New Saigon of Des Moines, IA: Not Recommended

The squatty, off-white building that houses New Saigon looks more like a laundromat or a convenience store than a restaurant. Fortunately I have driven past it enough times to know better, and I was excited to try a new independently owned restaurant. Moving from a Chicago suburb to Des Moines, Iowa didn't exactly thrill me, but with a little effort one can find an abundance of small, delicious, and cheap restaurants. This excitement was quickly dampened when my boyfriend, Tyler, and I walked through the door: ten eyes were trained on our every move as a table of five Asian teenagers stopped all conversation and stared at us unblinkingly. We glanced at each other nervously and sidled over to a nearby empty booth when no one came to greet us or guide us to a table. In addition to the table of unfriendly teens, there was one man and his two children on the other side of the restaurant. The numerous empty chairs and booths resulted in a sea of glaring, garish maroon vinyl upholstery that made New Saigon's unpopularity painfully obvious. Considering it was a Saturday evening around six o'clock, this did not bode well for our taste buds.

Eventually a stout woman walked over to our table in baggy sweatpants, a dingy t-shirt, and bedraggled house slippers. I assumed she was a kitchen worker judging by her slovenly clothing, but she introduced herself as our waitress and welcomed us to New Saigon. She went to get us glasses of water and we began to read over the options of the advertised Vietnamese, Chinese, & Thai Cuisine, chuckling at the misspellings that were rife throughout the descriptions.

The menu was separated into the three different types of cuisine, and we both decided to start with an order of Gòi Cuôn Tôm Thit ($2.95), better known as spring rolls. I was ready to order Mongolian Beef, but the waitress informed me that they no longer served that segment of the menu. Having worked as a waitress I realized that this wasn't her fault, but was peeved nonetheless that she hadn't told us when we first sat down. I asked what she recommended and followed her suggestion by ordering the Basil Chicken ($7.50), a common Thai meal. Tyler went for the Bun Tôm Thit Nuong ($6.95), a Vietnamese dish. We mutually decided to pass on both the dubious 'salty lemonade' and the potentially nauseating 'soybean drink', settling with the lime-flavored water she had already brought to the table.

Our order was placed so we were left to take in the décor and relax. The restaurant's floor-plan was a large, plain rectangle bisected by a partial wall dividing smoking and non-smoking sections. Our side's main long wall was decorated with a lengthwise panel of palm trees silhouetted against a fluorescent cityscape. The repeating scene was airbrushed, reminding me of those tacky t-shirts emblazoned with "Hottie" or "Daddy's Little Girl", the ones that middle-schoolers buy at the State Fair. To accent the faux skyline, white Christmas lights were draped atop the "mural". The other section's long wall had a generic beach scene with grass huts airbrushed on it, which was slightly less offensive to the eyes.

Fake foliage was shoved into every nook and cranny, and kitschy Chinese souvenirs were tacked on to the walls in no apparent order. In both sections there were large, flat screen televisions set into the wall, only adding to the busy aesthetics. Oddly enough, the channels were set to ESPN which emphasized the unsettling feeling of incongruity inside the restaurant. As if there wasn't enough to look at, two large aquariums were displayed, adding a low, constant bubbling noise to the sportscasters' prattle. A last detail was the small, mirrored disco ball and track of colored spotlights hanging in the center of the ceiling, leading us to wonder if the restaurant was turned into a dance club at night.

Our waitress shuffled back to the table as we played with the chopsticks and perfunctorily placed our spring rolls in front of us. The word 'rolls' is misleading, for they were gigantic and would be better advertised as spring logs. They were very fresh, an amalgam of fried pork, crisp iceberg lettuce, firm vermicelli, tangy bean sprout, and pungent basil all wrapped up in translucent rice paper. The peanut dipping sauce was fairly mild, but added both flavor and a rich cinnamon-honeyed color to the dish. Right as we finished the appetizer, our meals arrived on mismatched plates. One set was old school Americana; they were stone-gray and painted with orange daises. The other set looked like it was from the Chinese dollar store; they were decorated with tacky koi fish and Chinese letters in garish gold paint. The heat rising off of the food was enticing and moist, and our waitress left us to eat in peace (or as much peace as we could have with ESPN blaring and mini-Seaworld burbling in the background)

Tyler's dish, Bun Tôm Thit Nuong, was a vermicelli bowl with pork, mint, bean sprouts, cucumber, lettuce, and fried peanuts sloshed together into a bland-looking stew. He is a much less picky eater than I, and he happily poured on the lemon sauce the waitress recommended and dug in, whereas I thought it looked like the bottom of the sink when the drain's clogged and all the food gets caught. On the plus side, the scents of mint and lemon mixed together to produce a heady aroma that reminded me of Orbit gum. I took a bite and have to admit the flavor was strong and the textures meshed well; the juiciness of the pork was offset by the crunchy peanuts and creamy noodles.

My basil chicken had more basil than chicken, and I was disappointed at the ratio of vegetables to meat. The entire dish looked washed out; the normally vibrant colors of carrot and basil leaves were muted and muddied. The bright white meat was tender and well-marinated, but the accompanying carrots, onions, and bamboo shoots were overcooked leaving them tasteless and flaccid. I took the majority of the dish home for Tyler to eat later, and my car still reeked of basil the next day. While we were eating, or rather I was still poking at my food and Tyler was eating, the waitress left our bill on the table: a receipt for $18.45 covered by two generic peppermints. We paid at the register, which was festooned with fake grass to make it look like one of the huts airbrushed on the far wall, and she thanked us profusely for stopping in.

There is an atmosphere that seems to come with these "hole in the wall" restaurants that is alluring to me and I enjoy feeling like you're eating someone's family recipes. Unfortunately at New Saigon, it felt like we were eating family recipes in someone's eclectic and over-decorated apartment. I'm not very particular about etiquette and stuffy uniforms, but it was unnerving to have our food served by someone who was noticeably unkempt. The general décor was dizzyingly unmatched and the atmosphere was awkward, I'm very glad that I'm comfortable with Tyler because eating here in the first stages of a relationship would be painful. I would give New Saigon another shot because it was fairly inexpensive and offered unique menu choices, but I would definitely order take-out before dining in again.