I remember about a decade ago when it was said that Vietnamese restaurants had become the most numerous in the Bay Area. I have always had a passion for Vietnamese food, from the simplest preparations to elegant modern dishes fused with French cooking techniques. In fact, for years my favorite restaurant on the Left Coast has been Ana Mandara, a fabulous high-end Vietnamese establishment reportedly owned by Don Johnson and Cheech Marin and located in the old Ghirardelli Chocolate Factory on Beach Street in San Francisco.
In Connecticut, the availability of Vietnamese food has ebbed and flowed over the last couple of decades. There was a time in the mid-1980s when quite a lot of Vietnamese fare was available, and it included reasonably upscale restaurants like La Maison Indochine in Greenwich, Chez Bach in Branford, Truc Orient Express in Hartford and Orchid in Old Saybrook. Gradually, many of our Vietnamese restaurants disappeared, and I found a number of the Vietnamese chefs I had known working as Japanese hibachi chefs. In more recent years, Vietnamese food has made a slight comeback in Connecticut, but more often than not, it has been in the form of cheaper, more casual pho joints (which fit right into the whole campus movement toward inexpensive noodle houses).
One Danbury location has housed Vietnamese food since 1996. Originally Thang Long, new owners changed the name of the eatery to Pho Vietnam in 2006. My companion and I recently tried the restaurant out, observing the contented clientele.
As its name indicates, the restaurant’s primarily a pho house and not a fancy joint, but the food is satisfying and reasonably priced. Spring rolls showcased shrimp, vermicelli noodles, pork, lettuce, mint, carrot and bean sprouts through a translucent wrapper.
Flute-shaped Vietnamese egg rolls concealed a delicate filing of pork, crabmeat, carrot, onion, dried seaweed and vermicelli noodles.
Of course, we weren’t going to visit a pho house without trying its pho. My companion ordered the classic beef noodle soup with beef slices and flank steak. The broth was beautifully scented and generously stocked with meat, bean sprouts, basil, scallions and vermicelli noodles.
I was less thrilled with the lemongrass beef, which was done in what I would call more of a Chinese than Vietnamese style. It lacked the distinctive flavoring I’ve previously encountered, whether trying the dish in West Hartford or San Francisco.
However, that was the only “pho pas” in an otherwise delightful meal. A coconut and cassava cake served with vanilla ice cream and crumbled peanut was very nice, reminding me of my Asian wife’s cassava cake.
And a mango bubble tea with a fat straw designed to allow one to draw up the big black tapioca pearls was quite refreshing, bringing an exotic meal to a nice close.
Pho Vietnam; 56 Padanaram Road, Danbury, 203-743-6049