12.22.08
Review of Bún Soho, Monday September 2008
143 Grand & Lafayette Sts., 212-431-7999
Great for: beef pho (in my un-Vietnamese opinion), cheap drinks and sake
[I finally have more time to blog now! My musical is over. It went very well, I think. I’m three months behind on this thing, but at least I didn’t go to very many restaurants recently so the backlog is not as big as it might have been. Also the new Boyfriend and I stay in a lot.]
I’ve been to the sister restaurant, Bao Noodles in Gramercy, and I really liked it. (Not so much the exorbitant prices, but Blonde Hedge Funder took care of that.) When chef Michael Huynh announced round-the-clock service in SoHo in May, I signed up for one of the super late reservations for a free dinner. It turned out to be a good thing that I didn’t make it down there in time to keep my res, as they apparently ran out of food early and had to cancel the whole promotion after one day. A few weeks later I was looking for somewhere to go with my friend A and this popped up in my list.
For some reason she had already had dinner (not cool – never plan dinner and then do that to a foodie, half the fun is sharing dishes) so she just drank a glass of red wine while I ate. My spicy beef salad with endive, rocket, pineapple, grape tomatoes and mint was good. For a wonder, I enjoyed the pineapples’ contribution to the dish. Though not very hot it was quite satisfying.
The waitress recommended the garlic tiger shrimp chilies and lemongrass virgin olive oil with rice noodles for my main. I thought it delicious at first, but then I got tired of it. Perhaps it was because the sauce was a bit too sweet, or possibly the presence of the heads and tails. I liked my side of sticky rice with Chinese sausage. The shrimp is a big dish, though, so it turned out to be unnecessary.
They have an extensive cocktail list. My Julie lycheetini was great. The drinks are pretty cheap too, I think maybe $10 depending on how fancy you’re getting. Our waitress was very nice as well. A and I had a lot to catch up on but it didn’t seem to faze her that we were slow about deciding. She just checked on us periodically and patiently. It’s a surprisingly large space; rather narrow, but it extends quite far back. It seems to be decorated in the slightly ‘70s acid aesthetic.
I would have given this place a 6.5 but for the bun hue ($12), which I had at 3am one Sunday night. It was so ridiculously good. Everything about it was just heaven; the broth, the noodles, the meat, the abundant veggies… if I’d been mad about something that day, although I wasn’t after an afternoon of Paradou champagne brunch, a fashion show with VIP seats and free-flowing vodka at a rooftop bar, it would have put a smile on my face anyway. And then I found one of my favorite sakes, Koizuimi Komekome, on the menu! It being only $42 for a bottle, barely marked up, was just icing on the cake. I loved that sake from the wine pairing at Momofuku Ko. It was just a delightful dinner all around.
Rating: 7 / 10
Our cost: $45 + $10 (food for 1, 1 cocktail, 1 glass of wine)
Noise level: quiet, but I’m sure it gets rowdier at peak times
Chance of walking in: good, though they’re no longer open 24/7
