First, check out the video of our food HERE:
My wife and I stopped in here to try some stuff at the bar just before they transitioned from the lunch shift to the dinner shift. Here’s what we had:
Vietnamese Beef Carpaccio:
This was awesome. Great herbs on top, nice tender American wagyu beef, raw, thinly sliced, and dressed nicely with fish sauce, shallots, and crispy garlic.
Crab Cakes:
Also awesome. These were basically patties made from egg, pork, and lump crab. The dipping sauce served with this was incredible, and if you take a bite each time with some of the Thai basil, you’ll be in heaven.
Pho Hanoi:
The northern style pho had a nice cinnamon aroma, but it was more mild on flavor than it smelled. There was a generous amount of quality beef in the bowl, along with nicely cooked noodles.
Banh Mi:
We ordered the traditional Banh Mi, but one glaring thing that stood out as not traditional was the presence of lettuce on the sandwich, and the absence of daikon. We still liked it, and the bread was very good, but we took the lettuce off.
Duck:
We ordered the crispy roasted duck as well. The sauce was a bit sweet, so it was important for me to eat each bite with one of the dried chili peppers that came with the dish. The little supremes of grapefruit helped cool it down afterwards.
We also tried four cocktails, all of which were really interesting. They definitely sit outside the box of traditional cocktails.
Overall I liked this place and would probably go back. I think there may be a bit of Thai influence in the dishes, but I enjoyed.
LA DONG
11 East 17th Street
New York, NY 10003
