Yunnan cuisine comes to Manhattan at Lot...

Yunnan cuisine comes to Manhattan at Lot...

Jeff Bachner for New York Daily News

From left, Jeffrey Lim, Kian Lam Kho and Robert Zhu at Lotus Blue on Reade St. in Tribeca.

Mint, wild mushrooms and banana blossoms arent the first ingredients that come to mind when we think of Chinese cooking.

But theyre essential to the dishes at Lotus Blue, a new Chinese restaurant in Tribeca.

Thats because it serves cuisine from Yunnan, a southwestern province that borders countries like Laos, Burma and Vietnam.

When longtime pals Jeffrey Lim and Robert Zhu, a restaurateur with two eateries in Beijing, decided to expand into New York, they wanted to highlight a cuisine that wasnt well-known.

We were surprised that there wasn't a restaurant in New York City except for Yun Nan Flavor Snack in Brooklyn serving this type of food, says Lim. If youve ever been there, its a little tiny shop. We went there to taste the noodles and saw a niche for it.

Lim and Zhu also wanted to elevate Yunnan cuisine, something that was already being done in booming Chinese cities like Shanghai and Hong Kong.

The core is the same, says Zhu. Chefs keep the authentic Chinese technique, but they bring in new ingredients or combinations.

Kian Lam Kho, the Harlem-based blogger behind RedCook.net, agreed with their concept and signed on to be Lotus Blues executive chef.

Yunnan cooking has become ver y trendy in China in the last five or six years, he says. I was familiar with the cuisine already so when Robert came to me about doing this, I said, We have to modernize it. We shouldn't just create traditional Yunnan cooking because what you end up having is another Chinatown.

Located on an up-and-coming stretch of Reade St., Lotus Blue is anything but a hole-in-the-wall Chinatown joint.

The rustic decor one side of the dining room is lined with exposed brick while the other features a giant lotus flower painting is a nod to the restaurants name.

Lotus Blue actually came from an old Indian Buddhism legend. Before you achieve nirvana or enlightenment, you have to achieve Lotus Blue. Its a state of mind, says Zhu.

To familiarize himself with the flavors used in Yunnan cooking, Kho took a solo trip to China where he met with local chefs and sampled different restaurants, ordering close to a dozen dishes at each meal.

Lotus Blues signatu re items, which have been reinterpreted for New York palates, include a banana blossom and mango salad and crisp-fried red snapper with chili sweet and sour sauce.

A lot of people have come in and asked, Why are you serving sweet and sour fish? I tell them, Wait until you taste it. It's not the sweet and sour fish you have everywhere else, says Kho. It has a kick.

Kho kept other traditional dishes, including the steam pot chicken, a soup made with mushrooms, and cross-bridge noodles, relatively unchanged, a comfort to the many Yunnan diners who have stopped by since Lotus Blue opened.

They love the modernized version, says Kho. It still reminds them of home, just like their grandmothers soup.

Lotus Blue, 110 Reade St.; (212) 267-3777.