Miss Saigon, Georgetown, D.C.

It's always nice to finally dine at a place which has been on one's regular walking path for months. Last night Leo was in the mood for Vietnamese food, so after an hour of cajoling I acquiesced to him dragging me out to Georgetown to Miss Saigon. Miss Saigon is east of Wisconsin amidst that big strip of restaurants along M Street.

When one walks into the restaurant, it is immediately apparent that this space was not originally created to be a Vietnamese, or even Asian, establishment. It's a typical Georgetown eatery with the only Asian touch being a series of lacquered Vietnamese conical hats hanging in a row all along the walls. They also seemed a little different in that very few of the staff—mostly management—seemed to be Asian; our waiter happened to be from Tunesia.

The food, though, was pretty good. Their cuisine is a little more elegant and a notch above the standard inexpensive Vietnamese fare, which is good since I thought the menu prices to be a bit higher than most Vietnamese places in the District.

For appetizers, we got an order of spring rolls with crispy fried exteriors and a fish sauce for dipping and an order of garden rolls with shrimp and pork wrapped in rice paper with a peanut sauce for dipping. We shared a very interesting "traditional papaya salad" made from a very large pile of long, very fine julienne of green papaya topped with long, thin strips of Asian-style beef jerky, all in a hot, spicy, rice wine vinaigrette.

For our main courses, Leo had the Saigon noodle special, soft egg noodles with sauteed seafood and vegetables. I had the cari ga, a very nice and flavorful yellow curry with chicken, potatoes, and carrots. It seemed as though the cari ga had actually been cooked as cari ga; the chicken was thoroughly infused with the flavor of the sauce, so it had obviously been stewed for a while and the dish was not just a curry sauce with chicken added at the last minute.

For dessert, Leo chose crème caramel topped with Kahlua and I had their banane flambé au rhum à la mode. My dessert was interestingly similar to the "crispy banana" I'd had Thursday night at Asian Bistro, but this was very different because they put honey and rum on the bottom of the plate, then one of the waiters lit the rum and as it burned, he rolled and turned the fried banana pieces in the flaming honey-rum mixture until it had a nice, crunchy, caramelized outside; it also came with a scoop of coconut ice cream.

So, we enjoyed the food at Miss Saigon, and perhaps we shall return.