To accompany the soup and personalize your brew, waiters bring platters piled with bean sprouts, sliced hot peppers, lime, and Asian basil. Already on the table are bottles of fish, hoisin, soy sauce, and chili paste to salt and sweeten and turn up the heat. For meat lovers, one of the best picks is No. 1, with generous handfuls of tender eye of round, flank, brisket, soft tendon, and tripe. Lest you're thinking this last might be vegan-friendly, forget it. It's the same beefy brew everyone else is slurping.
Vietnamese diners like to start with deep-fried spring rolls, the only other menu option.
Refreshing chanh, fresh-squeezed lime soda, is the drink of choice. More challenging possibilities are salted plum soda and iced salty lemon, but these are acquired tastes. Not available here. You have to buy it at the bakery next door. 2001 by Washington Magazine Inc.