Saigon - Revisit

Back on the Vietnamese trail, we wanted to give Saigon another try. We hadn’t been for years and I had never had their pho. I have been having fun comparing different versions at different places and was anxious to try it.

Hubby and I met up with @zigged and her husband for dinner. I loved having the opportunity to have more people to get to try more things! We started off with the Vietnamese pancake (of course, it’s one of my favorites) ($8.95) and the crispy rice pudding ($8.50). The pancake was good—the crepe aspect of it nice and crispy and thin. They all generally come filled with sliced pork and shrimp (not a lot of shrimp here) and bean sprouts.  I enjoyed it but for some reason, not as much as some of the others I have had. I don’t think it had as much of the green onion flavor as some I have had and the pork wasn’t as seasoned. I like the seasoned fish sauce for dipping—giving it a bit of salt and a bit of tanginess.

The rice pudding was very interesting. It was cubes of the soft rice cakes that were stir fried with egg and scallions and served with a thicker, soy based sauce. The cakes were soft yet firm, and slightly crisp on the outside. The eggy mix added a bit of substance to them, making them definitely savory. A bit of the lightly pickled radish and carrots on the side was a nice addition to the bites. A dip in the sauce added the salty flavor and a touch of sweetness. The longer we continued eating these, the more we couldn’t stop.

I had the rare beef pho ($8), and while it was good, I still think there are better around town. The broth just didn’t have the richest flavor of all the ones I have tried, although it was still very good. I do like that it looks like they literally put the beef in raw and let the broth alone cook it (the top parts of the meat poking out of the broth were still very pink). I was a little disappointed with the amount of fresh herbs you get here—and all of it is Thai basil and none of it was cilantro (the picture you see in the background is the plate for two bowls of pho). I like a bit of both. They give you plenty of bean sprouts though and nice juicy wedges of lemon which I love to add for the extra bit of brightness. I also throw in some jalapenos for touch of spiciness, although I do not eat them. I just let them flavor the broth a bit.

Hubby ordered the clay pot pork ($9.95), which was probably the best dish on the table. The pork had a spicy, peppery seasoning that was great. Not so much a sauce, as a spice rub almost. The pork was tender. The only thing I thought was a little weird is that they served the rice on the side. The rice was good-just the right amount of sticky factor, but usually when I have had a clay pot, the rice is on the bottom of the pot and cooked that way so that it is a bit caramelized and crispy on the bottom and has absorbed a bit of the flavor of whatever is cooked on top. I would have loved to see this in this dish.

Sacha’s hubby had the mixed grill ($14.95), which also had a wonderful rich flavor—you could taste the smoky grilled taste on all the meat—which included chicken, pork and shrimp. It was served with a side of rice noodles that were cold, and thus not my favorite thing (I am not a huge fan of cold noodles). I am not sure if they were warm to start or not. The meat on the dish was very good. I might be tempted to order it with rice though, just because rice tends to stick together better and stay warmer.

You have to love the fact that the place used to be a Bob Evans. You can tell they have tried to change it up a bit, but it still has the distinctive Bob Evans bones. But I am always happy to see a former chain turn into an independent restaurant.  

Saigon has a huge menu though—162 items to be precise. I would love to know what your favorite items are.

Saigon Restaurant

4760 W. 38^th Street

Indy 46254

317/927-7270

www.saigonrestaurant-indy.com 

Saigon - Revisit

Ugh, I hate the sophomore slump.  You know, the second time you go somewhere you really liked the first time (applies to movies and bands a lot too) and it lets you down the next time.  I don’t know, maybe it was all our fault and I ordered wrong (I am confident I will hear about it from you all if that is the problem, and go ahead and start yelling at me for not trying the Pho now) but I was not nearly as impressed this time with Saigon this time. Nothing was bad, but let’s just say, I am glad it wasn’t my first time. Because I might not head back if it was.

So we started with the steamed dumplings ($2.95).  These were actually fine—a lot like a classic pot sticker, minced pork and seasonings inside a slightly thinner wonton wrapper than a lot of pot stickers. I preferred this slightly thinner wrapper so that you didn’t feel like you were totally bloated after eating them—and there were 6, so between 2 people, I was already starting to feel pretty full after eating 3 of them.  But they were fresh and hot, and all in all, probably the best thing we had on this visit. But they weren’t amazing.  (You can also get them pan fried if you want that crisp edge). 

Before we had even arrived, hubby was excited about trying their version of Shaking beef (here called “shaky steak” or Bo Luc Lac for those following along in Vietnamese) ($8.50).  We had had the Cambodian version recently at the Asian Grill, and had really enjoyed it, and it had awakened the need to try it again at a Vietnamese place.  So, it was pretty disappointing. The beef was cubed, and of good quality and fairly tender, but there was little to no seasoning flavor.  There were some onions, green peppers and tomatoes stir fried in as well. But I know from making it myself that there are a lot of differing seasonings and ingredients used (at least in the recipe I used), and I couldn’t really taste much of any of it here. It also didn’t have that slightly crispy edge on the meat that comes from frying it at a really high heat and then adding the sauce, which is something hubby really likes about this dish at other places.  So this is a dish I wouldn’t order again.

