In Plain Sight

There’s this Vietnamese restaurant that just a few miles from our house. They’ve been around for many years but, for some reason, we’ve never gone. I think we discussed it once on a Sunday and they were closed and then they just dropped completely off our radar. It sits in an unassuming strip mall and isn’t easy to see so it was kind of out of sight, out of mind.

We were out doing stuff today and I didn’t feel like driving that much when we got back so I just did a simple search for restaurants near me. The place popped up along with the realization that we have never tried it. Looked over the menu and we decided to stop in.

Turns out it was a great decision and now we are just kicking ourselves for not going sooner. It isn’t anything fancy but then we aren’t really into fancy so that worked for us.

They had the things you typically associate with Vietnamese food like Pho and Banh Mi and a few other things. I’m pretty sure they do the various proteins one way and then they get served on a Bahn Mi or over rice or over noodles. Each dish then has pickled carrots and daikon so all the stuff does double duty.

Because we are in the middle of fall-summer, it wasn’t really soup weather so I went with the pork Bahn Mi and my wife did the chicken over rice with the pickled stuff put into kind of a salad with lettuce and cucumbers. We started with another classic – the cold spring rolls wrapped in rice paper with shrimp and mint and other stuff.

The marinade on the meat was lemongrass based and you could taste that. Very nice balance of flavors in both the pork and chicken and each was cooked very well. My pork had a nice char but not enough to be bitter and it was still very tender.

Plus I got Vietnamese coffee. I’m a sucker for SE Asia coffee – always have it when we go Thai. I’m an iced coffee guy but I typically don’t add anything to mine but I love the way Thai/Viet coffee is prepared. Sometimes, it can be too sweet but this one wasn’t. You could still taste the coffee through the milk and that’s they way to go.

I think they are busiest at lunch and dinner is primarily take out and delivery because there were only two tables filled. But they did several take out/delivery orders while we were there and the place has been there for many years, so I think they’ll be OK.

We will definitely put it on our rotation of places to go. Sometimes, the best things are hiding right in plain sight.