Have you heard about Lan's, the new Vietnamese restaurant downtown? The owners got a colorful write-up in the Journal a couple of weeks ago and this caused a small flurry of excitement. Vietnamese is my favorite food and I was eager to try Lan's as soon as possible, so one day last week a friend and I checked it out.
Lan's has made a home for itself inside the Santa Fe Village on Don Gaspar. Yes, Santa Fe Village. Staring at the façade of this building from across the street (between the St. Francis Hotel and Del Charro), always reminds me of what Kingsley Hammett wrote about it in my favorite coffee table book,
Santa Fe: A Walk Through Time
. I think of Santa Fe Village as one of those buildings that is so comically "Western" that I halfway expect to see a bunch of cowboys spill out of the entrance and start their 2 pm gunfight show for a crowd of gathering tourists. But
Hammett put it better. "It looks like the work of an overeager Hollywood set designer," he says of the building that housed a series of car dealerships before being remodeled in 1971. "Large patches of cement stucco are deliberately missing to reveal fake adobes, although the building is actually made of brick and hollow tile," he continues, clearly not a fan of the faux-dobe look. But having a Vietnamese restaurant inside a building like the Santa Fe Village is the kind of thing that makes Santa Fe so funky, isn't it?
This town has precious few Vietnamese restaurants, which is a real bummer because Vietnamese has been my favorite food since I was a toddler. A few years ago I finally got the opportunity to eat my way from Hanoi to Saigon in an epic gustatory adventure that included all sorts of unrecognizable sea creatures and some very recognizable land creatures (like field mouse, chameleon and cobra). Naturally, it would be unfair to expect Lan's to match up to noodle houses in Hoi An, but I admit I was hoping for more than I got at Lan's.
A handful of tiny tables are scattered in the Village's hallway and Lan's kitchen is tucked away to the side. The whole thing takes up less real estate than a walk-in closet in Las Campanas. When we got there, shortly after noon, there was only one table left and the handful of folks who showed up after us either had to wait or take it to go.
After waiting 15 long, hungry minutes for our appetizer, it arrived alongside the main dishes. Still, we dug into the vegetarian spring rolls first. The delicate rice paper used to wrap Vietnamese spring rolls is easy to handle when wrapped tightly around the customary fat wad of noodles, lettuce, herbs and bits of shrimp and/or tofu and/or pork. But Lan's rolls lacked vital surface tension; the filling was too loose and there was too little of it, making eating the thing difficult and messy. The tofu cubes inside were pleasantly firm, but the slivers of pickled ginger (?!) were an unwelcome surprise.
My dining companion, who is both a vegetarian and a friend (shocking but true!), ordered a bowl of rice vermicelli tossed with lettuce, vegetables and vegetable protein. Although I don't eat it very often, I actually like textured vegetable protein; there's something very satisfying about its spongy chewiness. But this stuff had a funny flavor. I couldn't place it, but my vegetarian friend said she thought it tasted like pre-packaged barbecued veggie protein. Whatever it was, the flavor clashed with the
nuoc cham
(chile, garlic and fish sauce) that is traditionally poured over the noodles. The veggie protein on its own was OK and the noodles and salad were well done, but the combination just wasn't good.
I ordered thick rice vermicelli noodles with grilled pork tenderloin and although the thick noodles were toothsome, the pork was just OK (and you know how I feel about pork). Normally, the pork for this dish is sliced thinly before being marinated in a sweet and tangy sauce, then grilled. But at Lan's they're doing something a little fancier, using pork tenderloin and, I suspect, grilling it whole. The result was pork that was very tender and moist, but lacked the crunchy caramelized quality that makes Vietnamese grilled pork so special.
So many of the right elements are present here at Lan's: a cook born and raised in Vietnam, a kooky setting that's centrally located and a type of cuisine we're hungry for. With time and practice, I hope they're able to iron out the details.
The best part of my job is being able to write about wonderful new, family-run restaurants that make this town such a great place. I know that by reporting back about a disappointing experience I run the risk of sounding picky, negative or just plain mean. But this is nothing personal and I take no joy in it. I hope that as Lan's owners and staff settle into their new surroundings things will fall into place. I'll definitely check it out again in a few months, and report back on how things have changed.
Lan's Vietnamese Cuisine
227 Don Gaspar Ave.
986-1636
Open Monday-Saturday, 11 am-3 pm
Tell me where to eat! I need your input. Send all of your tips, gripes and raves to
.
