Mi Lua
With no shortage of Japanese restaurants in District 1, some add Italian twists to their menus to differentiate themselves from the pack. In this culinary genre, Wainosuke, across from Bitexco Tower is reliable stand-by and Pizza 4Ps takes it to the next level.
A good friend of mine, who I spend a great deal of time eating with, recently mentioned the existence of a similar establishment on Nguyen Van Thu St., right across from deciBel, Cuc Gach Café and the awesome banh xeo lady.
Mi Lua is a bit hidden, recessed from the street and about 1/2 a meter above the sidewalk. I’ve driven past this place 1,000 times and was none the wiser. So, thinking we were trying out a new restaurant, the owner told us his place has been open for 7 1/2 years. Crazy sauce.
Anyhow, the place has a cozy feel with anime style artwook, made by the owner's wife, hung on the walls (in the continuity of Italian fusion, the characters are eating spaghetti) – the second floor houses a gallery of her work.
We started off with the Japanese salad with sesame-soy vinaigrette (VND120,000) – pretty much a Japanese version of a garden salad but with strips of dried seaweed and grated daikon radish in addition to the usual veggies.
Next up was the Japanese mushroom curry (VND130,000). This was one of the highlights of the meal not because of the curry, which in its own right was quite good – well seasoned, nice heat on the back of the palette and full of tasty ground beef - but the rice. I don’t know what they did to it but everyone needs to make their rice like this from now on.
Pasta time. The black squid ink spaghetti looked awesome but you gotta judge an ‘Itailan’ place on its tomato sauce. We like a bit of spice and wanted to try the seafood so we went for the seafood arrabiata (VND130,000). The sauce was a bit on the sweet side (don’t expect typical Italian flavors at these spots) but good, garnished with onions, red chilli and cooked with a healthy amount of olive oil.
Our last entrée was the pizza with salmon, anchovies and tuna (VND120,000). The first thing we noticed was that, in lieu of pizza dough, a piece of sliced toast was used. But whatever, I don’t judge. All the flavors were there and all the ingredients were cooked well. Except for the toast (why did I give you the benefit of the doubt!?!) which was soaked through with sauce. Perhaps this is normal in the Japanese style but I’m a New Yorker who yearns for that crispy, singed crust.
Underwhelmed with the pizza and saddened by the soldoutness of the macha ice cream (all flavors are VND70,000) we were smart enough to order its strawberry cousin which was pretty incredible. It may look like a normal bowl of ice cream but it was more of a sorbet/ice cream hybrid, creamy and tasting of fresh strawberries. Really, really good.
All in all, at VND575,000, the meal was very satisfying and an excellent value. Nothing was spectacular but there were definitely some highlights. Between the décor and the menu, it seemed that this restaurant serves, what I could only describe as Japanese comfort food.
Open for dinner from 5:00pm - 10:00pm everyday except Tuesdays.
95C Nguyen Van Thu, District 1, HCMC.
No comments:
Post a Comment