The Rising Bun in Lehi certainly doesn’t fall flat
The Supreme Leader at The Rising Bun features marinated beef short rib, pickled red peppers, scallions and chili-hoisin sauce.
Crispy cauliflower at The Rising Bun features curried cauliflower, chilies, five spices and salt.
The Tonkotsu Ramen at The Rising Bun includes pork belly, noodles, egg, toasted nori, scallions, fried onion, pickled bamboo shoots and pork bone broth.
The Krispie Yum-Aguchi is made with curry-fried chicken, pickled mustard seeds, shaved fennel and Thai coconut cream.
The Macauly Poken includes raw, miso-marinated salmon, avocado, edamame, furikake, seaweed salad, scallions, cucumber and yuzu-ponzu sauce.
The Asian pear chopped salad includes chopped romaine, Asian pear, pickled carrots, mint, cripsy shallots, celery and gojuchang-sesame dressing.
Comrade Fries are topped with kalua pork, chili-hoisin sauce, pork-belly aioli, scallions and lime.
The grapefruit and jicama salad, made with red cabbage, lime, soy-garlic dressing and candied walnuts.
The Hong Kong-style waffle is pictured at The Rising Bun. The egg waffle with coconut ice cream, fresh mango, coconut and macaroon crumble.
Asian fusion is, in my honest opinion, played out.
Perhaps I’m a purist and want Japanese food to be served at Japanese restaurants, Chinese food at Chinese restaurants, and Vietnamese food at — you guessed it — Vietnamese restaurants.
And if you can successfully ignore that pretentious paragraph, I promise you The Rising Bun is just for you and this review will convince you of such.
I truly love Asian cuisine — the flavors, aromas and varieties of dishes are never a disappointment. And perhaps that’s why I’m so fatigued with Asian fusion. Asian fusion, as a whole, tries too hard to do too much at once, if you ask me.
But a visit to The Rising Bun, which opened just last month near Thanksgiving Point, threw me for a loop on my feelings toward Pan Asian and Asian Fusion eateries.
The Rising Bun instantly exudes a feeling of class, with deep modern overtones in its decor and gold and gray accents adorning the eatery.
The eye candy doesn’t end with the decor. The menu is a delight to read, with farcical menu item names like the “Krispie Yum-aguchi,” the “Bun-dance Kid,” and even “Crack Pok-aine.”
Names like “Bahn Snow” and “Bahn Stamos” peeked from behind the “coming soon” sign, indicating bahn mi sandwiches in the restaurant’s future fare.
If a restaurant can slip a cynical narcotics reference into its menu, it has to be a good sign, right?
My wife, my parents-in-law and I selected items spanning the menu, to ensure a full breadth and appreciation of the new restaurant’s fare.
A small dish of crispy cauliflower was the first to make it to our table. It was a simple appetizer, with a pinch of salt, curry seasonings and chilies, complementing the crispy crunch of the cauliflower.
An order of comrade fries — the restaurant’s take on loaded fries — was also brought quickly to the table. These were frankly fabulous, with kalua pork, chili hoisin and aioli covering a bed of fries.
After enjoying the fries, steamed buns and other entrees were brought promptly to the table. Unsurprisingly, the steamed buns, with meat and veggie fillings sandwiched inside, are the primary item on the menu.
I chose the Supreme Leader buns; seemed pretty timely considering President Trump’s interaction with Kim Jong Un. Unlike Kim Jong Un, I didn’t feel a sense of dread or apocalyptic madness creep in as I ate my buns. The beef was perfectly tender, with spicy peppers and a robust hoisin sauce.
All of the buns at our table were perfectly fluffy.
I also selected a poke bowl, the “Macaulay Poken,” to round out the meal. Again, I didn’t feel a murderous rage like Kevin McCallister in “Home Alone” — we all know Marv and Harry should have died even before the sequel. The salmon was marinated in a miso sauce, accompanied by avocado, edamame and seaweed. Add the zesty ponzu sauce that soaked the bowl, and it was a fantastic first poke bowl for me.
My wife felt like a ramen, so she chose the Tonkotsu, a classic Japanese dish. It was a standard ramen with pork belly, noodles, egg, toasted nori, scallions, fried onion, pickled bamboo shoots and a perhaps over-salted broth. My wife was not a fan of the girth and overall size of the pork belly, finding it hard to chew. She said it was fair.
My mother-in-law treated herself to the “Krispie Yum Aguchi” buns. They were loaded with curry fried chicken, pickled mustard seeds, shaved fennel, topped with a sweet Thai coconut cream sauce. After a bite, I’d wished I’d ordered those. Not that the Supreme Leader wasn’t bad, it was truly tasty. But the Krispie Yum Aguchi lived up to its namesake with a gold medal flavor.
She also ordered an Asian pear salad, with Asian pear, pickled carrots, mint, shallots, celery and gojuchang-sesame dressing. The mint was strong, but complemented the sesame dressing well.
My father-in-law, after finishing his own Supreme Leader buns, dug into a grapefruit and jicama salad. The tart grapefruit married perfectly with the candied walnuts and soy-lime dressing.
But he was stopped in his tracks by the desserts. We decided to share two “Hong Kong style” dessert waffles: an egg waffle topped with coconut ice cream, fresh mango and coconut macaroon crumble.
Waffle Love, watch your back. These were, without a doubt, the best part of the meal. We all agreed we would willingly return for just the waffle. In fact, we watched as one customer did just that, and made a Hong Kong waffle her entire meal.
After munching on the last bubble-wrap-inspired piece of waffle a few conclusions were reached. The menu was a pleasure to read and an even deeper one to enjoy. The salads and ramen were adequate, but the buns were bun-believable. And whoever created that most exceptional dessert waffle has to know they’ve done the work of angels.
Rising Bun may appear gimmicky upon a first glance, especially with its menu, but a meal in this Pan Asian joint will never leave you feeling flat. Ignore the prejudice of combining cuisines, as I did, and instead embrace Rising Bun’s mouthwatering melting pot.
THE RISING BUN
Where: 3725 N. Thanksgiving Way, Suite A, Lehi
Hours: 10:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday to Thursday, 10:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday
Prices: $2.95- $11.95
More info: (801) 331-8251, http://therisingbun.co