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| - My wife and I love us some Vietnamese food. But we live in Cincinnati now, which just got excited about sushi only a few years ago and is only just now getting clued in to the idea that Vietnam might have a noteworthy cuisine. Cinci has slim Vietnamese pickings.
So my brother moved to Charlotte last year, and I was very pleased to discover upon visiting him for the first time there that his new city has a relative bounty of Vietnamese restaurants. He was not well-versed on the local lineup, and a run through Yelp didn't really highlight any particular one as standing out from the pack. But Yelp did make Ben Thanh sound like a good, straightforward, no-frills choice.
Yelp was right.
Ben Thanh reminded me of some of our favorite Vietnamese places in New Orleans and Houston: Located on a bit of a seedy drag, and a cop car was for some reason idling in the back of the parking lot when we arrived. But inside was a comfortable, casual, homey dining room with no pretensions.
Food was simple but very good. Goi cuon had very fresh ingredients and was generous with the herbs, but contained only shrimp as a protein (no pork in these). Condiments for soup were also plentiful and fresh. Broth in bun bo hue was rich and thick, and the pork (shoulder?), especially, was tender and flavorful.
Nice job.
I see that there are the few obligatory reviews here confirming that Ben Thanh is nowhere near as good as the Vietnamese restaurants of SoCal or Orange County. Okay. That may well be true. But, based on a single visit, it stacked up pretty well against the Vietnamese restaurants in a bunch of other U.S. cities.
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