Xanh Restaurant

Xanh Restaurant
185 Castro Street
Mountain View, California 94041
(650) 964-1888
www.xanhrestaurant.com

Vitals:
credit card accepted
fine dining, not kid friendly
hours: open 7 days a week
11:30 a.m.-2ish, 5 pm to close (closed for lunch Sat. and Sun)
price: $9-$30
reservations recommended

This is a relatively new Vietnamese restaurant that opened in downtown Mountain View. The inside is very modern but retains an Asian touch. The food here is good, but if you’re looking for authentic Vietnamese cuisine, then perhaps this isn’t the place for you. Even the menu states that it is Vietnamese food adapted to a modern aesthetic. It's clear that the ingredients are really fresh and the dishes are presented well. I went there to celebrate an occasion and while it's not necessarily a cheap eat, it's still a good restaurant that I can recommend.



I was worried that this would be like a fancy restaurant where the portions are small. I was pleasantly surprised when our papaya salad ($10) came out. It was larger than I expected. Papaya salad was made from shreds of green papaya mixed with carrots and some poached shrimp. This was not a traditional papaya salad as it was missing the beef jerky and liver, but since I’m not a big fan of the liver (it’s an acquired taste) I liked this version. The nuoc mam was provided on the side, and we were also given a spoon of chili sauce so that we could make the nuoc mam as spicy as we wanted. Nuoc mam is a dressing that is used with the salad and mainly consists of fish sauce*, some sugar and lime juice. The nuoc mam was very sweet, almost too sweet and it needed more acid or lime juice. Overall, the salad was well presented and pretty tasty too.

There are different variations of rolls, from vegetarian rolls and traditional rolls with shrimp and pork to more creative rolls with different ingredients. The rolls seemed small and overpriced.

Favorites here include the calamari and the shaking beef. The calamari ($10) was soft and not too chewy and had a thin crust with a touch of curry powder and pepper that was spicy enough to give it a certain kick. The calamari also came with some fried chilies and onion. A chili infused mayonnaise sauce was provided as a dipping sauce.

Shaking beef is one of my favorite dishes whenever I go to a Vietnamese restaurant, and I generally judge Vietnamese restaurants based on how well they make this dish. Shaking beef is usually a fillet of beef that is marinated in garlic, fish sauce, sugar and oil and then seared to retain the moisture, but is served rare. The beef came on a bed of green salad and it was soft and tender and coated with a sauce that was salty with a hint of sweetness. Again, the flavors were more mild than what I'm generally used to, but this version was fine. It was one of the more expensive items that we ordered, this is the small order ($18), which was large enough (the large is $22).

I was too stuffed to try the desserts, which is a crying shame as the desserts look soooo good. It's hard to save room for dessert when the food in front of you is so yummy. Someday, maybe I'll have the resolve to save just a tiny bit of room to justify ordering a dessert.

While this place isn't a cheap south bay eat, it is still a good eat.

* Fish sauce is like soy sauce to Chinese cooks. It is an ingredient that is used in many Vietnamese dishes (as well as in Thai, Laos, Philippines and other Southeast Asian regions). Fish sauce is made from fermented fish and is used to add some saltiness to dishes.