Now and Zen

Zen has become such a hip word over the past three decades that it’s now attached to all kinds of things that have nothing to do with enlightenment, including alarm clocks, acoustic cables, Internet search engines, and rolling papers. In Italian, zen means the same thing it does in English: meditation, coming from the early Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese chín and made famous by the school of Mahayana Buddhism, which, according to the American Heritage Dictionary, “asserts that enlightenment can be attained through meditation, self-contemplation and intuition rather than faith and devotion.”

But zenzero is the Italian word for ginger and also the inspiration for Zen Zero, the eleven-month-old noodle shop and restaurant on Massachusetts Street in Lawrence. The spartan restaurant might be a good place to find enlightenment of the culinary kind; the eclectic Asian cuisine — with recipes from Nepal, Tibet, Thailand, Vietnam and Japan — is superb, reasonably priced and served with élan. I can’t help but meditate on why noodle shops in Kansas City seem to be, in contrast to this no-frills Lawrence joint, more zero than Zen.

Despite the restaurant’s Italian name, there are no Mediterranean dishes on the menu, and not too many gingery ones. But the simple noodle transcends geography. Oh, yes, I’ve heard the tale that thirteenth-century explorer Marco Polo took Chinese noodles back to Venice (a story most culinary historians dispute; there’s evidence that southern Italians were dining on pasta long before Marco Polo left on his travels to the Orient), but if it were true, something must have been lost in the translation over the centuries. Chef Boyardee — and there really was one — didn’t come up with a canned version of, say, phad lhad noa to accompany his heat-and-eat cheese ravioli.

It took Lawrence restaurateurs Alejandro Lule, born in Mexico, and Subarna Bhattachan, a native of Nepal, to bring such a varied selection of exotic noodle dishes, soups and appetizers to their restaurant. It’s a cool and comfortable setting: blond-wood tables and chairs, walls painted a tawny terra-cotta, light fixtures shaded either with bamboo steamers or hand-blown glass art. The room possesses an elegant simplicity, but there are none of the finer touches — the napkins are paper, and the beverage tumblers are plastic.

My style-conscious friend Ned liked the dining room but cringed at the sight of fluorescent light fixtures casting a harsh, cold light from the steamy, partially open kitchen. “They need to put up screens to hide those ugly lights,” Ned said, cradling a glass of Chardonnay and nibbling one of the crunchy shrimp chips heaped in a red plastic basket. I thought the chips tasted like Styrofoam, even dipped in hot chili sauce. Ned was more philosophical: “They bring out these things for free. If they tasted good, no one would order an appetizer. So for God’s sake, order one.”

I did, the Tibetan treat known as momos (called Himalayan dumplings on the menu), which my friend Sally ate with gusto two years ago during a long trek across Nepal. “They’re traditionally stuffed with vegetables,” she’d told me. “But I’ve eaten them filled with yak meat, which wasn’t very good.”

At Zen Zero, the only available meat filling is turkey, not yak. We ordered the crescent-shaped dumplings filled only with cabbage, peas, carrots and shallots. They’re served steamed or sautéed; the latter are more delicious by far, slightly crispy and wonderful dipped in two cooling chutneys: one made with creamy yogurt and coconut, the other a spicier version with cumin and puréed tomatoes. We also sampled an order of fried tofu, triangles of lightly sautéed bean curd that could be dipped in a translucent sweet-and-sour sauce.

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That day’s appetizer special combined the Thai-style spring rolls on the menu — crunchy and filled with chunks of crabmeat and slivers of fresh basil — with something called Thai toast, a slice of bread thickly spread with a spiced-pork concoction and put under a broiler until the surface was bubbly and brown.

My friend Bob was intrigued by another special du jour, a “salad that isn’t really a salad,” explained our server. “I mean, it isn’t made with vegetables.”

The idea of a salad without traditional ingredients appealed to Bob, and he ordered it. When it arrived, he noted immediately that the plate had a smattering of julienned carrots on it. But mostly, it was a heap of chopped pork, chicken and shrimp marinated in lime, tamarind, soy and chiles, then chilled and ladled on a big mound of hot, fragrant jasmine rice.

Ned perused the menu offerings and chose a bowl of green Thai curry while explaining that of all the spices most frequently used in curries, the restaurant’s namesake, ginger, was reputed to have both healing and aphrodisiac qualities. He rhapsodized about his dinner, a jade-colored broth perfumed with green chiles, garlic, lemongrass and coriander, and swimming with pink shrimp, red and green peppers, yellow bamboo shoots and onion.

I couldn’t stop eating my own curry dish, a bowl of cellophane noodles and pickled cabbage in a surprisingly light sauce that came topped with crackly Chiang Mai noodles. It packed a lot of heat but wasn’t tongue-burning; the fire was deceptive enough that I kept eating, even though I was nearly drenched with sweat by the time I finished the dish. Maybe it had an aphrodisiac effect, because by the time I paid the bill, every server in the place suddenly looked like a movie star and my head was spinning. My friends hustled me out before I asked for an autograph. Or a date.

I tried to be better behaved on my next visit, this time with Bob and Debbie along for the meal. Once again, Bob ordered that day’s special, which he’d seen printed on a board at the front of the restaurant: a salad of grilled beef, marinated in lime and chiles, lolling on a bed of curly endive with chopped tomatoes and purple onion.

“You know, I don’t even like this kind of food, and I love this place,” said Bob, a meat-and-potatoes kind of guy.

Debbie, who now lives in Australia, is a more adventurous diner and considered one of the six vegetarian choices before finally choosing a dish of mussels, shrimp and cherrystone clams in a punchy red curry. “It’s delicious,” she said. “This is the kind of restaurant we have all over Australia. A combination of Asian cuisines all melded together.”

My dish was distinctly cross-cultural: Kansas beef — flank steak — marinated in green papaya, scallions, ginger, and garlic, then perfectly grilled and served on a mound of mashed potatoes flavored, ever so delicately, with wasabi. It was zensational, I must say.

After those head-clearing spices, we were ready for something cold and creamy to cool our palates. The menu boasts green-tea ice cream and a trio of tropical sorbets, but the true Zen experience is a silken coconut flan drenched in a soothing caramel sauce. Baby, I felt like Siddhartha after my second spoonful of that heavenly confection. Bob, always the rebel, ordered the dessert spring roll, a sheath of phyllo pastry wrapped around fresh bananas, cashews and chocolate, then deep-fried and served with vanilla ice cream. The banana becomes like baked custard inside the hot, crispy coating. After stealing a bite from his plate, I could understand his post-dessert nirvana.

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OK, so maybe we all didn’t reach a state of divine enlightenment after experiencing Zen Zero, but we did discover a treasure trove of pan-Asian fare. Maybe it was the seductive qualities of the ginger, but I get zentimental just thinking about the place.