We also had their version of the Vietnamese pancake ($5.25), which is also something I have really enjoyed at several places.  It was better than the beef, but only average in comparison to others I have had.  The “pancake” is sort of like a crepe that is heavy on the egg, and is served with thin sliced pork, shrimp and a ton of bean sprouts inside.  Again, there was nothing inherently wrong with the dish; it just didn’t get me as excited as some others.  It was served with a sweet fish sauce on the side that really brightened it up—dipping the pancake in it certainly made me enjoy it more. Actually, I started dipping the beef in there too.  It wasn’t overly sweet, not thick and syrupy or anything. It was a thin sauce and tasted like it had a fair amount of lime, as well as I am assuming fish sauce, some red chili and some sweetener, but not too much. I enjoyed the sauce with it all.  The fresh lettuce and basil with the crepe was nice as well to give it a fresh crunch with the crepe.

So that’s it. Nothing was terrible, but honestly, in almost each dish, I can think of a place, in Indy no less, that does it better.  So I will go back and try other things (and the menu is freakin’ enormous), but like I said, I am sure glad this wasn’t my first visit.  Let’s hope the third time’s a charm.

Saigon Restaurant

3103 Lafayette Road

Indy 46222

317/927-7270

Saigon Restaurant

Ahhh…there you go. My faith is restored. It IS possible to get good Vietnamese in Indy. Even though hubby was grumbling about it after our last foray into Vietnamese cuisine, he let me convince him to give at least one more place a try. So this time, we headed out to the west side.

Saigon is in a pretty dingy looking strip mall on Lafayette road. But when you walk in, you notice how tidy everything is, and you feel welcomed. The walls are painted a slightly disturbing shade of pinkish red, but other than that, it has a nice feel. One word of advice, if you are sensitive to air conditioning as I am, notice which hanging lights are swaying in the breeze, and choose to sit at one of the other tables.

We weren’t really sure what we were going to order, and even though several readers recommended I try their pho, after my last experience, I was a little jaded and wanted to get something else. One of these days I will go down that road again, but for now, I am just going to ignore it and get something else because well, maybe that just isn’t my dish.

We decided not to get the lunch specials either (which are a good deal at around $5 and you get a spring roll and soup with your entrée) because they sounded kind of boring --“chicken and broccoli” and stuff like that. I really wanted the chicken and eggplant (#95), so that is what I ordered, and hubby, after reading someone’s comment online, got the crispy egg noodles stir fried with veggies and meat (#60).

First though, I started with small cup of the crabmeat asparagus soup which comes with the lunch specials. I like both those things a lot, so it sounded good to me. It was a thick soup, reminding me of egg drop soup (there was egg in there too) with very very cooked down soft pieces of asparagus and slivers of crab. My first bite was a little fishy tasting (wondering if some of it is the fake “krab”), but after a couple more, it wasn’t bad. I don’t know that I would pay extra to get it with a dinner, but if I got the lunch special, and got the free bowl, I would certainly eat it. I also liked that the bowl was set atop a saucer from Salvatore’s Italian Gardens. Nothing like some serious recycling to make me smile.

When the entrées came out, hubby and I had the same reaction to his dish. We didn’t think it would be good. It was like one of those “bird’s nest” dishes you see at Chinese places. The noodles were fried crispy into a bowl like structure and the meat (shrimp, chicken, beef and squid) and veggies (broccoli, bok choy, onions and carrots) were on top. The whole thing was covered in a clear thick sauce. The noodles, for the moment, were quite crispy, but softened as they sat in the sauce a bit. And the sauce, while not visibly looking very flavorful, combined with the noodles and other things had a nice flavor to it. Not spicy or anything, but interesting. The more I ate it, the more it sort of grew on me. The shrimp were cooked really well (not over or under cooked) and the chicken was tender. The beef was a little weird (seemed almost boiled) and the squid was pretty inedible in its rubbery-ness, but I have yet to find squid in a dish like this that is any good. The broccoli was nice—actually more tender than most stir fries, but with a bite to it also. Hubby declared he probably wouldn’t order it a second time, but we actually quite enjoyed it as we ate it.

My dish was even better (which always makes me happy when I out-order him). The chicken was good-- but the eggplant was amazing. They cut it into small crescents and cooked them till they were melt in your mouth soft which is exactly how I like eggplant. It was in a fairly spicy sate sauce, which really saturated the eggplant (eggplant is so good at that) and made it even better. The only thing I wished, honestly, was that there was more of the sauce because I would have liked to have my rice all covered in it as well and there wasn’t quite enough of it for that. There were also lots of sliced sautéed onions in there giving a nice crunchy bite to the dish.
So they also have a Vietnamese market next door that was quite interesting. I am always most interested in what is going on in seafood area, because that is where you can see if they have any quality fresh stuff. There were several types of fish and check out the gigantic vat of live crayfish. I didn’t see any on the menu (which by the way, is enormous), but was wondering if they will cook some for you if you ask. There were also some live crabs as well. MMMmmmm…

Anyway, this place definitely has merited a repeat visit and hubby has even dubbed it dinner worthy due to the nice selection of Asian beers (he liked the Vietnamese “Saigon” beer the best on this visit). We brought the carry out menu home to study though—there is so much on there, it is going to take awhile to figure out what else to order (hubby wants the chicken and eggplant again he liked it so much).

Saigon Restaurant
3103 Lafayette Road
Indy 46222
317/927-7270