Sweet and Sour Pork, Prawns and Sake at Lotos Inn & Suites

In the spirit of my theme for the month of November, doing new things, I went and had lunch at a restaurant I have never been to. I was planning  girlfriend date with my friend Vonette Orinda and I wanted to have Ethiopian, Japanese or Chinese. We settled on Chinese and I started searching online for a restaurant we both had never been to. I found The Garden Restaurant at Lotos Inn & Suites, and from the reviews on Trip Advisor, decided that was the best pick.

Where is it?

Lotos Inn & Suites has been around since 2016, although I found out about it a few days before we went. It’s situated on Mpaka Road in Westlands opposite Oshwal Primary School and adjacent to West Point. It’s easy to miss especially if you’re not familiar with the area so you probably want to pay attention as you get on to Mpaka Road.

The Garden Restaurant & Bar is on the 6^th floor of the hotel. Beautiful is an understatement – chic décor, large windows and a skylight that gives the benefit of seating outside while still enjoying protection from the elements. It’s also a big space that could comfortably host 100 people. There’s a bar area as well as a more formal dining area.

What’s on the menu?

The menu features Chinese and Continental cuisine and is quite extensive featuring everything from dim sum, pork, beef, chicken, lamb and seafood sections as well as rice, noodles and foo yong dishes. The drinks menu is also extensive, with soft drinks, beers, wines, cocktails, hot beverages and sake on the list. We came for Chinese and so we ordered from that menu.

The Food

The great thing about Chinese food is that the portions are huge. One order for anything is more than enough for two people. We settled on the gong bao tofu with cashew nuts as our starter with some sake to get the day going. The gong bao tofu was well seasoned, crunchy and delicious. We thought we could order a second starter and order dumplings, but we were already getting stuffed and wanted to leave room for the main course. The sake was perfect and was a nice accompaniment to the spicy gong bao tofu.

Gong bao tofu and sake

For the mains, we ordered sweet and sour pork, stir fried Shanghai style prawns and chicken fried rice. The portions were very generous, and we struggled to finish our meal. The sweet and sour pork was the perfect balance of savoury and sweet, the prawns were juicy, and the rice was delicious. I think we ate for almost 2 hours to get through the mains. We had more sake but also ordered wine – merlot – during the meal.

I thought I could push myself to have dessert, but I was too stuffed for this, so I had more wine and called it a day! We got there at 2 pm and left at 9pm and it was probably one of my favourite lunches this year.

The Verdict

The ambiance is great, service is good, food is delicious, and the place is beautiful. The prices are also quite pocket friendly with starters and main dishes ranging from Ksh 400 to Ksh 1050, beers going for Ksh 300, wine by the glass at Ksh 400, cocktails ranging from Ksh 500 to Ksh 650 and sake at Ksh 600. You can check out the menu and pricing here.

I will definitely be back, and this time I’ll arrive early so I can have enough time to eat and hopefully make it to dessert. I will also make sure to try the dumplings, foo yong and noodles!