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Our recent Wednesday evening visit to the pretty little restaurant revealed an uneven execution of an appealing menu.

We started by ordering a Vietnamese milk coffee ($3.85) and hot tea. Only one drink ever appeared after a couple of requests, but it was delicious. Vietnamese coffee is made with a blend of beans high in theobromine, the chemical that lends the coffee a chocolatey richness. The coffee would make a lovely dessert. restaurant near by The butter garlic shrimp starter comes with heads on at Saigon. (Jane Marmaduke Woodman)Jane Marmaduke Woodman

Our shrimp were served piping hot from the fryer, heads on, coated with a flavorful light batter. These were huge, the kind that would be called prawns in the U.K. Served with a standard sweet chili sauce (not the housemade green chili sauce announced on the menu), the shrimp were perfectly cooked.

Our grilled shrimp rolls were equally good and prettily served on a wooden cheese board. Here, the elastic rice paper wrapped well-seasoned grilled shrimp, four in each of two halved rolls, accompanied by lettuce, cucumber and thin noodles. Dipped into a rich, thick peanut sauce, they were excellent.

The noodle dish was served at room temperature except for a very hot, fresh egg roll on top. The dish came with well-seasoned grilled pork and a few thin slices of a complex pork meatball as well as three medium shrimp. fun places to eat in dc All of the proteins were very flavorful, as were the grilled onions and the topping of chopped peanuts. Beneath these embellishments, the rice vermicelli, lettuce, mint and cucumber were unseasoned.The combination vermicelli bowl included pork and shrimp at Saigon. (Jane Marmaduke Woodman)Jane Marmaduke Woodman

Fortunately, the noodle bowl was accompanied by a little bowl of nuoc cham, called “fish lime sauce” on the menu. This fresh sauce and some of the hot red chili sauce on the table added much-needed flavor to the bowl.

Our Thai style ribeye was beautifully presented on a cutting board, but the dish was disappointing. The server had told us the sticky rice mentioned on the menu was unavailable, so we were prepared for the plain white rice served on the board. However, we expected more from the ribeye and papaya salad that came with it.american restaurants near me Our papaya salad, while pretty and fresh, with long strands of green papaya forming a nest on top of an iceberg lettuce leaf, seemed entirely unseasoned. We added flavor by dressing it ourselves with the remainder of the sweet chili sauce still on the table with the remains of our fried shrimp starter. We did eventually find a bit of lime juice in the lettuce leaf under the papaya.The more unfortunate element of this dish was the steak itself. This was a thin piece of meat cut into squares with no char or other suggestions of having been freshly cooked. The most prominent flavor was that of some sort of tenderizing agent.