro.
The restaurant is spacious and modernistically furnished. We were seated and after 1 look at the menu, my friend said, "I can't pay for you tonight-- not at these prices!" I knew it would be pointless to remind him of the cheap prices at the Murray Hill Chinese place he had rejected, so I didn't. And then, I don't know what weird impulse took hold of me--- I wasn't really hungry, I didn't have a lot of money on me, and eating a massive amount of food like I was still 20 years old can set my increasingly precarious digestion absolutely and embarrassingly haywire, but I decided to order a meal in addition to the soup. Call it the "Imp of the Perverse," or maybe I'm just a gluttonous food addict. I thought, "I can fast tomorrow."
Service was friendly, prompt. We both ordered the Chicken Wonton Soup, and I was pleasantly surprised. The broth was tasty, not salty, and the wontons, light and delicate...not at all like the doughy, heavy ones that I'm accustomed to (which I still love in spite of their doughy heaviness), were delicious.
I ordered the cheapest item on the menu (can't remember what my friend ordered, but he liked it, whatever it was). For me, it was Sesame Chicken, described on the menu as "white meat chicken fried with lotus flour in sweet tangy sesame sauce." I'm not sure what "lotus flour" is, but the dish was served with brown rice, and I enjoyed every mouthful.
The food was fresh, prepared with real care, and was eminently enjoyable. The prices were expensive, but then this is Summit. I think it comes with the territory. And the food was very good. Sometimes (oftentimes) you do pay for what you get.
If I have a negative to offer, it's that the temperature inside bordered on being uncomfortable. The Reading Theater in Manville had felt like an icebox, but at Blossom, I was 1 step away from breaking into an unsightly sweat. I didn't, but I thought at these prices, the place should be cooler on such a brutally hot day than it was.
Given my previous consumption of popcorn and candy, I wasn't in the mood for dessert (or maybe it was my stomach indicating to me, "I've been merciful so far today, but you order dessert now on top of everything else you've eaten, and I really AM gonna embarrass you! Big time!"). We paid and left. I promised my rebellious stomach I would fast the next day. And did.
Definitely recommended. When I'm flush, I'd like to come back and try 1 of the more expensive dishes. With a dessert.
