Waiter, There's a Tripe in My Soup!
Generally, I don't do negative restaurant reviews. I figure there are lots of really good places out there that need discovering and celebrating, so why waste my time telling you about bad ones? But then again, maybe some restaurants could do with a bit of a wake-up call. So it is that I tell you about my experience at Tamarind, the new Vietnamese place on 25th and J Streets.
I was meeting another local food writer for lunch and neither of us had been to Tamarind before. It was listed in the February Sac magazine as one of the best new restaurants, and some friends had told me they liked it. Sounded promising. My lunch partner wanted to know if it was "gringoish"--referring to the Americanization of some ethnic restaurants these days.
I arrived first, waited briefly for a table at the busy lunch hour, and then sat down to peruse the menu. Tamarind specializes in pho (pronounced "fuh"), that staple of Vietnamese cuisine that means a big bowl of steaming hot soup with vermicelli (rice) noodles, some kind of meat, and garnishes like chilies, bean sprouts, and fresh herbs. Mai Pham, owner of Lemongrass restaurant here, says in her book Pleasures of the Vietnamese Table that pho origninated in Hanoi and that it has been credited "not only as a food that provided the necessary nutrients in one convenient bowl, but a food that symbolically freed the people who created and ate it."
So pho it had to be, although Tamarind does have some rice plates and appetizers as well. I ordered the curried chicken pho, an unusual Thai influence on the standard. My lunch partner ordered the classic beef pho, which usually has thin slices of rare steak that get barely cooked by the hot broth. We also ordered the fried broccoli, which we had to clarify was stir-fried, not deep-fried. Unfortunately, they don't have the classic Vietnamese coffee, served with condensed milk. The waiter said they were still "working on it," although they've been open since November 2006. And given the freezing temperature in the place, a bit of hot coffee would have been good.
The stir-fried broccoli was still crisp-tender and sprinkled with soy sauce, but a bit too oily for my taste. My friend compared it to a Chinese stir-fry and she liked it.
Then the bowls of pho arrived and they were HUGE. Generally you want a fairly large bowl of pho to keep all the noddles warm, but these were close to a quart of soup each. Granted, they were only about $6. The beef pho was hot, but had a clump of stuck-together noodles in the bottom of the bowl and the meat was oddly mostly chuck rather than the classic rare flank. On the other hand, the meat was so overcooked that the chuck was more tender than the thinner slices of beef. My curried chicken was appealingly flavored with red curry and coconut milk but there was absolutely no chicken meat in it. Instead, I found lots of pieces of tripe! And it was all a bit lukewarm. Now tripe was one of the meat additions offered on the menu, but since I didn't choose it, I certainly didn't expect it in my chicken soup. It was also in the beef soup, so our theory is that they make one broth and just add meat as ordered. That might be okay if the broth was deeply flavored, but alas it was not. And it would be wise for the restaurant to consider that some people might not want beef tripe in their chicken soup.
The waiter was perfectly attentive, although he didn't seem to notice our chagrin at the noodle clump. I suppose we could have complained, but we didn't. Neither of us took home our leftovers. It didn't seem worth it. So all in all, the place is gringoish in that it's very starkly designed and offers non-classic versions of Vietnamese (plus Chinese and Thai??) food. That can sometimes be good, but in this case, I think I'll stick with my old favorite Hoa Viet on Broadway. At least they have salty lemonade and hot coffee, not to mention delicious pho.
Tamarind
2502 J Street
916-442-8880
Comments
Thank you! I ate at Tamarind recently and was so disappointed. It really didn't live up to the hype. I'll have to make the trip out to Broadway. Hoa Viet sounds like the perfect antidote to Tamarind "poisoning."
Posted by: Jen | April 25, 2007 8:08 AM
Hi Ann. I tried it when it first opened and had a really bad meal - VERY mediocre pho, clumpy noodles, well-done beef (I asked for the pho tai, so I would have expected very rare flank steak) ... I gave it a second try as it's a few blocks from my house, right up 26th, and I thought maybe they'd straightened out the kitchen. Nope.
First of all, I hope this doesn't sound racist, but a white waitress who can't pronounce "pho," doesn't know what a Viet iced coffee is in English or Vietnamese, and doesn't even know the menu well is not promising ...
I still think the best pho in town is at Hoa Viet, Pho Bolsa and Saigon. Tasty Choice, I think it's called (on J around 10th?) has a good bowl too. Henry's Café is decent if you want higher-end pho.
Posted by: joshua | April 25, 2007 9:38 AM
Good review, thanks. I have heard your same comments by several others. I am bummed because I work/live close-by and would have liked to have a good pho joint in the area. I will have to "travel" to Broadway instead...
Posted by: Paul | April 25, 2007 11:05 AM