Beer is inexpensive, and there's an emphasis on game dishes: the crunchy, beautifully fried quail with a whiff of five-spice seasoning on a bed of romaine and the tender sauteed venison cubes garnished with Asian basil are probably the best fare you'll ever have while watching football or a televised golf tournament.
You can barely detect the skeleton of a former Coco's coffee shop beneath the opulently revised restaurant Aysya on Brookhurst in Fountain Valley. Low light from paper lanterns, a long hand-polished eating bar, big cherry-wood tables and intimate nooks set the stage for a menu of dishes based on many far-flung cuisines: Thai curries, Vietnamese standards, a bit of Chinese, a hint of Indonesian and French bistro favorites such as steak au poivre and frog legs in butter sauce.
A few dishes are culinary blends: The spicy, soft-shell crab has no precise traceable heritage nor does the semiripe, shredded mango salad with meaty shrimp charred from the grill. But both never fail to please.
When asked why this kind of restaurant now, co-owner Vinh Buu explained: "I love food, all kinds of food, not only Vietnamese -- and many people I know feel the same."
Clearly, he has his finger on Little Saigon's gustatory pulse because there has been an increasing influx of Thai and Japanese restaurants along with a quirky fad for Louisiana-style crayfish.
Crossover style
The perpetually mobbed and swankily modern Hot Pot City in Westminster is another example of Little Saigon's growing taste for diverse cuisines. Its inexpensive menu may be in Vietnamese and English, but the cooking instrument on every table is the northern Chinese-style hot pot and grill (via Taiwan).
You select foods from a refrigerated cabinet, then grill them or swish them in hot broth. A young, spiky-coiffed waitperson carries around a huge pitcher of broth and replenishes any pots that threaten to go dry.
For Kim Ta, owner of Zon Baguettes, it was the clientele's diversity at her former Tustin pho restaurant that inspired her to go international with a Vietnamese sandwich shop. She serves well-filled banh mi sandwiches of mixed Asian cold cuts or grilled pork on crisp-crusted house bread spread with house-made mayonnaise.
But she also gives the medium an international twist. Denver omelet-filled breakfast baguettes or carne asada smothered in pico de gallo rate high among her bright, modern shop's many creations.
