Falansai

In a dark, industrial corner of Bushwick, the son of a Chinese refugee has opened a Vietnamese eatery and cheekily named it after his father’s mispronunciation of “français.” As you enter, you’ll see a lightbulb hanging in a pagoda-shaped birdcage and hear loungey French music that quietly fills the sparsely decorated interior. At lunch, you can slurp up beef-noodle pho and munch on Dad’s shrimp roll, which tastes like a crab cake and has a crispy tofu skin wrapping. At dinner, tender little cubes of filet mignon come to your table fresh from the wok.

New York’s roster of fancified Vietnamese restaurants is growing, from Nightingale 9 in Carroll Gardens to Bún-Ker in Ridgewood and Falansai in North Brooklyn. They’re a change-up—if not always successful—from the city’s more casual restaurants, many of which in Chinatown, that hunker down with classic dishes like banh mi or pho. Falansai offers both of those things, but plenty more with a sophisticated edge, and they do so in an equally classed-up setting that has plenty for vegetarians.