RESTAURANT REVIEW: Lilly's Dim Sum still shines

Crab Cakes, “Lilly’s crowd favorite,” come with sauteed mixed vegetables, chili aioli and rice.
Crab Cakes, “Lilly’s crowd favorite,” come with sauteed mixed vegetables, chili aioli and rice.

Blame the constant influx of new places, especially new Asian places, but it's been a long while since we last visited the venerable Lilly's Dim Sum Then Some, in west Little Rock's Market Place Shopping Center.

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Dumplings at Lilly’s Dim Sum Then Some: Chinese Potstickers (from left), Wasabi Pork Shao Mai, Vegetable Gyoza and Shrimp Shao Mai

Word has been circulating that the return to the kitchen of former chef Jeff Moore (originally of Lilly's, late of the Restaurant at Terry's Finer Foods) has supposedly breathed new life into the restaurant that introduced the "Modern Asian" menu and dim sum into the central Arkansas market.

Lilly’s Dim Sum Then Some

Address: Market Place Shopping Center, 11121 N. Rodney Parham Road, Little Rock

Hours: 11:30 a.m.-2 p.m., 5-9 p.m. Tuesday-Friday, 5-9 p.m. Saturday-Sunday; B-Side, 8 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday-Sunday

Cuisine: “Modern Asian”

Credit cards: V, MC, AE, D

Alcoholic beverages: Beer, wine

Reservations: Six or more

Wheelchair accessible: Yes

Carryout: Yes

(501) 716-2700

lillysdimsum.net

Lilly's opened in April 2002, first as an expansion and then an emigration from Memphis' hip Cooper-Young neighborhood (think Hillcrest on a larger scale).

It was one of the early tenants in the River Market's Ottenheimer Market Hall (eventually replaced by Big on Tokyo). Kathy Webb, who has since left the business and gone into politics (the state Legislature and now the Little Rock City Board of Directors), returned to her hometown with then-partner Nancy Tesmer, offering what at the time was labeled "Asian food with a contemporary American face-lift."

The fare was, and is, essentially Asian fusion; the appetizer offerings include actual dim sum (a variety of dumplings similar to what you'll find at Chi's Dim Sum & Bistro and at dim sum places in southeast China and most American cities). They also include pan-Asian, nondumpling offerings -- for example, from Japan, Gomae (chilled spinach with sesame dressing, tofu, shredded carrots and sesame seeds, $5); Yasai Korokke (lightly battered and crisp-fried potato croquettes, $5.25) and edamame ($3); a seasonal Thai Cucumber Salad ($4); and Fresh Vietnamese Spring Rolls ($7.50).

One of the highlights of the Memphis restaurant, and of Lilly's when it first opened here, was prix fixe all-you-can-eat dim sum that in the long run proved economically unfeasible. Alas.

Since our first visits to the place in Memphis a couple of decades ago, we've found that Lilly's dim sums have always been highly preferable to "then some." More so since central Arkansas' Asian restaurant landscape has expanded exponentially. Lilly's Pad Thai, Kung Pao and Bibimbop have been eclipsed by the advent of actual Vietnamese and Thai restaurants and Korean menus at Korean-owned Vietnamese and Japanese restaurants.

You can find fine, or even exceptional, dining options at Lilly's. But you may have to be a little more discriminating when making your choices. Even the dishes that didn't impress us tasted good. The portion sizes of many entrees and appetizers are absolutely huge; you'll get plenty of "munch" for your money.

On the downside, there's too much cabbage in Lilly's vegetable "mix" -- maybe not an issue if you're cabbage fans, which we're not. And while we're thankful that Moore and his kitchen staff haven't fallen prey to the current trend of over-garnishing everything with microgreens, they over-garnish practically everything with bean sprouts.

A fairly recent physical face-lift has resulted in bright-red-painted walls crowded with paintings (for sale, all of it) by a local artist. A big standing fan supplements the slightly feeble air-conditioning system. The soundtrack varies from soft rock to soft jazz.

