Restaurant experiment: Saigon Grill

Saigon Grill

620 Amsterdam Avenue between 90th & 91st Streets

New York, NY 10024

212-875-9072

Right as I stepped into this sprawling restaurant, I immediately took in the fact that this place is packed. Hustle plus bustle. Mostly families, but college kids, old folks, you name it. The host pointed to an empty chair where I could wait for the rest of the birthday party party to arrive. Once everyone showed up, we were escorted to a holding pen for groups in the back much like Gradisca. We were not the only birthday party in attendance.

Saigon Grill behind the scenes is a bit sketch; some of us were touching on the fact that SG got into hot water for faking their books and not paying their deliverymen fair wages.

I ordered grilled beef bun which is described on the restaurant’s MenuPages menu as “room temperature rice vermicelli with cucumber, lettuce, bean sprouts, crusted peanut and fresh herbs in nuoc cham sauce topped with grilled beef.” For something around $11, it’s totally bang for your buck times seven, what a good deal. Granted, I filled up a bit on appetizer rolls beforehand, but there were noodles aplenty in the bowl, so much so that I couldn’t finish and I was secretly ashamed. I don’t know if the bun normally comes with cilantro; I played it safe by requesting that mine be vile weed-free, and it was, either through my request or because it doesn’t come with cilantro. It is Vietnamese cuisine; you/I can’t be too careful.

Saigon Grill, the least you could do was comp Max’s birthday green tea ice cream. And you didn’t. Our party was nearly twenty people! Tsk tsk.

Restaurant experiment: Xe Lua

Xe Lua

86 Mulberry Street between Bayard and Canal

New York, NY 10013

212-577-8887

xeluanewyork.com

I discovered something that I like, and I like that. And it goes by the name of iced Vietnamese coffee. Where has it been the past few years? Thai iced tea, you might have to take a backseat for the time being. Amy suggested we try this place down in Chinatown, and it’s a Vietnamese joint run by Chinese people. The menu is huge and full of good deals; I ordered pho for only $5.50, and it wasn’t a wimpy little portion either. Four of us shared a plate of spring rolls that were a bit too chewy on the wrapper part (like biting into a Band Aid), but I found the filling acceptable. My pho with beef eye round (not eyeballs) was pleasant enough but the soup lacked a strong flavor so I had to sauce it up myself. And there were cilantro leaves which automatically irk me (I picked those out). There isn’t much beef, so if you want bundles of beef in your pho, go with the house special pho which gives you more cow for about $2 more.

The decor at Xe Lua is a bit spastic, as it’s tiki lounge in the front, and clouds/ocean-like in the back. The service is kind but maybe not the most attentive.

Now I must talk about my new favorite thing: iced Vietnamese coffee. I had never had it before, and Amy urged me to try it. It’s cute: a tiny teakettle-like object holds hot water which slowly drips onto ground coffee and then into a cup with a generous layer of sweetened condensed milk on the bottom. You stir up the coffee and milk, and the net result is a dark sludge. Skillfully pour the sludge over ice, and you’ve got iced Vietnamese coffee. It’s just like a mocha!