Looking for Vietnamese restaurants in Jersey City

[Greg Pratt]

Does Jersey City have any Vietnamese restaurants? Zagat isn't very useful
outside of NYC proper. The Yellow Pages aren't yielding any results, but
I've noticed that a lot of smaller, family-run restaurants of this genre
don't advertise heavily that way, so I'm still hopeful.

[Judy Hoffmann]

Result of a Zagat.com search:

Nha Tranh Place - - - I
Jersey City
249 Newark Ave. (bet. Cole & 2nd Sts.) Jersey City, NJ [phone]

There might be a bit of a language barrier at this Jersey City Vietnamese,
but there are no limits on taste, not with lemongrass-scented chicken, deftly
prepared seafood dishes and super-fresh spring rolls on tap every night; it’s
not much to look at, but if you want to feast on pho, it’s an option without
much competition in its Hudson County environs.

Post by Greg Pratt
Does Jersey City have any Vietnamese restaurants? Zagat isn't very useful
outside of NYC proper. The Yellow Pages aren't yielding any results, but
I've noticed that a lot of smaller, family-run restaurants of this genre
don't advertise heavily that way, so I'm still hopeful.
--
East Rutherford, NJ, USA (E-mail forwarded to /dev/null)
"The only good spammer is a dead spammer."
PGP Key Fingerprint: DC60 FCDE 91E2 3D41 91A3 45DB B474 3D3A 3621 AAFE

[Greg Pratt]

Post by Judy Hoffmann
Nha Tranh Place - - - I
Jersey City
249 Newark Ave. (bet. Cole & 2nd Sts.) Jersey City, NJ [phone]
There might be a bit of a language barrier at this Jersey City Vietnamese,
but there are no limits on taste, not with lemongrass-scented chicken, deftly
prepared seafood dishes and super-fresh spring rolls on tap every night; it\x92s
not much to look at, but if you want to feast on pho, it\x92s an option without
much competition in its Hudson County environs.

Hmm, sounds like my kind of place, at least from that little snippet.
Thanks for the pointer! (Honest, I could have sworn I looked for Jersey
City Vietnamese places on Zagat.com last month...)

[Greg Pratt]

Post by Judy Hoffmann
Nha Tranh Place - - - I
Jersey City
249 Newark Ave. (bet. Cole & 2nd Sts.) Jersey City, NJ [phone]
There might be a bit of a language barrier at this Jersey City Vietnamese,
but there are no limits on taste, not with lemongrass-scented chicken, deftly
prepared seafood dishes and super-fresh spring rolls on tap every night; its\x92
not much to look at, but if you want to feast on pho, it\x92s an option without
much competition in its Hudson County environs.

Okay, I had the chance to sample *two* Vietnamese restaurants in Jersey
City in the past week. Yes, there are two of them. And oddly enough, they
are within a couple of blocks of one another on Newark Avenue. But they
have very differnt styles. FWIW, here are my own reviews of each place.

SAIGON CAFÉ
188 Newark Avenue (at Jersey Avenue), Jersey City
[phone]

Saigon Café bills itself as a "Southeast Asian" restaurant on
their take-out menu, but everything on the menu is listed in
using Vietnamese names (and English). I went for two of my
favorite dishes that are good for trying out a new place:
goi cuon (variously "summer rolls" or "imperial rolls", among
other English names), and bún bò xào (rice-based vermicelli with
beef). Both were fresh. The dipping sauce for the goi cuon was
nothing special, but the rolls themselves were in the top three
of what I've had in this area in the past five years. The only
sour spot was that when I ordered iced coffee, they mixed it
behind the counter; I like to get the little canisters where the
hot coffee is made on the spot, and this is mixed with the
condensed milk before being poured over ice.

In spite of that minor technical problem, the service was
wonderful, and our waiter was very congenial. The decorations
gave the place a bit of a pub feel. I'd go back in a heartbeat
if I were in the neighborhood with friends and looking for a
good, healthy dinner.

NHA TRANG PLACE
247-249 Newark Avenue (at 2nd Street), Jersey City
[phone]

The decor seems to have improved since the review quoted above,
but I can see what one means about the service. As with the
other restaurant, I ordered goi cuon and bún bò xào (my two
benchmark favorites), and they arrived simultaneously, even
though the former was supposed to be an appetizer. They're not
rude, but there's clearly a lack of charm (or perhaps interest).

