Midtown Lunch

A few weeks ago I shared my… uh… unique guide to what I consider a “healthy” lunch in Los Angeles. Because as much of a fatso as I am, there are occasionally days when this “job” catches up with me.  And for those days, I try and eat something “light”.  (Sorry, a side effect of writing about food that isn’t dripping in fat is the overuse of quotation marks.)  I mentioned how much I like Vietnamese bun, and posted a photo of the ok version at Tiato- an Asian’ish lunch spot in Santa Monica.  It’s the kind of place I would never go out of my for, but if I worked in the building (or anywhere in a 5 minute vicinity of Colorado & Stewart) I might eat there once or twice a week.

Lunch’er Jake W. was nice enough to let me know in the comments that Le Saigon (on Santa Monica Blvd. near Barrington) made a much better bun than Tiato.  And since I was feeling a little gross the other day (possibly because of Reddi Check and Greek doughnuts) I decided to put this theory to the test.

Most people will tell you that there is absolutely no good Vietnamese food between Downtown and Santa Monica, but being a bigger fan of bun than pho I’ve always held out hope.  After all, it’s way tougher to make a delicious broth than it is to top boiled vermicelli noodles with fresh veggies, grilled meats and a fried spring roll.  Or so you would think!

Le Saigon is an old school, bare bones affair that leaves you with the sneaking suspicion that the owners may or may not be Chinese.  But the bun looked kind of perfect, so I was pretty excited to dig in.

Big bowl, with noodles on the bottom, shredded lettuce, carrots, bean sprouts, mint and cilantro on top.  A big scoop of grilled meat plus a fried spring roll.  Perfect!  Sadly the grilled pork didn’t quite live up to the expectations created by the construction of the dish.   It was completely flavorless, had no crisp whatsoever, and the fried spring roll was about as boring as a fried spring roll could possibly be.  (That is to say, it was good and I finished it all because everything fried is good… but for the purposes of comparison it was below average.)  Thankfully the flavorless meat was salvaged by the nuac chom (the vinegary fish sauce mixture that comes on the side) and the chopped up peanuts helped as well.  The grilled pork and lackluster spring roll  kept it from being a great bun, but at least it had all the proper toppings.  It was good enough that I would definitely go back and try the chicken or the beef.  And it was a lot of food.  Despite the little disappointments it still had a fighting chance vs. the hipster-fied version that Tiato would no doubt be serving.

Tiato is what it is.  The newish jack of all trades lunch place has plenty of Asian stuff to remind you of its pedigree (its owned by the same people who own Crustacean and the other House of An restaurants)  and it’s yuppified and whitewashed enough to also remind you of its pedigree (it’s owned by the same people who own Crustacean and the  House of An restaurants.)  It’s the kind of place that you wouldn’t recommend going out of your way for, or even say it was great, but if it opened near your office you’d be super excited.  They use quality ingredients, know how to cook, and try their best to keep everything under $10.

Unlike Le Saigon, Tiato has got the flavoring thing down.  They don’t offer pork so I was forced to choose between chicken or beef.  The chicken came covered in a tasty sauce, and their spring roll was excellent.  But the rest of the dish left me pretty bummed.  A giant scoop of sliced cucumbers?  Meh.  Round slices of carrots with fancy notches?  No thanks.  And no bean sprouts?  Terrible. Plus, the nuac cham was clearly their fancified version of the sauce.  It didn’t taste bad, but it made the whole thing taste like a Vietnamese’ish noodle salad that anybody would like, rather than the rustic bun I was craving.

So which was better?  It’s hard to say… and as Lunch’er Jake proves, the choice will be different for different people. Price is a wash, because they are both around $9, but as far as taste and construction go, they couldn’t be more different.  If you don’t care about what bun is supposed to look like, or be composed of, you’d probably go for Tiato.  The flavors are far more complex and interesting and clearly they care about composition and balance.  But here at Midtown Lunch we tend to slum it a bit more, and sometime authenticity (whatever that means), quantity and simply the way a place makes us feel can trump “quality”.  Both versions leave something to be desired, but next time I’m on the west side and craving bun I’d probably give Le Saigon a second chance before Tiato.

Unless you have a better idea for me that doesn’t involved driving to Westminister…

Tiato, 2700 Colorado Ave, 310-866-5228 (free parking with validation in the lot under the building)

Le Saigon, 11611 Santa Monica Blvd, 310-312-2929