Bao Ton was in a difficult position for a Vietnamese food aficionado: He couldn't stand dingy restaurants, yet his cravings for Vietnamese fare were satisfied only at the cramped Little Saigon joints that serve up jumbles of noodles and meat.
Frustrated, Ton quit his job at an insurance firm some years ago and helped his mother open a restaurant. It offers classic Vietnamese dishes, but with the urban hipness of the sleek sushi restaurants he admired.
And so came Quan Hy, stylish and spotless, a rare slice of swank in a mishmash of Little Saigon hole-in-the-walls with old-fashioned ideas of serving food and catering to customers.
"We wanted a place that was clean and nice, not a place where they throw a spoon at you and don't care about you," said Ton, 34, who runs the restaurant with his parents, four brothers and three sisters. "We grew up here with American expectations. It's a new culture, and we have to adapt to it."
It's a bold concept in Orange County's Vietnamese American community, where the many pho houses along Bolsa Avenue have generally catered to locals, kept food at bare-bones prices and all but ignored such things as customer service, presentation and ambience.
Ton's restaurant is one of a handful of trendier eateries popping up in Little Saigon's strip malls. New and young restaurateurs, many second-generation Vietnamese Americans who grew up in the Starbucks generation, are trying to lure those outside of Little Saigon by offering a little mood with the meals.
Some think these newer restaurants will help preserve Little Saigon's vibrancy by bringing in a new crowd and keeping second-generation Vietnamese Americans from leaving the ethnic district -- long a concern in the community.
Quan Hy and sister restaurant Quan Hop, although not exactly high-end, boast features seldom before seen in Little Saigon.
Ton uses slices of raw filet mignon for the pho instead of lower-grade round steak, even though it costs $5 a pound more. Jazz wafts throughout the restaurant. Servers wear black T-shirts and pants. The intoxicating soup comes in Japanese-style ceramic bowls, which are "very expensive," Ton said, but "good for presentation."
For years, Little Saigon restaurants were comfortable fits with locals, places that seemed like home to immigrants. Many offered family recipes from the homeland, handed down through generations. But most were grungy, low-tech, basic eateries that were turn-offs to some diners, especially those from outside the area.
