Home > Restaurants > Restaurant Review > Viet Town

Viet Town

John Graham

Metromix Orlando
July 1, 2008

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The big challenge of this week's Cheap Eat wasn't finding it, but deciding what to call it. For a couple months now, I've been driving past the restaurant at the corner of Thornton and E. Colonial, the one with the banner promising $1.99 dim sum. The awning out front says “Viet Town.” The awning in back says “Asian Bistro.” Turns out both are true.

My waitress handed me three menus: a “Viet Town” one for Vietnamese food, an “Asian Bistro” one for Chinese items, and a dim sum menu with both names across the top. If you've never had it, dim sum is basically Chinese brunch or Cantonese tapas — a late-morning /early-afternoon meal made from multiple small plates. Servers bring rolling steam tables to your seat and you point and pick from what's available. At the end of the meal, you pay based on the empty china and the number of marks on your receipt. (Some restaurants leave you with a menu and a receipt to mark your own choices.)

Viet Town (that's the name I'm going with) is one big room with hodgepodge decor. The tables are brown lacquer with lions for legs. Matching chairs are inlaid with shell and, to further confuse you, the name “VietNAM Town.” Crystal chandeliers contrast with a giant primary-colored puzzle-piece cutout in the ceiling. Up front, a full bar and a tank of live crabs. In back, two columned archways are right out of a 1978 prom.

Viet Town only serves dim sum during lunch hours and if you want the $1.99 deals, plan your craving for a weekday. Saturdays and Sundays, each dim sum plate goes up to $2.75.

There are lots of dumplings on that cart, generally three to a plate or basket. The steamed shrimp dumplings are bits of seafood and veggies, crimped in a translucent wrapper. I've no idea how much shark fin is actually in the steamed shrimp and shark fin dumpling, but the texture is a little chewier and the flavor mustier.

Fluffy white dough, like steamed Wonder Bread, surrounds the dollop on meat and sauce inside the the barbecue pork bun. There's much more meat on the pork spare ribs with bean sauce, but you better be ready to chew off the meat and delicately spit the bone back on your plate.

Deep fried pork puff is like a cross between a donut and a sloppy Joe; the dough is sweet and tastes of vanilla while the filling tastes of onion and molasses. Some dim sum aren't off the rolling table, but cooked to order at a table in the main room. To make stuffed shrimp bell peppers, ground shrimp is packed into pepper chunks, pan-fried, and served in brown sauce.

The discovery for me was fried bread wrapped in rice noodle. The bread is long and thin; chewy, fluffy and crispy. The noodle adds a gooey texture, close to melted cheese. A yeasty sweet soy sauce finishes the dish. For being nothing but starch, there's a lot going on there.

On my second visit, the manager/owner/guy-in-charge was friendly enough to ask if I'd try a new item, chicken in metal paper. Turns out, he meant “aluminum foil.” Steamed and caramelized, the meat was peppery and tender.

If you can't make it to Viet Town during dim sum hours, curry beef stew soup (yes, “stew” and “soup”) is only $4.95; a big bowl of noodles, broth, Chinese broccoli and fatty chunks of roast cooked until tender. An order of two spring rolls (the fresh, not fried kind) is only $1.50. Iced tea is $1.95 and comes with a slice of lime. (On one visit, I was given jasmine tea. On another, simple green tea. I can't promise which one you'll get.)

Dish: Like a lot of these dishes, you better be willing to pick up food in chopsticks, bite off a hunk and set in back down. Or ask for a knife and fork, but what fun is that?

Damage: Plenty of choices for under $5, but as the $1.99 dishes stack up, you'll probably want to spend $5.97 or $7.96 or $9.95.

Decision: Bring friends or family and everyone order a couple plates ... or three ... or four. Order something you've never eaten before like chicken feet or tripe or that sloppy Joe donut thing. After all, it's only $1.99.

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