We began with some of the most well known beverages offered in South East Asian restaurants - my friend with a soy drink and me with a Thai tea (yes, I know it's a Vietnamese place, but I've never been to a Vietnamese restaurant that didn't tout their Thai tea as being just as good as any Thai restaurant's). I have to say, the white soy drink wasn't really to my liking. It tasted very much of just straight soy milk, but my dining companion said that the flavor grew on him throughout the evening. My Thai tea was a decent example - creamy, mildly sweet and offering hints of Chai, I would have preferred a sweeter and more strongly flavored tea in general. So, bottom line on these beverages is that they fit pretty well into the OK category of drinks.
My dining companion then decided to jump to his mainstay appetizer at Vietnamese establishments - Summer rolls. He ordered two types - summer rolls with shrimp and pork, and summer rolls with char-broiled meat balls. It has been a while since this meal, so forgive me if I am a little skimpy on details, but I do believe that he enjoyed both varieties, although he was by no means blown away by their quality.
I decided to begin with a dish that I really ordered just for the sake of getting an appetizer, but I was very pleasantly surprised. The dish I speak of is the Ginger-Lime Chicken Salad. This 'salad' consisted of ground chicken, ginger, scallions, chili, peanuts and a lime dressing. It was delicious!!! Every flavor was very pronounced and worked in perfect harmony...the portion was also extremely generous, something that could easily have been shared, but in my gluttony I unabashedly devoured the entire delectable plate in short order.
My dining companion's plat principal was a big bowl of grilled beef with lemon grass and vermicelli, if my memory serves me right. This bowl comes garnished with lettuce, bean sprouts, carrots, cilantro, green onion, peanuts and a house fish sauce. he was very happy with the bowl, saying that it was a great example of the popular dish. In my own tasting I wasn't as impressed though...it really just didn't taste that special to me, in fact it tasted much like a generic stir fry that one could order in any mall food court. Just my opinion though, so on this dish my companion and I stand divided.
Ahhh, the pho...this is what it's all about. This pho is called Tai Nam Bo Vien, and contained flank and round cuts of beef as well as beef balls. I was somewhat surprised by the relatively small size of the bowl; generally I'm used to eating pho out of a bowl that could double as a bath tub for the contestants in the popular reality series "The Biggest loser," but this bowl was no such behemoth. Size aside, this pho was chock-full of more beef than I've seen in any other pho, always a good thing. While not the highest quality cuts, they did taste very good and added much to the broth. Now the broth - unlike any other pho I've tried, it was distinctly sweeter and decidedly foreign upon the first taste, but my second taste in revealed a very pleasant, deep, rich, beefy flavor. I was happy. After throwing in the garilc-chili sauce and a little oyster sauce to augment the heat and flavor to my preferred level of pain and savory sapor, I just couldn't get enough. While not the best pho I've had, this is certainly a very good one, floating around somewhere in the top rung.
Well, that was it for our meal. Some items were much better than others, but overall I would recommend the restaurant, especially for the pho and the chicken salad. As a side note, the ambiance was easily the most chic I've ever seen in a Vietnamese restaurant, and the service was friendly and efficient.
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