Husband loves catfish so always on look out for good spot. Someone on Instagram posted here so thought we’d try. We met my father there, and it wasn’t just so we could order more food!
They serve beer, always better than not serving beer!
The place was nearly empty for lunch, with only one other table eating. On Yelp, they say dinner time is their busy time. The one waiter was very good, polite, and attentive. We ordered two appetizers.
Both husband and father pointed to picture of this with interest, so we ordered it. Not sure what it was, I think, think it might be betel leaf wrapped meat with fried shallots. Excellent!
Okay, so now main course. Catfish. (this is a variety of fish that is called catfish in parts of Asia but I don’t think is what we know as catfish here in US - I could be wrong) It was clear that we didn’t know what to do, so the waiter kindly cut up the fish and explained what sauce we were to use. The fish comes with rice paper in this cool set up that has warm water, so you moisten each paper as you need. You make your own spring rolls. The skin was wonderfully crispy and meat moist. We had enough for leftovers the next day.
Not clear from this picture, but there was plenty of fish left. I think we ordered a medium? or was it a large? Either way, more than enough with appetizers for three people.
Your intuition on the dishes are spot on… there’s so many of these unsung catfish spots in Little Saigon it’s really such a great value. This spot is pretty good and we got it few weeks ago.
These are catfish but the way it’s cleaned, the skin is rubbed until it’s white so it has a more beautiful golden color when it’s cooked.
we’ve had it at multiple locations, most recently though it was from Lau Dong Que take out because it’s the closest to the grandparents–it’s solid but hard to judge based on takeout…
The oldest and probably most known for this dish is Favori. However, there are new comers that get repeated mention … Nam Giao is one of them.
Favori has been around since the late 80’s and this is a known specialty for them. it’s menu is slightly more expansive compared with Nam Giao. Nam giao may have edge on the pricing as XL fish is 40 based on website. It’s been years since we’ve been to Favori and personally we haven’t been to Nam Giao, but thats where we would be inclined to try to see if a new contender to the old standby, Favori.
But it’s funny that you mention clean tasting–catfish can have that muddy taste if it’s not fresh. I honestly wish spots branch out to other fishes…we’ve done it with whole salmon and the flavors are great.
