Chinese bistro?

When I hear the word "bistro," I imagine a streetside cafe in France or somewhere along the Mediterranean coast. Using "bistro" to refer to a Chinese restaurant is almost an oxymoron. With that said, I was pretty skeptical about Gu's Bistro. But the many good things I had heard and read about this Buford Highway restaurant was enough to convince me to try it.

Thankfully, I had Cashew with me to guide me through the large menu with unfamiliar dishes. After some discussion, we narrowed down our choices to the Husband & Wife appetizer (on top of the plate pictured to the right), the cumin lamb (on the right side of the plate), and shrimp-stuffed tofu (see below). The first dish, according to Cashew, is an authentic Chinese dish that is found only in authentic restaurants. It contained sliced beef and beef tendon in a spicy cold sauce with scallions. Honestly, I couldn't distinguish between the beef meat and tendon; they were both cooked to the same tenderness. The sauce was also amazing, and made the whole dish very flavorful.

We ordered the cumin lamb knowing that it would be spicy, but boy was it hot! I tend to order spicy items, but I had a little trouble eating this one. The key was making sure that I didn't have any chile peppers in my bite. On the bright side, cumin had a strong enough taste to stand out from all the heat. Just a suggestion, though: if you take any spicy dish to go, make sure you don't pack any chiles. Their taste will only concentrate and intensify because most of the meat is gone. This dish was HOT in the restaurant and barely edible the next day! My eyes were seriously watering, and my mouth was burning for a long time after that lunch...

Finally, Cashew wanted a tofu dish, so we got the stuffed tofu. We didn't really know what it would look like, but I guess neither of us was prepared for what we got: strips of tofu wrapped around minced shrimp, deep fried, and served in a syrupy-looking sauce. Well, the sauce wasn't as sweet as it looked, but it was completely flavorless. The tofu didn't pack much taste either. The only redeeming characteristic of the dish was the bok choy, which I love.


Despite our not-so-great experience, I do believe in the quality of food at Gu's Bistro. I wouldn't mind going back and trying something less spicy and that I'm more familiar with :)