New Saigon is an old standby on Federal Boulevard

New Saigon may not be the oldest Vietnamese restaurant in town, but it comes close -- nearby T-Wa Inn opened in 1984, beating New Saigon by just a year. Current owners Thai Nguyen and Ha Pham took it over in 1987, and their kitchen has been turning out a vast...

By Laura Shunk

March 6, 2012

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New Saigon may not be the oldest Vietnamese restaurant in town, but it comes close -- nearby T-Wa Inn opened in 1984, beating New Saigon by just a year. Current owners Thai Nguyen and Ha Pham took it over in 1987, and their kitchen has been turning out a vast sampling of Vietnam's culinary canon ever since.

The building that holds New Saigon hasn't changed much over the years, save for an early expansion and, just last month, the addition of the New Saigon Bakery & Deli next door, which is owned and run by Nguyen and Pham's daughter. But the neighborhood has definitely shifted -- pho shops now line Federal Boulevard, for example. Still, New Saigon remains one of the few spots in town where you can sample a wide range of Vietnamese dishes, moving far beyond noodle soups to frogs legs and other rarities.

For this week's review, I stopped by New Saigon to see how it's fared over the years. Find out about the food (and read about one of the town's odder servers), when the review is posted here tomorrow.

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Laura Shunk was Westword's restaurant critic from 2010 to 2012; she's also been food editor at the Village Voice and a dining columnist in Beijing. Her toughest assignment had her drinking ten martinis and eating ten Caesar salads over the course of 48 hours. She still drinks martinis, but remains lukewarm on Caesar salads.

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