Miss Saigon Vietnamese Bistro – Charming Vietnamese Fare

Miss Saigon is a newish restaurant located on Kingsway across from Metropolis at Metrotown. Since Saigon was the former name of Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, it’s no surprise that this restaurant serves up Vietnamese fare.

The interior is very simple with a large stylized cartoon representation of Miss Saigon against a plain white wall with a large mural on the opposing wall. The colour scheme is mainly white, red, and black with red metal chairs and black seat padding.

As can be imagined, this restaurant gets busy during the lunch hour rush on the weekdays. I decided on the Lunch Special #6 ($7.75) which included Lemongrass Chicken with soup, salad, pork patties and rice vermicelli, fried spring roll, and a fried egg (for an extra $1). The soup was actually quite flavourful (which is not always the case). The salad had a crunchy textural element being comprised of pickled radish, bean sprouts, carrot and cucumber.

I was actually surprised at how soft and tender the rice noodles were (they seemed quite fresh). The spring roll had a crispy exterior and was tightly packed with taro root, carrot, black mushrooms, and vermicelli noodles. Overall, this was a really good dish. I loved the meaty pork patties and the chicken had a light char on the exterior without causing the chicken to be dry. The runny egg yolk just kicked it up a notch.

I liked this place so much that I decided to come back for a revisit and try some other dishes. This time around, I order the Special Pho Dac Biet lunch special which came with an order of spring rolls ($8.00). Like on my previous visit, the thin yet crispy spring roll was quite good.

I was very pleased with the pho when it arrived. Usually, you don’t get much rare beef at other pho joints. In this case, there were 3-4 slices of super tender rare beef. Underneath the rare beef, there was plenty of thinly shaved flank and one each of beef ball and tendon slice. I would have enjoyed a bit more of the tendon and beef ball but I was already happy with the rare beef so I’ll cut them some slack.

Lastly, I ordered their Chicken Wings ($5.90 for 6 pieces). These came out last and were freshly fried up. The wings were encased in a crunchy crust and came with a sweet and spicy dipping sauce. There was nothing wrong with the wings but nothing spectacular either.

Overall, there’s some really good options here and good value for the lunch specials. It makes for a good alternative to food at the mall across the street.

4685 Kingsway
Burnaby, BC

www.misssaigonburnaby.com

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