Whose House?
16 June 2010 - James BooWhen I talk about my favorite places to eat, I inevitably confront the fact that the conventional framing of a top tier dining establishment – service, appearance, and atmosphere – is one big bore in my greasy spoon licking, formica table staining, foreign language menu worshipping myopia of the edible. Although a measure of care in each these variables is essential to any good dining experience, I’ll be an earthworm’s brunch before I accept that a sterile environment, producing plate after plate of perfectly identical food that is delivered to customers by a spotless succession of servers whose only job is to please, is what I conjure with the word “favorite.”
My favorite restaurant is a place where the cook knows his customers, where diners are met with as many expectations as appeasements, and where nothing is hidden behind swinging kitchen doors. Joints like Jodie’s in the East Bay, Colima Burgers in my hometown and Stage Restaurant in the East Village don’t always come up with the best dish or merit the best tip, but they all prove that flavor goes further than food on the table.
This is the logic that allows me to deem Nhà Tôi (translation: “My House”) my favorite restaurant in Williamsburg. This Vietnamese hole in the wall two blocks from my old building has been on its feet for just over a year, but by the time I made my move to Park Slope, I had been stopping by for lunch once per week. Standing near the corner of Havemeyer and S. 2nd St., just inside the border of South Williamsburg’s Puerto Rican enclave, Nhà Tôi doesn’t just serve good food – it also gives good food a home.
That home is the domain of Fred, Nhà Tôi’s owner, executive chef and only waiter. A transplant from San Jose who has lived in Bushwick for seven years, Fred is anything but polished. Blunt, bold and self-determined, he started building his chops when he was offered a line cook gig at Alphabet City’s Bao 111. Deciding that he was tired of selling women’s shoes at Bloomingdale’s, he accepted, and has since been fired from similar positions in Polish, French and Japanese restaurants – including the trendy Morimoto, where he was never allowed to slice a piece of raw fish.
Fred’s losses turned out to be Williamsburg’s gain. Since opening Nhà Tôi in 2009, he’s built up a genuine neighborhood spot, attracting the full gamut of residents without the aid of new media branding and without stepping too hard on the toes of those who could easily see his business as a foot in the door of their own displacement. His stalwart demeanor and eagerness to discuss the politics of food and food service may rub some diners the wrong way, but forces of honesty run very close to the surface here, making every meal a refresher course in eating out.
The first time I stepped into Nhà Tôi, I asked for a bowl of pho without onions. Rather than accept that the customer is always right, Fred half-shouted, “NO ONIONS? WHAT KIND OF ASIAN ARE YOU?” and laughed as he filled my order.
The second time I walked through the door and asked Fred to hold the onions, he half-shouted, “NO ONIONS? WHAT KIND OF ASIAN ARE YOU?” and swaggered into his kitchen. Three minutes later, when he set my bowl of soup – raw onion free – on the table, he chuckled and jabbed, “You know, I’m going to say that exact same thing every time you come in here.” I was completely ready to appreciate the sentiment, but these days I’m greeted more often with a strong handshake and the day’s specials.
While Fred’s pho is nothing amazing, it – along with everything else in his house – is served with a sense of clarity and pride. His pho is comfort food, and its clean, simple flavors (offered in the forms of beef, pork and chicken broth and served with pickled Vietnamese peppers on the side) have made it my go-to when I crave nothing more than honest bowl of noodles.
Nhà Tôi’s playful side begins to show itself in the various fresh and fried rolls it offers on a daily basis. Ranging from the traditional (pork skin and vermicelli) to the eccentric (rice, lamb sausage, dates, cilantro and scallion), Fred’s rolls offer the same clean approach he takes with his soup, while allowing him more room to experiment with whatever ingredients he happens upon. Many of his most interesting flavor combinations can be found scribbled onto the constantly shifting spread of specials pinned just below the window.
Ultimately, the highlight of eating at Nhà Tôi is Fred’s gallery of sandwiches. While one member of said gallery is a fairly traditional Vietnamese banh mi, every other sandwich assumes a different outlet of the cook’s creativity. Averaging $7 $6 in price and sometimes involving over a day’s worth of labor and preparation, they are devoted yet breezy tributes to adaptive cooking, a trait Fred sees as dominant in Asian culinary cultures – particularly the Chinese, Thai and Vietnamese. Most of their ingredients are sourced in Chinatown, and their hero rolls, which land quite far from the crackling French baguettes typically used to make Vietnamese sandwiches, are baked in the neighborhood.
