Recommended by a Vietnamese friend, a restaurant that is VERY Vietnamese in all the best ways possible.
To start, the Vietnamese coffee. The coffee is dark and bitter, shielded by an umbrella of condensed milk; sweet as sugar, thick as a storm. A prequel for the hail of broken rice to come.
They say broken rice is equal to regular rice, but I disagree. The nutritional properties and value are unchanged by the trauma, but broken rice is more beautiful in its imperfection. The smaller pieces are pebbly and the larger pieces are soft, adding a spectrum of texture that regular rice can't reach.
We are the only non-Vietnamese people in this restaurant, and we are thrilled. We point with enthusiasm to the most patient of servers, and two heaping platters are our speedy reward.
The chargrilled pork just glistens, tender and thin in a sweet marinade. The shrimp are tougher but they're flush with flavor.
The short ribs carry a little char from the grill, and they drip with thick bulgogi.
Each plate is already a meal in itself, but the meats keep stacking on. Shredded pork is salty and savory, a combination of lean meat and fatty skin; a great taste and texture to mix with the rice. The baked egg is a fluffy omelet, softened by strands of rice noodle in between. There are slices of salty, spam-y shrimp paste wrapped with chewy tofu skin and fatty Chinese sausage that turns to liquid fat in your mouth. The meatball is the non-shrimp version of the shrimp paste, an acquired taste for those who don't love spam. If all that isn't enough, there's a crunchy eggroll and long leg of fishcake to finish.
If it ain't broke don't fix it, but not everything broken needs to be fixed. The tastes and textures of these giant platters are a delightful adventure, a one-woman expedition into a plate deep enough for three.
The restaurant itself can be intimidating without a common language in which to communicate, but don't let that keep you away. The menu is full of vivid photos, conducive to the universal point. Point to any dish when you come here, I doubt it'll disappoint.
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