He ate:´More, please´

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If I’m to pick an area restaurant of the year, I’ll choose one that still has a pulse (hats off for you, Fork in the Road). In fact, latest reports tell me that the Naing Family Restaurant on Lansing’s south side is thriving. That’s as good a way to start the 2015 dining scene as anything I can imagine.

This family-owned restaurant melds Malaysian, Burmese and Thai cuisines. The food is extraordinarily fresh and lovingly prepared. The entrees are bountiful and the prices are easy on the wallet. The soups, salads and spring rolls are as good as any in town. By all means, have the fried bottle gourd appetizer, beautifully fried tempura-style and served with tamarind sauce.

Don’t be put off by the exterior. Naing is located in a misbegotten strip mall near the corner of Cedar Street and Holmes Road. What the place lacks in eye appeal is more than compensated by the care it takes in preparing food.

Rounding out my first-team All-Lansing Eateries are Black Cat Bistro and Riverhouse Inn. OK, neither of them are in Lansing. Black Cat resides a block off Grand River Avenue, just a hoot and a holler from the East Lansing Police Department. Their appetizers are inventive, fresh tasting and filled with surprises. The goat cheese fritters with caramelized onions and saffron honey was astounding. Ditto the Asparagus Tartar — finely chopped asparagus al dente with chopped tomatoes, garlic and balsamic reduction.

The Riverhouse Inn in Williamston was a hit-and-miss affair, but we had a couple of summertime dishes served on their riverside patio that painted big smiles on our faces. The whitefish fillet was so delicately breaded, so moist and tender, that I was doing my best Oliver Twist impersonation: “More, please!”

And the pasta with heirloom tomatoes was equally yummy, no doubt because the folks in the kitchen treated it as the seasonal dish it should be: with garden-ripened cherry tomatoes. I can’t wait to see what dishes they cook up this winter.

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