WHAT TO ORDER AT MONSIEUR VO
UPDATE & DISCLAIMER: MONSIEUR VO IS REPORTEDLY CLOSED ON 2ND AVENUE. PLEASE PROCEED IF YOU WANT TO KNOW MY THOUGHTS ON IT AT THE YEAR OF 2023.
After years of neglecting and constantly picking something else instead, I finally paid Mr. Monsieur Vo a visit. Madame Vo’s "brother restaurant” (claimed by the owner) was the only thing on my mind, on the first day of 2023.
While Madame Vo rose to its popularity by retaining a fairly authentic representation of Viet food, Monsieur Vo takes the liberty to provide its own twist on every offering. And this raised a very reoccurring dilemma within me in the general landscape of NYC Vietnamese restaurants.
However, to all the hungry goers out there who just want to order something right now, I will get into the recommendation first before I go about my unwanted “personal problem”:
Banh mi board: undoubtedly the most fun way to eat banh mi: assemble your own banh mi. Every ingredient comes separately on the board and is a faithful representation of each distinctive taste of the traditional banh mi. The cherry on top is Maggi seasoning: very ubiquitous condiment in Viet households and Viet supermarkets but never seen before in a restaurant. It is essentially make-believe fish sauce/soy sauce packed with an unhealthily healthy dose of MSG. This dark sauce will give each bite of your uniquely assembled banh mi a very very different flavor.
Banh khot: scallion pancake with caviar and shrimp. This is a take on Vung Tau’s special. I’m not gonna pretend I know how good the authentic Vung Tau one tastes. But it is an exciting appetizer. The price of $21 (as of Jan 2023) is a big ask for 3 pancake medallions, especially when you would usually eat 20 of them in one seating. BUT this is a usual internal fight I have every time going out to hunt for central Vietnam dishes.
Com chay: scorched rice, scallion oil, Vietnamese (chinese) sausage, crispy anchovy, rau ram (Vietnamese coriander). In my opinion, easily the best offering on this entire menu. Crispy, crunchy, salty (too salty?), aromatic, and super indulgent. No balance, no greens offered as sides. This is pure “JUST FUCKING EAT IT”.
Pho ga kho: dry pho with chicken. My 4th choice to order. I will come back for this another time, and the same with every savory below.
Com chien cua: tamarind fried rice with crabs.
Monsieur platter: good for a party of 4 or more.
Tofu luc lac: if you know “Bo luc lac”, you know what you get yourself into.
Grilled shrimp: it’s just grilled shrimp with shells. You know the deal.
Desert: che khuc bach: pandan syrup desert with a bunch of stuff: One of a handful of Viet deserts that are not fruits on a stick. Light, tamely sweet, and a perfect conclusion to a meal.
Disclaimer: due to the size of my stomach and my wallet, I have only tried the first 3 items and the last (desert) item. The rest of my recommendations are based on photos and past experiences of similar (non-twist) offerings. You can call me full of shit and get whatever you want. Though if that’s the case, I suppose you wouldn’t be here.
Banh Mi Board from Monsieur Vo (image from https://www.monsieurvonyc.com/)
So with that part out of the way, you are free to move on or stick around and digest my whining:
Viet food in general is a great representation of how to combine very cheap, local ingredients over and over and over and over again in thousands of different ways (cooking methods to spice/herbs combination). The impression of Viet food being healthy and balanced is derived from the fact that the majority of the dishes are meant to be consumed on a daily basis: home food, family food, routine food. Indulgence is a hard trait to come by, especially when the country had just escaped starvation holistically as a nation in the late 90s and early 2000s. Some may still argue it is a false statement but Vietnamese truly believed in two states of daily living:
An no mac am: Eat Full Wear Warm.
An ngon mac dep: Eat Good Wear Pretty.
As the nation went on, many families switched from one state (weekdays) to another (weekend), some switched altogether, some never experienced the first state at all. And in the minds of many, eating good or eating indulgently are the chances to try out different cuisine: Australian, French, and Japanese, instead of redoing your daily food with more expensive picks. Upscaling Viet food or reinventing it is simply not in many minds. From a commercial standpoint, upscaled Viet restaurants with upscaled prices will ultimately suffer the same fate as many fast food chains have entered this market: losing out to street vendors or a home meal. Vietnamese eat out to experience novelty (exotic ingredients) or just simply pig out (buffeting).
That brings me back to Monsieur Vo. In this far-distant land, searching for authenticity is already a tall order. So what does upscaling or providing one’s own twist do to the experience? Can we mask authenticity with our own creation and spin it as a new thing? Can we arguably skip the “original” and go for the remake since everyone already knows the old stuff? Can we even judge the new thing from any points of reference besides that “it tastes kinda nice”?
I did not confront these matters when I seek this exact experience when visiting Van Da and Bolero. Both restaurants, in my opinion, are operated with the same intent. However, Monsieur Vo brought this dilemma to the forefront because simply, I really really like Monsieur Vo. I put my trust in its hand since Madame Vo has proven that the people behind these ventures know how to make good authentic Viet food (except for pho, more on that in a separate blog). Monsieur Vo shows no signs of purely traditional Viet dishes and distances itself fairly far from them. It provides me with new ways of enjoying the ‘same’ dishes that I had eaten many many many times before. The more I think about Monsieur Vo, the more I appreciate its intent. Upscaling works in this landscape because the price hike in NYC doesn’t automatically translate to imminent doom but ironically, in some cases, to exclusivity.
So what the hell is this aforementioned dilemma? It is what Monsieur Vo represents to non-Vietnamese and goers that do not have extensive exposure to this cuisine. You are presenting a modded iPhone that runs Mac OS to someone who has never used an Apple product before. You are getting a menu, a good one, but not a true equivalent experience to what a Vietnamese would have if eating the same each of any of those items.
But maybe it does not matter. Maybe I’ve dug a hole that only I can climb out of. Maybe I shall view food as a whole, just like music. You may like the original, you may like the remix, or you may even like it as a sample in another song. In the age of remakes, remixes and sampling, maybe this is for the best of its time. Maybe authenticity is overrated. Vietnamese food has never reached the height of Italian, French, or Japanese food, in order for me to conceive that Viet food someday can be upscaled, modified and a medium for talented chefs/cooks to leave their marks in food goers’ memories. Maybe this is the time.
This is the food for the belly, for the soul but not for the mind.