| Cramped place with exotic menu and trendy atmosphere. |
Reviewer: Jason
Total Reviews: 1040
Reviewed: 3/17/2006
Rating: 7
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Xanh opened up about 3 weeks ago and its obvious they are going through new restaurant jitters. Located on the restaurant busy Castro Street in Mountain View, this Vietnamese establishment creates clever dishes with a modern decorative flair. Decorations are swanky from the ambient blue lighting to the jelly beans in the center of each table. We arrived around 12 noon and landed one of the few disappearing tables in the lunch rush. The tables are small leaving you with little privacy.
Just looking around the dining area, most people appear to be ordering the $12 power lunch which includes 1 appetizer and a main dish. I ordered the kobe roll with lemon grass chicken. We sat there from what appeared to be eternity. They never checked up on us, filled our waters, or even told us the appetizers were on the way. From my experience, appetizers were meant to be served fairly fast, a snack to fill your hunger before the long wait. I would guess 20 minutes passed by until they delivered the goods.
Terry and I looked at each other because we werent sure if this was some fancy smancy plate with small portions (See picture #4). Nice plating by the way.
Kobe Roll - spring roll with sliced kobe beef (picture #5). Very good but dipping sauce had an overwhelming amount of fish sauce (picture #6). I would order again.
Soup - excellent sea bass, nice tang in the broth, good veggies, super tasty (picture #7). I would have been happy with a giant bowl of this stuff with a side of steamed rice.
We were a bit confused at this point because we thought this was the main course. It took so damm long, it had to be the power lunch. You should have heard Terry and I talking mad sh*t about the portion size. We were thinking...$12 a piece for this plate? A good 10 minutes passed by and we flagged the waiter to pay for the bill...he says, ah...you haven't had your main dish yet? Your dish is on the way.
Terry and I started laughing and our spirits were uplifted but it didn't last long. We waited another 20 minutes to get our main course, Terry even started on the jelly beans.
I'll admit, at this point, there's nothing they could have served me to salvage the lunch. My lemon grass chicken (picture #11) finally arrived in a clay pot with a shared bowl of sticky rice. I didnt care much for my meal and had wished for something with more exotic flavors to it.
Xanh completely bombed with the service. I should be lenient considering its a new restaurant and they are working out the kinks. The appetizers and soup was delectable, plating was beautiful but lemon grass chicken was a bore. At this point, I want to give Xanh between a 6 to 6.5 because the service sucked so bad. The waiter delivered the check and apologized for the long wait, (semi-bonus point), then the hostess stops by and apologizes again (bonus point), she then comps us a wonderful dessert (bonus point, see picture #12).
So here's the thing, the food is good but service is questionable. Who knows, maybe they were short a cook or two, or a waiter? Im impressed they apologized twice and tried to patch things up with a free dessert. Xanh deserves another visit but I'll wait a couple of months for them to work out the growing pains.
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Reviewer: Terry
Total Reviews: 739
Reviewed: 3/17/2006
Rating: 7
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Not since Yakko sushi have I waited so long for my food.
They have only been open for a few weeks so I can understand some growing pains with the service side of things. The attractive folks working the tables were running around frantically trying to take care of everyone. They obviously needed a few more people assisting them.
It was so bad at one point, after receiving our appetizers, that we thought the meal was over and were ready to pay. The dude said 'don't you want your entrees?' Jeez, that was the first time THAT happened.
Overall, I found the place to be trendy, the prices to be a bit high (we got the power lunch - which obviously did NOT mean a fast lunch for the powerful people in the organization with work to do, nor a lunch for the powerfully hungry).
I went with the Veggie Buddha roll appetizer and the Curry chicken (vegetarian style) that had tofu instead. The Buddha was good, but 4 quick bites and it was gone. The Curry was more of a peanut sauce that was tasty, but not really too much food. Tasted very Thai-like. I think I would prefer the similar dish at my favorite Thai restaurant. And skip the long waits.
The food supplied was decent but for the price . . . .I could have used more. The food was a bit on the rich side, so was satisfying in its way.
One of the girls felt sorry for our long wait and gifted us a dessert to share. It was a tasty dessert. I wish I knew what kind it was. I would actually order it. Highlight of the meal.
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Reviewer: tanya
Total Reviews: 14
Reviewed: 4/11/2006
Rating: 7
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A few of my co-workers and I went to Xanh for lunch today we had 8, so one of the smart ones in our group had called ahead for reservations making the wait not long at all. The details and decor of the restaurant were very nice, I like the blue and green color theme, the name of the restaurant - 'Xanh' can mean either blue or green. The blue M&M's on the table with special order 'Xanh' imprinted ones tickled my coworker silly.
I ordered the power lunch in order to try more things, plus get more value I suppose, although 15 dollars including tip and tax was a lot of money for lunch, but not unheard of for me.
My power lunch was the Bun Thit Nuong pork. It's the basic vermicelli with grilled pork. My appetizer was the papaya salad.
Good points of starter plate:
All the ingredients were very good. The papaya salad was fresh and crisp, shirmp in the salad were very nice sized and mints were aplenty. I love papaya salad and I like this one but it lacked salt. I think because it's more of a 'modern' cuisine, they held back on the fish sauce in many of the dishes ending up with dishes that were a little on the sweet side being unbalanced because of the missing fish sauce. I liked that they used green mangoes in the salad, it added a nice juiciness and more freshness to the salad. There was a small dish of what they called 'nuoc cham vinagrette' that was good also sweet and tangy. I think this is a good one for you to try, the portion for that salad is pretty nice, it can actually be a small meal for someone if they order that and a small bowl of rice with the soup that comes with it.
The soup was good, I will have to say it was authentic, hot, sweet and tangy soup. I wasn't impressed with the catfish peice in it but the broth was nice.
My main meal:
I was amused at how it came out with the vermicelli molded from a small ramkin; the mints with mango, apple and maybe cucumber all diced up and molded into a little short cylinder. You're suppose to break it all up and mix it on your plate, pour on the sauce and eat it. funny to me only because they took something very ordinarily served in a big bowl with all things piled on and made it look fancy. kudos by the way on all their plating, very nice. The noodles were good, pork was nice and over all the meal very ordinary. Good and filling but nothing special. I found that the noodle dish overall was also sweet and you can't do anything about it unless you ask them to bring you maybe salt or some fish sauce because there's no salt or pepper or condiment at all on the table like other restaurants.
The other stuff at the table I tried: catfish in the claypot: spicy and sweet - was ok since it was also suppose to be salty as well. Apple salad : crisp and refreshing - good apples and mango in it. Beef in the Bun thit nuong: good but pork was better tasting. A vermicelli with fish: ordinary, fish was battered and lightly fried and nongreasy.
Overall, the food was fresh and good at the restaurant but the price was definately high for the fare you can get at another Vietnamese restaurant for a third of the price. You definately pay for the decor and plating.
The people working there were very nice, it was fun to watch the non- Vietnamese servers come out trying to pronounce the meals that had no English names. The sister of the owner was one of the people serving our party and she was very nice and personable. We chatted with her a little bit and was pleasantly surprised later with free dessert. We got the Hazelnut dessert that Jason and Terry got, and another kind that was like a giant Klondike bar, but only in appearance. The round mound of hazelnut mousse was nicer than the block. |
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