Lavo Asian Grill

This place is fantastic!
The service is the best I’ve ever had at a restaurant.
The food was delicious and really good sized portions
The food is CHEAP! I always have to give a 50% tip there because I feel bad for only giving 2 dollars on a great meal

A nice addition to the neighborhood. I decided to go basic and see if they got it right: chicken fried rice, potstickers and egg rolls. I was pleased with the results. The food arrived as ordered, and hot. Not over seasoned. The fried rice was perfect Cantonese style, not Thai. Reasonably priced, good selection. When Thai seems to dominate the Asian cuisine in the area, nice to have a good quality and tasty Chinese option. I will be back.

I ordered a carryout order of Crab rangoon, Mongolian beef and Steak hibachi. Of course this is a casual dining restaurant so I wasn’t expecting too much. The pros were that the meat and vegetables were fairly fresh, portions were large and the service was fast. The crab rangoon was fairly crispy but the cream cheese was lacking in flavor. Also, the sweet and sour sauce was a bit citrusy and too tangy (that’s just my taste, though). The steak hibachi had a nice grill flavor to it. The meat was very good in quality. I just was wanting more overall flavor in the food. I can respect that they may not add as much sodium as other asian restaurants but it needed more flavor. The mongolian beef had less flavor than the steak hibachi so it was more of a miss. I think I would reorder in a few months to see if they have adjusted the seasonings, flavor content of the meat/​vegetables.

Where’s the flavor? Totally blah, glad they renovated the space so the next place that comes in to bring the flavor can open quickly.
I did give them 2 stars because the service is good and the place is clean.

From reading the previous reviews here I was expecting a mediocre meal. I went with three friends and started with appetizers… the pot stickers were good, flavorful and attractive. The California Roll was your average roll, the rice was the sushi rice and not just regular rice some places use to scrimp on cost. The ginger and wasabi were fresh.
I ordered the steak hibachi the vegetables we cooked perfectly, there was a good amount of steak and the sauce was flavorful.
One friend ordered the steak sizzling grill which was a good sized portion and the flavor was nice, not over bearing as some sauces can be.
The orange beef was a really nice dish, very good use of sauce, the chicken pad Thai was a great dish, I am a fan of Thai food and this was on spot.
Granted the place is new, the service is friendly and informative, but a bit slow in bringing the dishes out, there a little lag time between dishes, I am sure that will get better in time.
Prices were very reasonable with the freshness of the ingredients and portion sizes.
Overall Lavo is a great welcome to the neighborhood and i really hope they do well.

This place gets a very solid three stars.
The food was not spectacular, but it wasn’t bad either. A lot of asian restaurants make things too salty or way too greasy. Neither was the case with Lavo which was a good thing.
But on the other hand, nothing was spectacular or that flavorful.
I’m pretty picky, so I have a feeling a lot of other people will really like it.
The problem with the menu is that it is all over the place. Is it a chinese restaurant? A vietnamese restaurant? A korean restaurant? A Thai place? A Sushi place? They’re all over the place, and as a result any one thing is not going to be that great.
They use pretty good cuts of beef/​chicken which is a plus, but there are no complex flavors. The sushi is nothing exciting either.
If I lived anywhere else and Lavo was nearby I’d eat there more, but it is literally across the street from Indie Café which is one of the best Thai/​Sushi places I’ve ever been to, ever, and as a result I’m going to go to Indie Café. If Indie Café wasn’t there I’d probably order from this place occasionally.
Lavo is going to have to provide some sort of incentive for people to eat there or else they are going to go out of business. The one thing that makes them different from Indie Café is that Lave has Chinese food. They may want to consider dropping the Thai and Sushi menu items, and focus exclusively on Chinese (and add some Korean items if they don’t want to be just a Chinese restaurant) and then differentiate themselves from the other places in the area.
The food quality is high, but just not flavorful or complex. I do not want them to lower food quality like other crappy asian restaurants because then it is only downhill from there. Instead limit the menu and focus on chinese and korean dishes, and then I think the place will be ok.

Meh — I’ve had better… but i’ll give it a three star rating cause they’re new ! And they are trying hard too !
I had Beef with snow peas — it was good and the portion was HUGE ! The Pease were fresh and slightly crunchy — they had a good texture ! The Beef was nothing to write home about — but it sure was plentyful in the dish !
no thai iced tea? on a weekend night? that’s SINFUL ! so i had the honeydew melon bubble tea — it was good as bubble teas go … lots of tapioca pearls !
I’ll give their lunch specials a try before i pass final judgement on the place — Thai Grill and Summer are both on the way to walking to Lavo so they better be lunch SPECIALS if i’m going to walk by my two regular places !