It was starting to get into the evening and we hadn’t figured out what we were going to do for dinner. We opted to try LeQuy, the new low key Vietnamese restaurant in our neighborhood that quietly went into the former location of Birch & Rye (which was preceded by Mahila (Malaysian) which was preceded by Contigo (Spanish) and I can’t remember what was there before that). I believe this is the third location in the Bay area for this restaurant. I don’t recall there being a Vietnamese restaurant in our neighborhood, so this was potentially a very welcome addition.
It was still early and we were able to walk in for a table. The restaurant was half full, but it was still quite early for dinner. The decor, tables, chairs and pretty much everything looked to be a complete carryover from Birch & Rye. Can’t blame them since there wasn’t a need to spend money to replace what was perfectly nice already. it was just funny seeing some of the decorations of rye fields and birch trees knowing what the restaurant was previously.
We ordered the traditional spring rolls to start and Andrea ordered the beef rib pho (spicy) and I ordered the chicken thigh pho (not spicy). They said this was plenty enough food so we didn’t try any of the other variety of dishes.
The spring rolls came out quickly. They were quite a bit larger than the one’s we’re used to and were stuffed with a good amount of lettuce (which I actually liked). There was a greater pork to shrimp ratio than the ones at Rin’s Thai nearby. I thought they were ok, but having the larger rolls stuffed with lettuce made them a bit messier to consume since it fell apart more easily.
After finishing that, my chicken pho was soon delivered, but not Andrea’s beef rib pho. So we waited for a bit. And waited. I looked around trying to find someone to check on her pho. Someone eventually came over and asked if everything was ok and I mentioned we were still waiting for her pho. The waitperson so something about how busy the kitchen was (??), but his going back seemed to result in her food appearing relatively soon afterward.
The broth on my pho was ok, not particularly flavorful, but not totally watery. i do like a simple broth, so it was ok. There was a decent amount of meat, so I’ll certainly give them credit for that. Andrea’s was similar…broth was ok, not great and not terrible. The spicy broth just meant they put a a few dashes of chili oil in it. The beef rib was ok…pretty much what you would expect from boiled meat, but not particularly flavorful but in decent quantity.
We were trying to get the check, but everyone was busy running around so I just ended up waving my card at the next waitperson rushing by. Someone else then took care of the bill, but then they had charged the wrong amount to my card so we had to wait a bit more until they straightened out all of that out. They were very apologetic about it all.
As we left, there was a line of people waiting to get seated.
In the end, the meal was relatively inexpensive (doing take out most anywhere else we would have spent more), but the food was mediocre at best. It will probably do ok in our neighborhood since we don’t have any other Vietnamese restaurants close by, but it’s not the first place we’d look to eat again in our neighborhood.
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