Hardcore banh mi loyalists might see this as a flaw – or even worse, as a short-sighted blunder – but the use of cheap neighborhood bread fits nicely into Nhà Tôi’s unassuming tastes. Although Fred searched for a more traditional source and even pleaded with nearby bakers to try baking rolls with rice flour, he ultimately decided to make do with the most accessible option. Cutting through the falsehoods of fusion cooking with a fitting directness, the banh mi menu, hero rolls and all, embodies his culinary motto: “I’ll just eat whatever’s fuckin’ around me, and make the best of it.”
It works. The standout of Nha Toi’s sandwich roster is the pho banh mi, which starts with a fat cut of brisket that’s been braised all day. The virtually stewed meat, tender, succulent and robust in flavor, is placed into the toasted hero with cooked bean sprouts, cucumber, thai basil, spicy mayo and hoisin. Brilliantly conceived and charmingly executed, this can only be described as happiness in a hero. Its sister sandwich, Fred’s braised beef banh mi, is equally tasty.
I’ve found the other options just as delicious, depending on my mood. The bun bo hue banh mi, another Vietnamese noodle soup de-constructed into a handheld meal, needs more work to rival its predecessor, but the meaty, juicy pork belly at its center – seared, then braised for hours – can certainly do no wrong. Two of Nhà Tôi’s mainstays, lemongrass pork and lemongrass chicken, are always tender and flavorful. One of Fred’s newest specials, the fried cheese banh mi, trades in meat for a deep fried brick of smooth and salty Dominican queso blanco, making this sandwich just as substantial as its meat-based menu mates.
Another favorite sandwich of mine at Nhà Tôi is the basa fish. A filet of Vietnamese cat fish, milder in flavor than its American kin, is seared on order, then thrown into the banh mi mix. The outside of the filet is golden brown, the inside of the filet is fall-apart flaky, and the end product is a subtle tip of Fred’s hat to the Southern po’ boy.
Among the other specials at Nhà Tôi are Saigon seaweed salad, springs rolls with braised oxtail and potato, papaya salad, and one hell of a homemade soda, made with lime juice and lemon grass syrup. During fall and winter, Fred plans on breaking out rice dishes and other warmer concoctions to accompany his pho and banh mi.
In the haze of a summer day, though, he’s most concerned with taking a look outside his window at the aged Puerto Rican men loitering outside, trading quips and keeping an eye on the corner. Without a doubt that this is his favorite place to be, Fred talks about the eight years left on his lease as a test of whether he deserves to join their ranks.
“It’s a beautiful thing right there – they’re just fuckin’ wasting their time,” he notes with a wistful grin. “I’m gonna be them someday, wearin’ a Hawaiian shirt, grow out my Fu Manchu. Just hold down the block!”
Nha Toi
160 Havemeyer St.
Brooklyn, NY 11211
718.599.1820
June 16th, 2010 at 10:22 am
Thanks for this post! I had no idea this existed, but is now on my sooner, rather than later, list.
June 16th, 2010 at 11:32 am
yum, looks delish! I didn’t realize it was in the hood! I’m definitely going to try the basa fish!
June 16th, 2010 at 1:08 pm
I approve of Fred wholeheartedly.
June 16th, 2010 at 8:48 pm
:) Your first paragraph made me smile when I was reading it. More than a few times already, people have asked what my favorite [#insert whatever type of food] place was, and were truly puzzled by my response, since it wasn’t a well respected, or even well known establishment. Even if the food at a certain restaurant isn’t out-of-this-world good, isn’t it fair to say that the feeling you get when you go to a certain restaurant can make up for good, not great food (which isn’t to say ambiance can make up for lackluster cuisine). Case in point, I went repeatedly to one specific deli during my time at Columbia, not because it was the cheapest or closest, but every time I went, they already knew my order, and I felt like I was going to an old friend’s house. Their sandwiches were merely average, but I liked welcoming feeling I’d get when I went. Maybe their friendliness is just part of doing business, but that seems to be lost in a lot of places nowadays.
Ha, I’ll end my rambling here.
June 16th, 2010 at 9:23 pm
Too true, Nick. I have a particularly strong bias against “good service” – I don’t care how nice my server is or how much he loves his job, I will never feel comfortable with the fact that someone is being paid purely to fill my glass of water, tend to my every need and in general make me feel like I’m the most important person in the world for an hour or two.
I don’t go to dinner to have things done for me; I go to dinner to experience good food in good company. I like being asked to bring dishes out to the next customer. I like having the newest special explained to me by the cook and haggling with him over whether or not I can get away without raw onions on my plate. If I had to choose, I’d rather go to a run-of-the-mill corner deli where the sandwich man jokes about what I looked like when I came in at 4:00 a.m. on Halloween than to a white tablecloth restaurant where, ultimately, I’m just another customer with tips to bestow.
This isn’t to say that enjoyment of the more intimate dining experience excludes enjoyment of fine dining – we know plenty of serious eaters who take joy in the full spectrum of eating out. When it comes to this issue, though, I’m happy to be a partisan.
