Bites Nearby: Mekong Grill Offers Vietnamese Food at Its Best

Vietnamese cuisine is a sophisticated blend of eastern and western influences, and the new Mekong Grill on Chestnut Street in Ridgewood is a good gathering place for aficionados. Its menu also offers a splendid introduction for the uninitiated.  

Owner Tai Nham, a graduate of the French Culinary Institute who came to the U.S. in 1984, started out as a dishwasher in a Japanese restaurant and later spent a decade, off and on, working in his family’s popular, 14-year-old restaurant in Spring Valley, N.Y.  

He and his wife, Fay, opened the Mekong Grill three months ago. Asked about the courage it took to open in a spot where several restaurants, most recently the Toro Sushi Bar, had failed, Faye Nham said, “We have a pretty solid history of success.”

Nham said he is starting with traditional fare but may add some innovations of his own down the road. 

Since my partner loves Vietnamese food, we visited shortly after the Mekong Grill opened and found great food and service that was a little uneven.

But everything went smoothly when we went back again the other night. We had two starters, beef satay and egg rolls.  Both were excellent. The beef, seasoned with lemongrass, turmeric and other spices, was fork tender, and the egg rolls, filled with pork and noodles, were crispy and not doughy or greasy.

My partner elected to have the traditional pho–long-simmered beef broth with slices of rare eye round beef added at the end and served with rice noodles. The Mekong Grill has eight different types of pho. He went with the simplest, called tai, but you can also have it with chicken (ga) or poached shrimp (tom).

He also ordered as a side a Vietnamese version of the French crepe filled with sprouts and shrimp. The dish was very good, but also very large. If you order it, you won’t have much room for anything else but the Vietnamese coffee.

I chose a dish called bo luc lac or shaken beef–marinated flank steak with mushrooms, onions, scallions and garlic. The rich sauce on the beef shows, Nham said, the French influence in Vietnamese cooking. The dish came with greens, crunchy garlic cloves and a side of sweet potato fries. My partner, who as a rule does not like sweet potato fries, ate half of them. 

If I weren’t so anxious to try the lettuce wraps (banh hoi) on the menu, I would just order the shaken beef every time I come back. The menu is extensive and includes a few hot and spicy dishes that are starred. The Chinese influence in Vietnamese cooking is more Cantonese, which is next door to Vietnam, than Sichuan. (The Chinese occupied Vietnam before the French did.)

The 36-seat restaurant has two chefs–Nham and his brother-in-law, Weng Pheh, a Southeast Asian chef with 25 years of experience. 

When they took over the space, Nham painted the walls a cheerful, energetic orange. And he also came up with an ingenious solution to the problem of some giant wooden frames with strips of blue light behind frosted plexiglass that were left behind by previous owners. He cut bamboo branches and put them into the frames, turning them into pieces of modern art.

The walls are also adorned with pictures of some of the actual dishes. These were taken by Fay Nham’s brother, John Sanguancheu, who made the skewered sliced beef rolled with sweet onion look good enough to eat off the wall. The jolly gold Buddha that sits on the counter was a good luck present from Nham’s sister.

With food this good, luck shouldn’t come into play, but I wish the Nhams lots of it.

Food: Excellent

Service: Very good

Atmosphere: Pleasant

Child Friendly: Yes (high chairs available)

Entrée price range: $9-$15

BYOB

Reservations suggested on weekends, (201)-445-0011