Where to go for Pho

Tonight Marvin and I joined our friends Emily and Mike for some Vietnamese food "way downtown" in Chinatown.

Chinatown is usually a place that evokes fear in me. I had lived there in the summer of 2001 and swore never to return (for more then a few hours at a time that is). In the course of the 3 months I was in C-town I think I saw more roaches and rats then I had cumulatively seen in my entire life prior.

I know Emily usually has fairly high standards for food (excluding during the blackout of 2003 where she was reduced to eating the delicious combo of Pringles & Dinty Moore Stew), so when she told us there was a restaurant we needed to visit Marv & I went with little hesitation.

Emily was dressed very festively for the occasion, rocking her "Everyone Loves an Asian Girl" t-shirt (seen here
(modeled by a white woman for some reason)

The restaurant was called Nha Trang, which I believe translates to "really cheap food" in Vietnamese. We all ordered a noodle/broth based dish called Pho. The food was very tasty - and dinner for 4, two appetizers and five sodas came to $38 --- clearly you can only get food this cheap in Chinatown. The only downside to the whole dining experience is the restaurant seemed to like to hide tripe in the Pho - so if you're not prepared for random cuts of meat mysteriously appearing in your broth you may want to make sure to order your meal specifically without it.

Of course no trip to Chinatown is complete without experiencing the "Chinatown stench" - a smell of rotting garbage the likes I haven't experienced since I last worked at The Staten Island Mall (directly across the street from the Fresh Kills Landfill.)


All in all, Nha Trang is highly recommend.