On the positive side, the food I got was unpretentious, fresh,
and very tasty. The service was also very prompt (perhaps too
prompt), and cheap: I got a filling meal (no drink) for $9, plus
tip. And while at least half the patrons in the restaurant were
Vietnamese, everyone else seemed at home, too, including a small
group from the local fire house. The place is clearly a
neighborhood staple. I'd like to go back and try the grilled
meats that were being prepared over a portable gas burner at the
next table, as this is something I haven't seen in Vietnamese
restaurants before.

What I'd like to know is where anyone got this idea for sticking scallion
tops out the ends of goi cuon. Sure, it looks a little prettier, but you
can't chew them easily, and pulling them out usually causes the end to come
a little undone, as they're tightly rolled up in the rice paper. Both
places did this, and I've seen it at more Vietnamese places in the NYC area
than not.

[Frank Lynch]

On 17 Jun 2004 23:30:35 -0400, in a clarity of expression resembling

Post by Greg Pratt
Okay, I had the chance to sample *two* Vietnamese restaurants in Jersey
City in the past week. Yes, there are two of them. And oddly enough, they
are within a couple of blocks of one another on Newark Avenue.

There are =often= clusters of restaurants with similar cuisine, don't
you think? Until a homicide, there were two Dominican restaurants at
opposite corners down the street from me; NYers are all familiar w/
Little India (on E 28th and E 6th), Little Italy, CHina Town... In LA
I passed through a section that had a half dozen Ethiopian
restaurants.

I can understand why the two Vietnamese restaurants would be close by
-- perhaps they thought they'd catch each other's overflow? Perhaps
the workers live nearby, or use the PATH to get to work?

Frank Lynch
The Samuel Johnson Sound Bite Page is at:
http://www.samueljohnson.com/

[Greg Pratt]

I'm looking for rice vermicelli dishes (bun) that are fresh and tasty. I
am also a big fan of what are called "summer rolls" around here (goi cuon).
While I've found some decent ones, none of them has pork, and nearly all of
them were dried out on the outside, as though they had been made the night
before and were sitting in a refrigerator all day. Most were also served
with a peanut dipping sauce that seems more common in Thai and Malaysian
restaurants than I would expect from Vietnamese places.

I wrote that message nearly three years ago. I was looking for goi cuon
(gỏi cuốn), the fresh rice paper rolls known variously in English as
summer rolls, imperial rolls, or even spring rolls. (In NYC, "spring
rolls" seems to be reserved for their deep-fried cousins.) I got a couple
of suggestions. Most of the ones that were suggested to me seemed to be
catering to non-Vietnamese palettes, and leaned more toward French cooking.
Nobody seemed to have the right combination: good ingredients, fresh
preparation, and the perfect sauce. I found a decent sauce once, but the
rolls themselves felt like they had been drying out in a refrigerator all
day. Half the places I visited had fresh, tasty rolls, but they were
served with Thai peanut sauce, which is way too heavy for this dish.

Finally, I found the perfect goi cuon. In a Thai restaurant.

I've eaten at Pongsri before. I had heard the name; they were formerly
known as Thailand Restaurant, which has been around NYC for over 30 years.
Their fourth outpost at 165 W. 23rd Street attracted my attention a few
months ago, however, because it was new, and because Chelsea's restaurant
seen can be a bit pretentious. It was a neat looking restaurant, but not
at all putting on airs.

I had been there several times already when, this past week, I went out to
dinner on one of the muggiest nights of the year so far. I decided to eat
a dinner that was light and not heated at all. This lead me to try the
"summer rolls" on the menu, since they were in a short section of
Vietnamese appetizers.

They were damn near PERFECT: fresh, light, tasty. Most importantly, the
dipping sauce was a bit hot, yet remained light and a little tart. There
were crushed peanuts in it (which I like), but it was nothing like the
heavy peanut sauce that one would assume a Thai restaurant would favor.

The manager confirmed that they did, in fact, have someone in the kitchen
who was from Vietnam. "It shows!" I beamed.

The only down side to this story is that the Pongsri down in Chinatown
(which I suspect is the original restaurant) doesn't have any Vietnamese
dishes on the menu. I suspect the same is true of the other two branches,
but I haven't checked yet.

If you want some of the best goi cuon (summer rolls) in town, go to Pongsri
on W. 23rd Street in Chelsea!