Saigon Cafe

When you think of Savannah, Georgia, the first thing that pops into your mind probably isn't Asian food. Nor should it be. However, as it happens, my wife spent a whole day watching "Midnight Diner: Tokyo Stories" on Netflix, and it put in both of us a power urge for noodles. When we lived in Atlanta, we had a lot of exposure to Asian cuisine along the famous Buford Highway corridor, and often found ourselves at a Vietnamese places eating Pho. Thus when we recently decided to chow down on some noodles, Pho was my first thought.

Pho raises passions in people, and has been argued and written about at length, but at the end of the day it's a broth with noodles and meat floating around inside. I figured that if we were going to find something satisfactorily authentic in Savannah, a bowl of Pho was a safe bet. (Sidenote: we've already been burned by just about every Asian place we've tried here, but those are post for other days.)

That leads us to this place:

Saigon Bistro sits on the corner of DeRenne and 71st and has been there for a while, though I'd never thought to venture inside. It is shabby looking, inside and out, and it basically seems like the place hasn't had much care for it's aesthetics since it was established.

However, we weren't there to be wowed by design features. We were there to eat some soup. As you can see from the above pics, Pho was clearly written on the window, which is a good sign. Not a great sign was the table settings that featured a bottle of Hoisin and Siracha only. The places we frequented in Atlanta often had both of those, plus sambal and fish sauce. I later learned you could request sambal, though.

Since we were eating our first real meal of the day, we decided to get some spring rolls before our Pho. They come in a pair and cost about 4 bucks with choice of meats (shrimp being extra.) We went traditional and got pork.

I should have taken a photo of the inside after a bite, because it was sad. The veggies inside were not the crisp, fresh "spring" veggies you hope for. We speculated that because the restaurant isn't terribly busy (again, I would refer you to the photo. We were there right around 1 o'clock on a Thursday) that the veg just sits there sad and lonely waiting for a mouth. The pork was good, but the rice paper wrapper was very tough and chewy. That peanut sauce was watery and probably made from the cook's tears.

We came for pho though, so let's see some pho.

I ordered the pho dac biet, which is the combination soup: beef broth, slices of steak, fatty brisket, meatballs, and tendon. My wife, as always, ordered the eye-round steak. As you can see from the below menu, any of the soups costs about 9 bucks unless you go crazy and spring for "seafood."

The star of any bowl of pho is the broth, because the noodles are always the same and the "meats" are really just there to convince you that you aren't wasting your time and money. I have to say that the broth of our pho that day was spot on. It was perfectly rich with collagen and beef flavor, a sure sign that they had a big pot of oxtails simmering away in the kitchen. The spice character was very pronounced, but not overwhelming. A lot of places, even the best ones, have a subtle, almost non-existent spice note. Saigon Bistro really nailed it. It was indeed "aromatic" as the menu stated.

They gave us the obligatory plate of garnishes as well, though the "cilantro" was actually just parsley, but I can see how they could get confused in the lunch rush.... In the end, this is a suprisingly solid place to grab a bowl of pho in Savannah, and for that I am thankful. The rest of the menu is probably skip-able though.