I went in search of a restaurant without much of a plan. I had no recommendations. I had no craving for a particular kind of food, so I thought I would just cruise down Rainier Avenue South and pick one that caught my fancy.
In Little Saigon, at 12th South and Jackson Street the sign of the Nha Trang deli caught my eye. I lived near Nha Trang, a beautiful, former French colonial resort town, on Vietnam's coast with a broad sand beach on the South China Sea. I thought I would look in. It was not what I expected. It offered general merchandise, not deli sandwiches.
Close at hand were a couple of restaurants. The first one I looked into had the two or three full tables you expect at 2:15 on a Saturday afternoon. The other one was packed with people. I took another look. It wasn't a party, it was customers, almost all Asian.
The decision was whether to go to the restaurant where business was normal or go to the one where people were flocking in. It was not a difficult choice.
The name on the restaurant was Huong Binh. When I walked in, I got a single table by the door, the last vacant table of 14 in the place. My fellow diners were old people, young adults and children. It was clearly family oriented, clean, and almost spare in its few wall decorations. More than three dozen cloth lanterns in various sizes and colors hung from the ceiling. The small tables were topped in pale blue Formica and attended by metal straight chairs with padded seats. Everyone throughout the room was chatting animatedly. It had a really nice feel.
The menu is not extensive, but it is diverse and has recurring daily specials. One of the daily specials for Saturday was duck and rice soup, chao vit. Duck is a big favorite of mine, and I expected to receive something similar to pho, the popular Vietnamese beef and noodle soup, only with duck. The first inkling I had that something was different was when the owner asked me if I wanted my duck on the bone or without.
While I was waiting, I asked a young fellow at the door, Scott Hoang, why the place was so busy so late in the afternoon.
"It's slow today, I don't know why," he said matter-of-factly. Slow? Usually, he said, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. there is a line of 10 to 15 people outside waiting for a table. I turned to look outside, and now there were a half dozen people waiting for tables.
In the back corner was an L-shaped counter with a three-foot, golden, laughing Buddha on one end and a cash register on the other. Between and behind them pastries were stacked up, many different shapes, stacked a foot high in some places. Scott explained that they were preparing for the moon cake season. He said it takes place during the full moon at the end of September. Lien Dang, his mother, who runs the restaurant, also makes and sells the lanterns hanging from the ceiling. She had added more for the impending celebration.
My meal arrived, the duck on a platter on a bed of basil and raw cabbage and garnished with crisp-roasted shallots. The soup, in a large bowl, was, indeed, rice soup. A small dish of yellow sauce came with the duck.
Still thinking in terms of pho, I used my chopsticks to put duck and cabbage into the soup. It was pretty good. Scott gently informed me that most people eat the duck like a salad as a compliment to the soup.
"You mean I'm doing it wrong?"
"Oh no, there is no wrong way."
I proceeded to take a chopstick-full of duck, sweep it through the sauce (a wonderful, spicy, sweet and sour sauce) and in between bites, eat the soup. It was one of the best "soup and salad" lunches I have had in ages. Hot tea is served automatically, and I ordered a "young coconut" juice drink. What it was, was green coconut milk with chunks of green coconut flesh in it. Yum! If you believe that coconut comes hard and dry, you owe it to yourself to find out about green coconuts. They are a truly exotic treat.
As I was eating, a tiny girl, leaving the restaurant with her parents, stopped in front of my table, stared at me, smiled a heart-melting smile, and waved at me. I waved back as her parents laughed.
Lien Dang told me that she has run the restaurant for 13 years. She has another one downtown on First Avenue, the Pho Cyclo Café, and both are family owned and run. There were perhaps a half dozen workers in the restaurant, all wearing yellow shirts emblazoned with the family name.
"Everyone's connected somehow," Scott assured me, when I asked if they were all family.
I left feeling full and well fed. The check was $8, and I not only felt that I had gotten a tremendous value and found an excellent place to eat, I also knew why the place was busy all the time.
Huong Binh, 1207 S. Jackson St., suite 104, 720-4907, is open 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily.
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