For a few years, there was a vegetarian restaurant on Sukhumvit Soi 20 called Tamarind Cafe.  It was owned by French-born Sylvie Bruzeau and Taiwanese-born Luka Wong, two women who met in Japan and decided to open a restaurant.  Tamarind Cafe was a chic little place with a small gallery on the second floor.  It had a wide variety of vegetarian food, done in a variety of culinary styles.

Sadly, the lease on the space ran out and the owners did not renew.  However, they opened several ancillary food places at some department store food halls, including a Vietnamese place called Little Hanoi, located on the fifth floor of the Emporium shopping center.

Vietnamese food is one of my favorites, so when I discovered that Bruzeau and Wong had opened Little Hanoi, Tawn and I made it a point to visit.

The restaurant is small, as you can see.  And it wasn’t nearly as busy as the picture from their website shows!  Sadly, the Emporium remodeled their food court, leaving several of the businesses in sort of a blind spot at the back of the floor.  Not good for foot traffic, I’m afraid.

We began with a vegetarian variation on what is traditionally beef skewers wrapped in betel leaves.  Instead of beef, Beuzeau, who is the chef, creates a mixture of herbs and potatoes.  It was tasty, although a little under-seasoned.  Gorgeous presentation.

While Bruzeau emphasizes vegetarian options, there are plenty of meat items on the menu.  We enjoyed this spring rolls with shrimp, which were very fresh and plump.  Lots of beautiful herbs accompanied the meal.

For a main course, we were feeling like fish, so we ordered this white fish, fried with spices and greens.  This was served with a plate of banh trang, the rice paper crepes used to wrap spring rolls, and rice noodles.  We wrapped our own little dumplings with a little fish, some greens, noodles and fresh herbs.  The fish was tasty, although the portion (which was meant for two people) seemed a little small for the price. 

For dessert, we tried their beignets, little puffs of dough friend up donut-style.  These were light and not at all oily, but they had the faint aftertaste of fish, making me think that the oil in the deep-fryer was perhaps a bit old.

A return visit a few days later for lunch and I tried their pho, the hearty beef noodle soup, and a vegetarian banh mi, the French roll sandwich.  The soup was excellent, very flavorful, but something that I could probably find for half the price at the small shop run by the Vietnamese lady near Thong Lor Soi 12.  The banh mi was inventive, with roasted pumpkin.  The menu announced that it also had cheese, and I was expecting a nice goat cheese or something.  Instead it was a single slice of oily cheddar.  In addition to a slathering of much too much aioli, there was plenty of cilantro and carrots.

All in all, Little Hanoi gets high marks for creativity and beautiful presentation.  The food was good but not great, kind of b-grade food from the standpoint that it makes a good effort but just falls a bit short of excellence.  For the money, there is better value elsewhere, but if I’m in the mall and going to eat at a sit-down place as opposed to the inexpensive food court, Little Hanoi is still a decent option.