Got Boba Tea?
If you're hungry and in a hurry to have a decent meal, then Saigon Cafe is the place to go. It is a small side-door of a restaurant easily missed in the busy milieu of pedestrians and parking cars around it. Also, families searching for a reasonably priced meal away from home come here. There is only one dining room dominated by a bower of leafy branches overhead giving the illusion of dining in a garden. The dining room is furnished in a very spare style of wooden tables and chairs and the walls around it with framed paintings of beautiful landscapes in their native country. The restaurant is almost always filled with serious diners. Served efficiently by black-shirted staff perplexing to customers is the phrase "Got Boba Tea" stenciled on their shirts, but who cares for an explanation? Customers want a meal, fast. Customers rarely have to wait five to ten minutes before being seated. A restaurant known for fast service and for quality cuisine at reasonable prices, will have few customers seek another place to dine.
For example, my family goes to Saigon Café every so often. Once seated, my family is served immediately with ice-cold glasses of water. Then, the waiter asks us what we would like to drink -- all of which happens before we barely have time to open the menu! The waiter leaves after getting our orders and all seems well, but wait! Saigon Cafe is a Vietnamese restaurant serving rice vermicelli buns, clear or egg noodle soups, rice plates, and Pho noodle soups.
Looking around, I often see a number of Asians but also increasing in number are those familiar with ethnic cuisine. Restaurants such as Saigon Cafe have become popular with open-minded individuals and local families. However in one of my most recent visits, the restaurant has gathered more unexpected customers such as businessmen discussing work over a meal. Saigon Cafe's appeal has not only increased in demographics but also for other reasons why someone would want to eat at the restaurant.
Reading the menu for the first time can be daunting, especially if one does not speak or read the Vietnamese language. The menu has entree names that are possibly incomprehensible, let alone unpronounceable such as Mi Xao Don Thap Cam. But short descriptions can be found under each name and referring to what you would like to order by pointing to the number provided in the menu e.g. P4, P5 and so on, one can order the entree of his choice. Waiters are also on hand for they are knowledgeable and helpful explaining the menu. They are very friendly and never intimidating. Of course there is still the chance of an encounter with an inadequate waiter hurrying customers to order, which does not bode well for the restaurant's friendly atmosphere, but these instances are very rare. Only once has this happened to me in my numerous visits to Saigon Cafe.
When we come to Saigon Café, my family usually orders Thit Nuong Cuon and Cha Gio Chay, fresh charbroiled pork spring rolls and vegetable rolls with their own condiments. Personally I prefer the pork spring rolls over the vegetable rolls due to their crispy and crunchy wonton wrappers. Applying only a smaller amount of vinegar sauce to the spring roll, the appetizer covers all the bases of sweetness and sourness while maintaining the unexplainable desired meat taste that makes anyone take another bite. On the other hand, the vegetable rolls offer the complete opposite in taste of the spring rolls, which is ideal when desiring the full-blown taste of everything in them. The vegetable rolls offer a subtle taste -- nowhere near as aggressive as the pork spring rolls' meat taste. Putting aside their lack of a dominant taste, the vegetable rolls are divine once coated with the peanut butter sauce. When chewing the fresh vegetables, the roll will delude me every time by being crunchy; the roll's subtle taste is a welcome aftermath, but only for a brief while for a new taste takes over with the familiar peanut butter tinge and a strong taste to rival the pork rolls.
The main dish usually comes long before we finish those appetizers. Saigon Cafe offers the general listing of Asian cuisine such as variants of fried rice, fish and other meat dishes. Some of those dishes taste bland without the inherent uniqueness from similar dishes offered by other Asian restaurants. On a brighter note, the generic dishes are better than the typical spoonfuls offered from buffets. Also, such dishes make an appropriate starting dish for being similar to previous meals of Asian cuisine like fried rice. However, the main dish sought by all who goes to Saigon Cafe is the Pho noodle soup.
The soup, one being called Tai Chin Nam Gau Gan Sach, is served in a porcelain-oversized bowl, steaming hot and just out of the kitchen. Just looking at the bowl makes my family feel like we are no longer in the restaurant but rather in an exotic place. The steam wafts over our faces with its delicious aroma clouding our view of the soup's actual contents. Stirring slowly, my father finds it filled with so much broth that we wonder how none of it had spilled during its serving but upon my father's swirling with his utensils in the soup, we would find long strips of meat, even longer noodles and various vegetables within its depths. After a few sips, my father notices that there is neither abundant vegetables nor a distinct and lasting taste in the soup. Initially, we would wonder why. Then we realize that the chef prepares the soup with something else to add. Fresh bean sprouts and sprigs of mint are served on a separate tray for customers to add to the broth, as each one customer desires. The soup is so rich and hearty it could do as the full meal of the day. Due to its size, a bowl of a regular order is enough to feed my parents and myself.
Depending on the weather or time of the year, a customer may decide to call for the bill at this point. Yes, eating hot soup on a summer day can be odd indeed but Saigon Cafe has an "ace" in its menu cards. It's called "Boba Tea" -- which explains the "Got Boba Tea" on the waiters' shirts. Boba Tea is a dessert concoction -- a hybrid of a slushie and ice cream. It is neither shaved ice nor icy water when initially served. The main beverage of the Boba Tea can be one of numerous flavors: blueberry, watermelon, coffee, taro, and strawberry to name a few. To mix with the beverage are spoonfuls of tapioca, which are black chewy spheres. These spheres nullify some of the tea's overall taste and replace it with a lighter yet still sweet aftertaste. On cold days, Boba Tea may not be an appropriate dessert for some customers.
Saigon Cafe offers dishes from its Vietnamese cuisine which features mainly Pho noodles soup but it is expanding its menu to include various dishes from other Asian countries. Aside from this variety of offerings, its attentive and knowledgeable waiters are an attraction to customers. There is also the freedom of choice for seasonings that customers can depend on to enhance their dishes into new gustatory experiences for them.
But if I have to pick one food that sums up everything I love about Saigon Cafe, it wouldn't be a truly Vietnamese dish but it is the hybrid dessert Boba Tea that must have been invented by an anonymous genius on a hot summer day. Thus, I will always walk out with a glass of Boba Tea, summer, winter, spring or fall.
Saigon Cafe:
★ ★ ★ ★ ☆
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