62. Minh's
I have driven by Minh’s no less than two hundred times in my life, and have never even noticed it. It’s not inconspicuous in that hole-in-the-wall-secret-restaurant way (a la Tacqueria Nationale), but in that I-wonder-if-they-deliver way. I find that restaurants with neon tube depictions of noodle bowls and flashing open signs are not usually too gourmet. Just like the neon extravaganza happening on Wilson Blvd., the decor inside is not indicative of the food—faceless Asian banquet hall meets tiki bar. Lucky for me (and my belly!) the person designing the decor is not the person designing the menu. Or perhaps they are the same person, but if so they should stay in the kitchen.
Calling the menu extensive doesn’t quite give you the picture—it’s immense, sweeping, hefty, and all the other words I could have copy/pasted off of thesaurus.com. It’s a good twelve pages long and has probably 75 entries. We decided to stick with the Washingtonian recommendations, and I’m glad we did or else we would still be sorting through the menu. We first got the Starter Sampler, which was a rice paper roll with shrimp and pork, a spring roll with bean sprouts and ground pork, and (something we thought seemed very un-Vietnamese) deep fried sweet potato and shrimp. I definitely recommend the sampler—all three were great, but I never would have ordered the sweet potato and shrimp had it not been invited to the spring roll party, and I’m certainly glad I didn’t miss it. It pretty much amounted to sweet potato french fries and fried shrimp served with a tangy sauce. Red Lobster this is not.
For our entrees, I took the wheel and ordered for the two of us. I saw that Washingtonian recommended the Halfmoon Crepe, and when Jody asked what this was, I put on my best smarty pants voice and turned my nose up to her ignorance and proceeded to explain to her how the crepe was glutenous and soft and like the outside of a dumpling (see: Four Sisters). Ha. Whoops. Err. So…that is not what this crepe is. Perhaps I should have mentioned I’ve only had Vietnamese crepes one time? And that they might not have even been called crepes, but I thought they looked like crepes, so I kept calling them that? Well this was totally different than that. It ended up much more French crepe-y—a crispy and thin egg sheet (for lack of a better word) folded around a saute of bean sprouts, pork and shrimp. The crepe was served with a tangy sauce, and was all around wonderful and would be a great dish for a global altera-brunch. It was very bean sprout heavy, but I’ve got to get my veggies somewhere, even if they’re grey. We also had the Pork Bun, which we got Northern Style (Northern=spicy sauce served separately from the vermicelli, Southern=sweet sauce, served mixed in with the noodles). Vermicelli is vermicelli, but the pork was cooked well and the sauce was seriously spicy but really delicious. Again, I thought this dish was a bit stingy with the meat, but we are in the midst of an economic crisis, so I’ll let it go.
To finish off our meal, I wanted to redeem myself in the eyes of Jody for my screw up with the whole crepe debacle. So, I forced her to order the Vietnamese Iced Coffee, which I remembered from the time I had it once before was pretty yummy. I didn’t redeem myself with my ordering though, since I called it “Vietnamese Iced Tea” and our very nice waiter had to politely explain to me that I was an idiot. Not to be deterred, I ordered my drink the correct way. The last time I had it obviously was not at quite as nice a restaurant, because when my drink came out in a crazy French press situation I had no idea what to do with it. Cue the friendly waiter once again who told me to wait until the coffee all dripped to the bottom, then stir it to mix with with condensed milk, then pour over ice. Lucky for me, Jody was in the little girl’s room, so she didn’t have to witness the tutorial. All in all, the coffee is not to be missed in all it’s fancy frappuccino glory. But don’t be embarrassed if you need to ask for assistance, we can’t learn if we’re not taught.
