Nam

[Stone]

Well, the usual critique of many a trendy Asian restaurant is, "it was good, but you can easily get better for a lot less." Ditto with Nam.

Nam is a newish (?) Vietnamese restaurant on Reade Street in Tribeca. I nice space, with light walls and quite nifty lighting fixutes that are like back-lit drum with black and white pictures of apparently Colonial-era Vietnamese on the "skins."

The menu was fairly standard for a vietnamese place, although many dishes had little twists to try to create something exceptional. It didn't.

For apps we had shrimp summer rolls, green papaya salad, and a chopped monkfish app. The summer rolls were summer rolls. Light, fresh, and enjoyable. But guess what? You can get them almost anywhere else cheaper. (At least at Slanted Door in SF they add some interesting mushrooms and veggies to their over-priced summer rolls.) The green papaya salad was also crisp and fresh, in a tangy lime/cilantro dressing. Guess what? You guessed it.

The monkfish was the only dish of the evening that really stood out. It looked and tasted much like the chicken side of chicken in lettuce bowls. Roughly chopped bits of monkfish, stir-fried with chopped peanuts lightly dressed in a brown sauce. The texture and flavor of the monkfish was very good.

For entree we had crispy red snapper with red chilli, roast chicken and beef with string beans in curry.

The snapper was quite a disappointment. I expected a whole fish, fried, topped with a red curry/chili sauce. What we got was a decent sized filet, lightly fried, sitting on a pool of sweet, orange "duck sauce." The fish was moist and tender, but the sauce was way too sweet for an entree.

The beef was pretty good. Tender chunks of sirloin in a basic Vietnames curry with string beans, sweet potato and onion. Other than the quality of the beef, nothing exciting about the flavor. (Again, Slanted Door in SF sets its shaken beef apart by using filet.)

The roast chicken was a good roast chicken.

So the meal, with a bottle of wine and a few beers, came to $160 with tip. Not worth it.

Edited September 12, 2004 by Stone (log)

[tommy]

our take on this place is that it has all of the right flavors, depending on what you order. the lighter dishes have the wonderful flavors of herbs and fish sauce. but as stone says, no better than a bunch of other vietnamese places, and very similar to all of the other "upscale" vietnamese places.

the ravioli was very good, and just as i expected it should be. i'd most certainly order the monkfish again. and it was probably the only dish that jumped off the menu as being unique in any way.

the advantage to these types of places, as i see it, is a comfortable and perhaps more sophisticated atmosphere (and hopefully service to match), and a better-than-usual wine list. the wine list here has a couple of unoaked lighter/sweeter white wines, which for me works just fine. the room is nice, the staff seemed to be trying, and in general it's nice to see another place popping up down there.

certainly not a destination place by any stretch. if one works in the area, it's a decent option for lunch.

edited because i have no idea what one of those sentences meant.

Edited September 13, 2004 by tommy (log)

[Pan]

My brother, who lives in SF, thinks The Slanted Door is a hugely overpriced really mediocre restaurant, so comparing a place unfavorably to them is a real slam, from that point of view.

But I want to know how many people were in your party, Stone.

[Stone]

Your brother is right. But SD is certainly good food. So was Nam, just nothing special.

There were three of us.

Edited September 12, 2004 by Stone (log)

[Stone]

One more thing that really annoyed me. When the waiter was picking up the empty appetizer plates, a shrimp tail fell off and onto the center of the table. He continued to pick up the rest of the plates, but left the shrimp tail, sitting dead center. He even rearranged our forks and chopsticks but left the shrimp tail. Sitting. Dead center. On the table. Another waiter came by to fill up the water glasses. He, too, left the shrimp tail. In fact, I think the shrimp tail was sitting, dead center, on the table when we left.

Just odd.

(Now someone's going to tell me that Nam puts little realistic ceramic shrimp tails on their table.)

Oh yea -- Dessert. Coconut pyramid with green tea tapioca. That was really good. A firm coconut custard pyramid. Cool and mild green tea tapioca.

[SethG]

certainly not a destination place by any stretch.  if one works in the area, it's a decent option for lunch.

←

This seems about right to me. I had a nice lunch there with Suzanne F several months back, and I'd say it hit all the right notes without really inspiring us.

I'd go back, although I haven't.

Do the Vietnamese refer to their country as "Nam?" I was under the impression it was just Americans, and maybe no Americans other than Principal Skinner.

[Todd36]

I've eaten there a number of times. Not that great. There is an interesting place called I think Hoi An a bit further down West Broadway, just before Odeon. Hoi An is (I kid not) Japanese owned and run but Vietnamese in food. It's interesting and well not not worth a long trip, no worse in my opinion than Nam, perhaps better.

[Jammin]

i shudder to think how much food i could get at nha trang for $160...

[intraining]

i really like vietnamese food. but i don't venture too much with dishes. i tend to rate them by their hot and sour fish soup, green papaya salad, and crab rolls.

i like doyers hot and sour fish soup but remember le colonial's ravioli. both are in new york

[jauster]

I live in the neighborhood and Nam is one of the only places from which I can get delivery. It is over-priced without a doubt, but I do like a couple of things there - the Bun Cha, lemon grass chicken, and ribs. These are not knock out dishes, but they are fine for when I want some convenient Vietnamese. The rolls fried and spring are both below average for such basic dishes. Once you get over the $2-4 per item extra you pay there versus other places, it’s fine, but not some place I would recommend.