Review: Vietnam Star in St. Louis

With both South Grand Boulevard and Olive Boulevard providing entertaining and delicious destinations, St. Louis has watched an explosion of Asian cuisine in the last decade or so. And while quality may vary from one restaurant to another, the overall effect is good; St. Louisans have responded happily.

Like many small dining establishments, it's a family-owed and -operated type of place. Eating at Vietnam Star is almost like eating with the family. Smaller children nap happily in their baskets, while slightly older ones run hither and yon, some of them actually watching their siblings. It has a relaxed, casual atmosphere, and the children, while fun to watch, do not bother the customers.

Asian restaurants have engaged in a war not unlike those waged by New York newspaper publishers in the 1840s and ‘50s. In the struggle for circulation dominance, publishers printed larger and larger front pages, striving to offer quantity, if not quality. Vietnam Star offers both. Its menu, featuring Vietnamese and Chinese cooking, covers 16 pages, one for lunch and the rest for dinner, and in type not much larger than this, it lists 289 dishes, covering everything from soup to nuts.

The Guru always has been a great fan of Asian food. There are some similarities, of course, but most Asian countries have distinct cooking styles, different flavors and spicing. Asian restaurants are generally strong on vegetarian dishes, and I think Asian chefs prepare them better than any other group. Vietnam Star, for example, offers 31 "vegetarian delights.” The use of varying sauces – black bean, white coconut milk – bring splendid flavors, emphasized by stir-frying. Textures are good, too, and the cooks use all the vegetables. My Vietnam Star favorite is eggplant and tofu in spicy black bean sauce.

And one good dish promotes others. I'm very fond of kim chi, which originated in Korea but is offered in many Asian restaurants. It is, basically, pickled cabbage in a peppery, gingery sauce. Not for the faint of heart or tongue. I've also seen it based on turnips, which are crunchier, and Vietnam Star did it with water spinach one superb night. Water spinach is not Popeye's spinach, though it looks similar. It also holds the fiery juice better, and the effect made cabbage and turnips look pale, especially with the addition of lots of shredded ginger, bringing even more pop.

With a number of huge tanks lining the rear wall, it's easy to note the restaurant's emphasis on seafood. Scallops with hot garlic sauce are delicious, and mixed seafood cooked in a clay pot brings a wide variety of flavors and textures. Red snapper cooked with ginger sauce and ground spices is a delight, available either steamed or fried, and it is improved by a salt-pepper-lemon juice sauce that a wonderful waiter made in the kitchen one night and brought out for us to sample. And shrimp, of course, is available in a dozen or so styles, hot or mild. A personal favorite is stir-fried with mushrooms and baby bok choy.

There's also a splendid beef dish, "table top grilled beef," which involves a conical grill, much like those used for tabletop cooking of bulgogi in Korean restaurants. Charcoal is the fuel, and a platter arrives with thin slices of beef, lettuce, cilantro, parsley, bean sprouts, a bowl of water and some rice pancakes thinner than a sheet of paper. The diners place strips of beef on the grill, cooking them to the desired degree of doneness. Diners then begin a creative phase that involves carefully removing a pancake and dipping it briefly into the water to make it pliable. Greens, beef and some of that fresh fish sauce go next and the entire thing is rolled into a burrito-type object that can look like anything from an egg roll to a pyramid, depending on the diner's skill. One order serves at least two people.

More traditional diners can try moo-shu pork, beef, chicken or shrimp, and even egg foo yung, which shows up on the menu along with such familiar dishes as sweet and sour chicken, Mongolian beef, chicken velvet, roast chicken or duck in the Vietnamese style and chicken with almonds or cashews.

In other words, almost anything can be prepared in the Vietnam Star kitchen, and in a number of visits, with hungry friends, only the so-called Vietnamese pancake, a paper-thin omelet with shrimp and vegetables, was less than it should have been, showing too much grease.

But from rich, tasty, roast duck noodle soup (practically a meal) to the tart homemade lemonade and that glorious Vietnamese iced coffee (one of the best desserts ever), Vietnam Star is certainly worth a visit. Or maybe several.