Free Williamsburg

The Williamsburg Brooklyn-based culture guide to New York and beyond.

Bunker

By

In Queens you have Sripraphai. In Cobble Hill there’s Andy Ricker’s Pok Pok. Bushwick now has Bunker Vietnamese — they outgrew their smaller space in Ridgewood — and they’re cooking up some of the tastiest, most authentic Thai food in the city. It’s a tad pricier than your standard Vietnamese restaurant with entrees in the $20 range, but feel confident that the ingredients are all freshly sourced and that you’ll leave delighted. Highly recommended.

Featured Reviews

  • Because the place has only been around a few years, is run by relatively young people, and is in a quickly gentrifying area, you might expect Bun-Ker to be what print magazines would call a “hipster” take on Vietnamese food. But in reality, there’s very little fusion or even much “modernizing” going on here. Instead, it’s simply versions of the classics, with fresher ingredients and richer, deeper flavors, that are way better than what we’ve had elsewhere. Just have a sip of their pho broth, and you’ll get it.

Getting There

Di An Di

By

A modern, distinctively Vietnamese-American version of pho — like the kind found in Houston — is finally available in New York via Di An Di.

Featured Reviews

  • A modern, distinctively Vietnamese-American version of pho — like the kind found in Houston — is finally available in New York via Di An Di. The Greenpoint restaurant, located at 68 Greenpoint Ave. near the intersection of Franklin, is owned by An Choi vets Dennis Ngo, Kim Hoang, and Tuan Bui, the former two hailing from Houston and Bui from northern Virginia.

    The premises was formerly Hail Mary, an experimental diner that closed in early 2017, and the space still has a small but welcoming front porch, where a neon bowl of pho blazes. Plants hang in profusion from the ceiling. Further in, find a high-ceilinged room with a glassed-in kitchen running along one wall. Tables are arranged in the remaining L-shaped space, which is lit magnificently with natural light via windows in the ceiling, perfect for pre-sunset Instagramming. The space is attractive, with no kitsch or sentimentalism…But the pho is what makes Di An Di particularly unique to the city. Most of the pho found in NYC dates from the decades following the 1975 fall of Saigon, when refugees, many from the Mekong Delta, came to the U.S., bringing the soup with them. Their version, often associated with Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City), sported a complicated set of add-ins, including multiple sauces and vinegars, leafy fresh herbs, sprouts, green chiles, and a variety of beef cuts, as if the basic recipe begged for customization. Nevertheless, it was delectable and New Yorkers quickly grew to love it.

  • Even the most promising new restaurants in Greenpoint take a while to catch on – people usually don’t want to travel for a spot they’re not totally sure about. Di An Di is different. This attractive, plant-covered new Vietnamese restaurant is already slammed, but the better news is that it’s also already worth waiting for. They serve a pretty big menu that’s a mix of traditional Vietnamese dishes, like summer rolls and pho, and Di An Di originals, like a Vietnamese “pizza” made with grilled crispy rice paper for the crust. Everything we’ve tried is great – but you absolutely shouldn’t leave without getting at least one bowl of pho (and make sure to add the fried donut for dipping). The cocktails are great too. Overall, this is the most excited we’ve been about a new Vietnamese restaurant since Hanoi House.

Getting There

Falansai

By

Street-food Hanoi and Saigon style, with a subtle french twist. An eclectic blend of dishes with just enough French influence to make them decadent. We recommend the Clay Pot Catfish and the Lemongrass Pork Chop.

Featured Reviews

  • 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.

Getting There

Lucy’s Vietnamese Kitchen

By

They only serve Pho and Banh Mi, but simplicity is a beautiful thing at Lucy’s. Their pho comes in a mushroom broth, but meat eaters can always add brisket or chicken. We recommend the latter. The place is tiny, with one long table, perfect for communal slurping. Chicken thigh, smoked brisket and tofu Banh Mi are available.

Featured Reviews

  • The broth is as crystalline as consommé, with long leaves of bok choy still on the stalk and bobbing thimbles of green onion. It’s lovely in its pristine state, but even better besmirched by brisket. The meat is rubbed with salt and pepper, smoked for 14 hours over mesquite and apple wood, and carved and seared to order. It lands in the bowl with dark fringes, the bark just shy of scorched, and its juices leach into the pho along with a trace of smoke. 

  • Purists may balk at the notion of a vegetable-based pho that shines among the meaty regulars, but the lone offering of noodle soup at chef-owner Johnny Huynh’s Bushwick kitchen is just that. A savory, yet light broth is simmered for three hours with mushrooms, star anise, charred shallots and ginger, and built with unorthodox fixings like shiitake and bok choy. Beef is available as a topping in thick, hand-carved strips of brisket that’s been smoked for 14 hours over mesquite and applewood. Diners tuck into the piping hot bowls as well as sandwiches (pho banh mi, lemongrass chicken) at the shop’s singular red-painted, wooden communal table.

  • Believe it or not, one of the city’s best bowls of pho is… vegetarian. That’s right. Instead of the usual meats and marrow, Chef Johnny Huynh uses mushrooms, star anise, cinnamon, charred shallots, and ginger to tease out a broth that’s both hearty and light, brimming with fresh rice noodles, shiitakes, and bok choy. Hardcore carnivores, fear not. You have the option to add tender slabs of smoked beef brisket, which add yet another layer of flavor to this already complex noodle soup.

Getting There