Chef's Week Part 1: Le Colonial

Man another week of prix fixe menus rolled around so quickly.  Initially, upon dining at Le Colonial, I thought that it was a French Vietnamese fusion restaurant.   This prompted me to do a little research since I had seen this them at another restaurant.  Soon I learned that Vietnam was a colony of France from 1887 to 1954.  That length of time in control of the country would explain the french influence on the Vietnamese dishes.

CHA GIO: Spring Rolls (Yes, I couldn't wait until after I took this
picture to start digging in...

Walking into Le Colonial, you would initially feel like you are transported into a French Bistro in the early 1900's. The romantic atmosphere is heightened by dim lighting and mellow jazz.  It is a quaint white tablecloth sort of place that is well decorated from the ornate red ceiling with very elaborate dark brown molding bordering it.  The vintage theme is further achieved via black and white photos dotted throughout the establishment.  The place does gain a bit of stuffiness by virtue of the fact that the servers are all wearing jackets.

I have an affinity for lychees.  They are one of my favorite fruits.  Naturally when I saw a Lychee Sangria offered on the menu I had to order it.  The drink was very tasty.  It was made with a moscato but some how didn't come off as too sweet. and the cinnamon was a nice touch.  The downside of the drink is it had waaaaay too much ice.  I felt like I was in a drive through or something honestly.  I wasn't offered another drink which saved me some money in  then in probably because it looked as though my drink was still near full because of the overwhelming amount of ice.

MI XAO DO BIEN: Stir Fried Seafood

The spring rolls were perfectly fried.  Frying can be difficult to pull off but these spring rolls were crispy on the outside and not greasy.  They were very light and refreshing as well.  It was served with lettuce, to wrap the spring rolls in with your choice of accompaniments.  The light slightly pickled cucumber and mint cilantro in the wraps, mean you could have total control over the intensity of those vegetal and herbaceous tastes.

The best part of my visit here was listening to the guy two tables over describe his encounter with the ghost that is haunting his apartment.  Apparently it's some lady that was killed in the early 1900's.  I don't believe in ghosts, but this guy sounded really convinced.  Eating alone you rarely get the entertainment of an interesting conversation going on two tables over.

The pho was quite divine.  I ordered it in addition because I'm a huge fan of pho.  What I wasn't expecting was the huge portions of beef that was included with it.  It has to be the best value on the menu there.  The beef was very tender but a little cumbersome to eat with the large chunks it was left in.  Still overall as a dish it is pretty satisfying.

I went with the seafood stir fry for my main it it was a dish that delivers nearly everything from the ocean.  Fresh tender sweet scallops, calamari and shrimp.  It was combined with broccoli, onions, mushrooms  snow peas and green beans.What made this dish unique that it was served over pan fried egg noodles.  This made for an interesting difference in texture as the noodles around the edge of the plate which were not under the rest of the stir fry kept a really crisp texture while the noodles under the stir fry had absorbed some of the very garlic and oyster sauce to get this nice chewy texture.