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| - To be fair, Vietnamese food isn't high on my list of must-haves. In fact, every time I go there, before I even open my mouth to speak, the staff lets me know whether they have French bread for sandwiches, because I apparently order them all the time (and didn't realize it till they said so).
Vietnamese food is overweighted towards soup and I'm not a huge soup fan. I'm especially not a huge fan of this place's soups: either a clear broth loaded down with noodles or something oily and heavy. The Mi Xao Don and Mi Xao Men are the closest things to stir fry, but come with either fried noodles or actual noodles instead of rice. But it makes no difference: it's watery and heavy on basic vegetables with little real meat. Most of the other "main" dishes are rice-heavy. But this isn't the restaurant's fault: if you know Vietnamese food, then you know Vietnamese food means "rice and ..." or "soup" (Pho).
Now, let's go to what this uncultured Westerner DOES like:
The sandwiches are to DIE for: simple, sandwich sized French bread stuffed with jalapenos, cucumber, pate, mint and mayo. Or maybe one with an omelette. There are a number of different sandwiches and while the two I mention above are my favorite, any of the others will hardly disappoint. The spring rolls are always fresh and crisp; the egg roll is more like a Chinese "spring roll" (while the Vietnamese spring roll is nothing like you've had before: lettuce and shrimp --- or pork --- wrapped in rice paper ... I call them "alien rolls").. The egg roll usually comes VERY hot, so be careful. Wrap it up in a lettuce leaf before eating, like the Vietnamese do and find yourself surprised at how well those go together!
As far as beverages go, I can't stress how good their "Thai Tea"s are. Easily as good as in any Thai place and priced unbeatably low.
In fact, this restaurant has two things going for it: very low priced, but very authentic food and, of course, being low priced, it's a good value. When you see that a large percentage of the clientele eating here is Vietnamese, that should be a clue as to what their own people think of the food.
Now, one must have a bit of a strong stomach to eat here. It's not the cleanest of places; very basic furniture and fixtures, and the tables so close together as to make the dining experience almost communal (Ho Chi Minh would have been proud of this Socialist experiment in seating). Kids are frequently here and frequently loud. Apparently, there's an unwritten rule, that any visit to this Vietnamese restaurant must have children under two in attendance and they must scream or at least throw noodles on the floor. You've been warned: don't show up here in a formal gown and leave one star, because you didn't realize you'd be eating in what can best be described as a former electronics store after all its furniture's been repossessed. And just so you know, that other loud "noise" you hear is the wait staff screaming at each other in Vietnamese like hot dog sellers in a stadium. Don't worry: eventually, you'll be too distracted trying to figure out what that food is in front of you to notice it at all.
Overall, despite the negative sounding review, good food if you like Vietnamese; not good at all if you're expecting something similar to Thai or Chinese (not even close). Helpful staff (though one time, I sat for 50 minutes while my partner ate only to be told they forgot I ordered a sandwich). Dinner for two rarely hits about $25 and we're talking a LOT of food for that. Cleanliness could be better, but we're not talking about a street stall in downtown Saigon with mopeds racing by. Oh, and as long as we're on the subject of vehicles: be prepared for an overcrowded parking lot with unusual parking. Apparently, some Vietnamese believe that parking in the lines (or on the street, for that matter) is optional.
Oh, and one other warning: they tend to close early (8pm) most nights, so don't dilly dally putting on your stockings. The traffic on I-17 getting there can be murder.
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