June 18th, 2010 at 1:51 am
Those sandwiches look REALLY good, James! I’ve never had noodle-soup banh mi before, is this guy the first one ever invented them? $7 is a little steep, because normal banh mi in Cali are under 3 (what are the prices like in NY?), but I guess the innovation deserves it.
I like those small kitchens that only make a few dishes and make it really well. But what would happen when they try to expand their menu? Fred sounds like a great cook, but should he focus on just a few things (like his banh mi) instead of adding rice and what not? I like it in Vietnam when I can go to one exact place famous for one exact thing. Some of the restaurants in San Jose have pages after pages in the menu, but everything is just average. What do you think?
June 21st, 2010 at 8:31 am
Those sandwiches look good. Sandwiches are one of those things that kind of has a ceiling on how good it can ever be, but the never-ending combination of fillings always keeps me interested. I mean, that’s like a killer beef sandwich and almost all vietnamese restaurants could afford to do that… but they don’t. I wish restaurants like this could afford the rent to be in the city, get more exposure. I also should get over my laziness and do more food field trips on the weekends. I gotta learn to love the L and G trains…
June 21st, 2010 at 5:02 pm
Mai – Oops! I made a bit of an error there, as the story should read $6, not $7 (correcting now). The Pho banh mi and some other specialties are $7, but most of Fred’s sandwiches are six bucks. I’d actually like to address the $2.50 bias that so many people have when it comes to banh mi in a future story… in Chinatown and a couple other spots in the boroughs that are home to Vietnamese business owners, you can get the classic $2-$3 banh mi, but I have yet to be really taken with any of the ones I’ve tasted. I feel like a lot of eaters tend to interchange “cheap” and “authentic” when it comes to certain types of food, and Nha Toi is a great counterpoint to that assumption. Then there’s the issue of passing increased prices on cooks and workers, which is another story altogether… in short, I think that $7 is well worth this particular sandwich!
When it comes to places offering a huge variety of average Viet, Thai, Indian, etc., meals don’t need to be stellar as much as honest. In the case of ethnic food I feel like “average” is usually more than enough to satisfy, as long as it’s culturally true and fairly priced. I had what I thought was a fantastic bun rieu at one of these types of restaurants at Eden Center in Falls Church, VA, and I’m sure there’s much better out there, but I still enjoyed it – what better way to test my palette and try something new, right?
Danny – You know, Nha Toi is just a few blocks away from the some of the trendiest restaurants in Williamsburg, and food-hunting is so accessible now that real estate can be made up for with marketing/branding. It’s just too bad that marketing/branding is one of the most annoying fucking things in the universe. I like that Fred worked out his sandwiches long before registering for a web site (which, apparently, is coming soon).
And, loving the G train? That is mighty generous of you. I hope it loves you back!
June 21st, 2010 at 7:14 pm
You bring up a very good point, James. Being culturally true is important. Innovative ideas (like the noodle soup banh mi) are fine, but I feel cheated when I order something and get something else. Unfortunately when it comes to ethnic foods, sometimes people try to find an easy way out, substituting ingredients without clarification in the menu, and I don’t know if that happens because they think the customers wouldn’t notice, or because they don’t know the real stuff themselves.
What I originally meant was, I don’t think expanding the menu is always a good idea. Rather than making ten average dishes (because of limited space for example, it’s hard to have ten different pots of broth, and they resort to having just one broth with different toppings, so their soups taste all the same), I’d prefer the restaurant making just one or two really good ones.
May 21st, 2011 at 1:46 pm
Hey James!
Sadly didn’t get to try the food at Nhà Tôi. Upon calling to place an order for delivery, the owner put me on hold for around 4 minutes. When he came back to the phone, I asked him to pick two of his favorite Bánh Mi sandwiches and a summer roll. He refused to tell offer his favorites to me, offer the best sellers, nor would suggest a few from the menu. Instead he demanded I visit his website, and call back when I know exactly what I want. I quickly pulled up his website, started placing my order, when he aggressively said “read it all over” and he then then hung up on me. I called back, confronted him about hanging up on me. He said “I’m actually working here.” and hung up again.
Obviously I won’t be ordering food from them anytime soon. There are too many great options for Vietnamese food in this neighborhood (BEP for example), let alone Banh Mi shops. Customer service is key, regardless of how busy you are. I expect more from the restaurants in this neighborhood, and never would expect that type of treatment from the businesses owner.
Oh well!
Dan
May 21st, 2011 at 10:13 pm
I’m sorry to hear that, Dan. If Fred’s gonna lose business over something like this, then I guess that’s the way it’ll be. I don’t think that kind of response requires an apologist and I take you at your word, so it is what it is. Thanks for speaking up.