The restaurant's alter-ego, one of the area's better weekend breakfast-brunch places cleverly called B-Side, moved a few years ago out of the next-door storefront and now occupies the main space.

We found Lilly's "dim sum" to be as exciting and enjoyable as it has ever been. That includes the four types of dumplings and gyoza: steamed Chinese Potstickers ($6.25), stuffed with ground pork and scallions; Wasabi Pork Shao Mai ($6.75), wasabi-infused dumplings stuffed with pork and scallions; lightly fried Shrimp Shao Mai ($6.75); and Vegetable Gyoza ($6.25). Can't choose? Order the Dumpling Platter for Two ($10), two of each served with a soy-garlic dipping sauce.

Lilly's remains one of the few local establishments to serve Cold Sesame Noodles ($6.50), thin noodles in a sesame-peanut dressing, garnished with peanuts, scallions and sesame seeds. We could eat a metric ton of this stuff every day -- and the portions are pretty large -- even though Lilly's kitchen rather overdoes the sauce. (Just a little sparer would make it even better.)

The Fresh Vietnamese Spring Rolls, fresh veggies and herbs wrapped in thin rice paper, are a little smaller than the versions we've had at area Vietnamese restaurants and come pre-cut into just-larger-than-bite-size segments, but they're tasty and fresh. They come with a soy-based dipping sauce, but you can get the rich peanut sauce (ordinarily $3 a la carte, but our waitress waived it) that most places serve with it.

Do not pass up Lilly's Chinese Hot and Sour Vegetable Soup ($9 entree portion, $5.50 "small"), a richly sweet, sour and spicy broth with vegetables and thinner-than-angel-hair rice noodles. We're still debating whether it was worthwhile to add the large chunks of pulled pork in the Hot and Sour Soup With BBQ Pork ($9.75, $6.50), but it certainly made the smaller portion a lot more filling.

We ordered the Crab Cakes ($17) because we're devotees of crab cakes, but also because the menu says they're "Lilly's crowd favorite," and deservedly so: two huge, panko-crusted and nicely spiced lump-crab cakes that nicely balance crab meat with filler. The spicy chili aioli on the side was actually a distraction. We'd recommend, however, that unless you have a monster appetite or are a huge fan of cabbage, order them as a meal-size appetizer ($11.50), because the generous, cabbage-centered portion of the tart-sauced vegetables atop an even more generous portion of jasmine rice was just plain too much food.

We sort of over-focused on noodles -- that happens sometimes -- in making entree choices, with mixed results. The Pad Thai ($13.75), where the bean sprouts are actually part of the recipe, was fine but not impressive, with shrimp and grilled chicken stir-fried with rice-stick noodles in a "creamy peanut sauce." We probably should not have ordered it on the same ticket as the Chinese Wide Rice Noodles ($13.50), Lilly's version of chow fun, soft noodles stir-fried with grilled chicken and mixed vegetables -- more cabbage, alas -- and too many bean sprouts on the top.

We fought our way through those bean sprouts to enjoy the Japanese Noodles Sukiyaki Style ($14), plentiful shreds of grilled, surprisingly tender steak stir-fried with vegetables and ropy udon noodles in a light, sweet soy sauce.

Based on our waitress' suggestion that it had benefited from Moore's return to Lilly's kitchen, we tried and liked the Subgum Fried Rice ($12.50), jasmine rice stir-fried with chicken, the same roasted "BBQ" pork as is in the soup and tiny cocktail shrimp (small enough that we missed them at first), with mixed vegetables (primarily peas and, yes, cabbage) and scrambled egg with a goodly dose of hoisin and a few extras -- were those black beans? -- that lifts this far above your average Chinese-restaurant fried rice. The portion was big enough to make two meals.

Dining early as we did on our visits, we didn't have a lot of competition for the attention of our waitress, but she was quick and competent to cover our relatively few needs, including keeping drink glasses filled.

Weekend on 07/07/2016

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