lemon grass help

I'm making an expensive and extragavant birthday cake today. 

There's 1 TBL of chopped lemon grass in the sauce.

How strong is this flavor.  Would it be missed.  I can't find lemon grass, but know with extra drivng I could find it.  Is it worth the trouble. 

I'm assuming from the name it has a lemon flavor.  I just didn't have the time to hunt this ingredient down.  Will it be missed if I omit it?

Strange with all my cooking I've never had a recipe calling for lemon grass.  It must not be a popular item.

You can substitute it with fresh lemon zest.

What cake has lemon grass as an ingredient?  I want some!

haha, you wouldn't want the calories tho.  Its from the Carnival Cruise ship cookbook.

It's a whip cream, coconut, mango puree, frozen, with a savayon sauce, which has the lemon grass and 2 Tbl of chamgpagne (thats where the expense came in) but hehe, will be a good reason to have leftover champagne.

Then, its placed on sliced mangos with raspberries, blueberries and  blackberries sprinkled all over and with a sprig of mint in the middle.

But, darn, this thing only makes 6 servings, so I didn't even enter it in the analyser, for calories,  as some things I'm better off not knowing.

ok, thanks trying one more store, then will use a little lemon  zest.

Lemon zest is not quite as strong as lemon grass.  Be sure if you do find the lemon grass that you chop it up really small unless it is strained out of the sauce.  Just be careful.  It souunds fantastic. 

Oh but with those ingredients it is probably well worth it.  :)

Ya I don't think you'll really be able to taste the difference between lemon grass and lemon zest in a recipe like that.  I have only used lemon grass once in a soup and while it was fancy, it wasn't super spectacular.

Good luck with this cake!  In making it and eating it.

lemon grass is used in thai cooking. All the time.  slightly bitter..Not lemony. I think your recipe would suffer without it.

we couldn't find it, but found a 'lemon grass paste' which had instructions for substituting the paste for the real thing.  I didn't care for the extra oil that was in the paste, but overall the sauce tasted wonderful.