2-Bit Review: Mis Saigon

One or two visits. A few hundred words. Sometimes that’s all it takes.

In what is perhaps the space’s second or third incarnation, Mis Saigon is tucked in the corner of the strip mall at the intersection of Stone School and Ellsworth. We visit the tidy little Vietnamese/Chinese restaurant at least once a week, usually picking up an order to go.

Among the appetizers, The Button and I prefer the cream cheese puffs. They contain two of her favorite food groups– cheese and bread- in a perfectly serviceable Asian interpretation. I usually don’t order a soup, but the other day when the thermometer hit 20 I strayed and had the hot and sour. What surprise! It had just the right amount of bite, lots of chicken (not pork), tofu, and mushrooms, and didn’t have that oiliness that is too common at other restaurants.

Aficionados of Vietnamese food (which I am not) will probably be unsurprised that the Pho Ga (soup with chicken, photo left) is my favorite dish, and Mis Saigon's is outstanding. With Pho, the ingredients arrive in two separate dishes. The “dry” ingredients of rice noodles, chicken, fresh bean sprouts, onion, and basil in one large bowl, and the broth in another. Add the broth to the dry bowl, throw in a generous dash of chili and hoisin sauce along with a splash of fresh lemon, and you’ve got hundreds of years of Vietnamese comfort food in one dish. I kid you not, I have this wonderful meal at least once a week. My only caveat is that I would recommend you request a knife to slice the rice noodles into a more manageable length, otherwise they’re hard to wrangle and you splash soup everywhere.

The Button has been a vegetarian for almost two years, but we were able to convince her to concede to eating shellfish as a protein source. So we’ve ordered shrimp in just about every iteration you can imagine from half the restaurants in Ann Arbor. Her favorite meal from Mis Saigon is one of their Chinese dishes, the Shrimp with Garlic Sauce. Lots of plump shrimp in a spicy sauce, with the usual mix of vegetables like broccoli, baby corn, and water chestnuts.

Mis Saigon is a family operation. Mai and Thuy Le are the owners, their outgoing niece Trang often waits tables, and I think there are usually several family members back in the kitchen. One day I asked Mai about their most popular dish. “Definitely the Pho,” she told me, “but the noodles are really popular, too. Especially in the summer.” I’ve had the Bun Ga (noodles with chicken) before, and was a little underwhelmed, so I decided to give it another go and ordered the Bun Bo (noodles with beef, photo above right) with Lemon Grass. This dish was definitely a success. With a judicious splash of the vinegar sauce, I appreciated how the lettuce made it seem as though the meal wasn’t a total artery-clogging experience.

Over the course of our visits to Mis Saigon, we’ve gotten to know Mai (pictured below) and Trang a bit and always enjoy chatting, often catching up on school and the neighborhood activities. And one of my favorite customer service stories involves these friendly folks. A while back, Pepper was suffering from a bad cold. Too worn out to scare up dinner for her brood, she called Mis Saigon to order carry out. Mai recognized Pepper as a regular, could tell immediately that she was under the weather, and thus sent husband Thuy to deliver the order.

When was the last time you heard a story like that?