Mekong Delta

[k likes pho]

When the bosses in my office heard that just up the street a restaurant called Mekong Delta had opened, they took it as a sign of generational drift. How could one possibly give such a name to an establishment and expect anyone to come? It would be like naming an Iraqi tea-house The Falluja Cafe! Have these kids no historical memory?

OK, fine, so some bad stuff went down in the 60s in the Mekong Delta. But there's some good stuff goin' into my belly on Saratoga Street's own version of the place. I had lunch there a few weeks ago with my friend KC, but it wasn't the first time I'd been there. A week or so before I went with my colleague AR, and at 12:30 we were told that if we didn't have a lot of time, we shouldn't hang around, because each meal is made individually, without line cooks, and that we could expect to wait 45 minutes. For lunch!

KC and I arrived at 11:40, and the service was considerably more expeditious than that. I got a mixed seafood pho with huge gobs of (real) crab meat swimming in a sea of scallions and salty broth. King prawns, scallops, and (I think) some fish meat mingled around the traditional Vietnamese rice noodles, and the whole deal was seriously slurpable:


[slurp!]

KC got the Vietnames "crepes," which our server recommended for someone who was interested in "something different," misreading us, perhaps, as regular customers. It was a tasty savory pancake -- perhaps a bit too pasty -- filled with fried veggies, chicken, and a few too many styrofoam-tasting bean sprouts, and it left me wondering if there was some sort of French Indochine connection here. I mean, are there "crepe" shops set up all over on the streets of Hanoi? What other fusions are there? Pork belly rolls in buttery boules? Guess I'll have to go there and find out.


[dip!]

FOOD: B+
This was no 3-visit Frank Bruni review, but the two dishes we did have were really tasty. I'm not a huge connossieur of pho, so I need to wait until I eat something from MD that has tripe in it before I can call myself a man, but overall a good lunch for $10 apiece. Oh, and the lightly-hinted-at flavor of the cold white tea was great

AMBIENCE: B-
Kinda crappy. The place is too small -- it's in a rowhouse at the corner of Liberty and Saratoga, and every table is sort of near the door. We were wedged up against a fridge full of cokes. But maybe when it gets sunnier out they'll add some sidewalk tables.

SERVICE: B
The first time we went there, the suggested wait was outrageous. If grandma can't cook everything customized in less than 20 minutes, hire some line cooks! But the manager is very nice, and our food came moderately quickly the second time, with no mistakes.