Edible Dives: Saigon Fast Food

Dip your toe into the waters of ethnic cuisine at this local Vietnamese restaurant.

One of the things I love most about this country is the diversity it affords in food.

The truth is, what I ate growing up lacked diversity: most nights were your typical meat-and-three or Americanized versions of Italian staples like lasagna or Mexican favorites like tacos. When we ate out, it was at American chains like Olive Garden or P.F. Chang’s or Joy of Tokyo. My experience with food growing up was strictly (white) American, one where the food I consumed was the direct result of corporate assimilation. So I knew very little about other cultures and their cuisine. This ignorance was not deliberate—my parents were not using dinner to nefariously sheild me from non-white cultures. But the result remained the same.

Only recently have I developed a curiosity for cuisines outside of my upbringing, frequenting establishments such as Las Meras Tortas or The Pita House or Saigon Fast Food. And at the latter, I’ve become a regular.

You can find Saigon on North Pleasantburg Drive, hidden in the façade of a three-store shopping strip. There’s no street-side signage and the sign above the door is easy to miss. Inside is only one room, the kitchen separated from the dining area by a counter where the register is set up. The walls are a green and maroon reminiscent of some time before Reagan. The lighting is poor. When you walk in you are immediately assaulted by the scents of pho spices and seafood. There’s a television in the corner playing episodes of How It’s Made on an endless loop. You find your own seat.