Over the weekend, we were at Pentagon Row to hit the Harris Teeter store and World Market, so we ate dinner (during rush hour!) at Saigon Saigon, a Vietnamese restaurant which is way around to the side of the shops, well off the beaten path. Saigon Saigon is owned by a local Vietnamese family which also owns Saigon Asia in Virginia Square and Saigon Crystal in Crystal City; it's quite a good place to know about, since the establishment is in a nice, contemporarily decorated space and the prices are amazingly cheap for busy Arlington shopping districts.
We started with spring rolls, Leo's being the fried "crispy" variety, and mine the uncooked rice paper-wrapped variety. The crispy rolls came with a fish sauce for dipping and mine came with a peanut sauce; I thought the peanut sauce tasted thin and had no real flavor to it, though the roll itself was good. For our main courses, Leo had a big bowl of beef pho, the traditional Vietnamese noodle soup accompanied by a plateful of vegetables, sprouts, mint, and such to add to the broth as wanted, which he said was quite good. I had the bun cha gio—vermicelli with grilled pork. It was delicious. Vietnamese vermicelli is a rather unique dish, almost like a big salad what with all the lettuce, plus a good sized quantity of vermicelli noodles, and a very large serving of succulent strips of grilled pork on top all come in a big bowl to be mixed, and fish sauce can be added to serve as a salad "dressing." Since all they had that night for dessert was fried bananas, we opted not to have dessert.
Saigon Saigon is an excellent bargain, and I'm sure we'll be back again to try some of the other items on their menu.
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