Good, but eh. I mean, it’s grilled chicken. Consistent, recognizable, done well. If it were down the street from me, maybe, but it’s certainly not worth going out of our way for it like we did last night. We got the butternut squash & couscous salad, and half a chicken with 2 sides, coleslaw and macho peas. The chicken was supposed to be medium hot but it wasn’t hot at all. The garlic sauce helped give it some spiciness but mostly, it reminded me of the Peruvian chicken joints that are popular all around the area, like Crisp & Juicy or Pollo Rico. The salad was quite good though and the sides were pretty decent too, the peas more than the coleslaw. Despite the fact that I wolfed it down because I was hongry, I’d still say, lukewarm, at best. The service was great, staff was very friendly and helpful.

Two words: Yum and Yum. This place is what we’d imagine food in Thailand would taste like.

This little gem of a restaurant is barely noticeable on the street. We got out of the taxi and wandered back and forth a bit before seeing its little sign and twinkly lights outside tucked amongst a street of row houses. We walked downstairs to the hostess stand and right away you can see the kitchen. She led us back outside to go upstairs where their main dining room is. All the tables and seats are tiny. The whole place doesn’t have many tables so it’s a good idea to get a reservation.

Firstly, it’s BYOB. We brought beers and as soon as we placed them on the table, they brought us 2 glasses and an opener right away. We noticed every customer brought bottles of booze. Wine. I think we were the only ones who brought beer. I just thought beer went better with Thai food than wine. But hey, it’s booze, you can’t go wrong either way.

Secondly, there are no menus. They ask you only what dietary restrictions you have. After that, the food just starts coming out one or two at a time. On these tiny tables, they have to go through course by course slowly. Each one is so delectable! Spicy too! The papaya salad and chicken cilantro salad are very spicy so watch out.

Each table has its own pitcher of water too so you don’t have to wait for someone to refill your glass. In fact, because there are no menus, there aren’t really any waiters, only servers and really, one main waitress, who happens to dabble in photography on the side. When I asked her to take a picture for us, she knew how to work my camera better than I did!

Our favorites of the evening were the pumpkin curry

and the dessert of mango sticky rice. Even after were were too full to eat our last course, we somehow found room to polish off the mango sticky rice dessert.

All in all, there were 8 dishes for $40 per person.

1. Soup of cucumber stuffed with pork.
2. Papaya salad
3. Chicken cilantro salad
4. Pumpkin curry
5. Steamed fish
6. Green Bean salad
7. Pad See Yew
8. Mango Sticky Rice

On our way out we peeked downstairs and we watched the chef whipping up a storm in his kitchen. His passion in his cooking definitely came out in his creations.

Eh. It was okay but overall, not someplace we’ll probably be going back to anytime soon. I read about this place and how they were known for making an authentic bun bo hue (this thick rice noodle beef soup). SO of course, we ordered that. We also got caramelized catfish with rice, appetizers of these little round steamed rice flour bowls with scallions on top, cooked shrimp paste on sugar cane, and summer rolls. Their appetizers were tasty. The catfish was flavorful but very salty and the Imperial Hue beef soup was fine too. It was reminiscent of pho though. And we added beef tendons expecting these soft melt in your mouth gelatin like morsels but ended up with a few pieces of leather in our soup. After lunch, we went back to the car and discovered I’d been walking around with dental floss in my purse all these years and flossed our teeth! So nothing was awful and nothing was great. It’s just not somewhere I think you should waste your time on.

We went there, 13 of us, for Xmas eve dinner. Although in the end we had enough food, I was kind of disappointed in them. Their dishes were way small, a platter of shrimp had fewer than 13 shrimp. I wished they had told us that so we’d know to order 2 platters of it. Instead, people just weren’t able to have a little of everything. Also, knowing it was a holiday, they should have ordered more food. 2 of the dishes we wanted to order, they ran out of the food. All in all, their food was good. But for any group larger than 6, I wouldn’t come here.

A nice lady gifted us with these chocolate caramels. The dark chocolate is a shell and when you bite into it, the inside just gooos out and it’s so delicious. I ate just one though. Because I have super-human will power. Then I ate one. Then I ate one. Just one.

What a big beer list!  They have happy hour every day, even on weekends – order before 7PM.  It’s $2 off whatever beers they have on tap.  Their beers on tap was on a 2-sided menu, I ran out of fingers and toes counting them.  It is extensive to say the least, and of what we tried, they were pretty darned good.

Also good: their appetizers.  At first, I thought the list was kind of short, but when we started eating them, I realized, what they serve, they do well.  Loved the steak tartare sliders and fried deviled eggs.  The meatballs were delicious too and so were the stuffed dates.  I didn’t think we’d fill up on appetizers but we did.  Well, I suppose knocking back 2 beers helped too.  Now we know where to suggest if friends come by for a nosh.

On the heels of just having eaten 2 weeks of Asian street food, we’d say that overall what we had was good, but nothing really popped out as very memorable. I do admire their philosophy of trying to source locally when possible and building the menu off whatever is in season, which makes their menu ever changing. It’s a rather socially responsible restaurant.  I noticed too they don’t use cloth tablecloths but rather a thin piece of white paper.

But then you’re never sure what you’re going to get or you’re not sure what they’re serving that night will be what you’re in the mood for.  We actually came to try their blood sausage but later learned that was from last week’s menu.

What we got:

• venison terrine with cherries – super scrumptious after I realized venison is not baby cow but rather Bambi’s mother. The former made me feel really awful.
• pickled sardines – a little fishy but I love sardines!
• pumpkin soup – it tasted fresh
• gnocchi with oysters and octopus
• slow cooked shoat shoulder – Baby pig shoulder with skin cooked crispy.  It was outta this world, fall-apart tender.

Their breadbasket came with these Cheez-it-like crackers. I would’ve liked to take the rest home they were so good, but by the time we finished all that food and a bottle of wine, we couldn’t even look at food anymore.

Every time I return from vacationing in places that have a lot of really good food, I lose my appetite when I get home. Plus I get so used to eating out all the time it also takes me a while before I get back my cooking groove. This time, I think it’s also partly due to jetlag. We’re so discombobulated and sleepy at all the wrong times, I’ve slept through dinner and woken up hungry at 2 or 3 AM. I didn’t used to struggle like this with jetlag. This must be part of getting old!

Here’s one cure for loss of appetite.

Good ol’ BGR still keeps us coming back. This time we got a bacon cheeseburger with sweet potato fries. Mmm… yummy.