What I Ate: February 21, 2008

We flew to New York today so ended up eating lunch during the five hour flight. Virgin America serves food a la carte using a touch screen menu system to order and instant credit card payment. We ordered a steak sandwich ($9) that featured tenderloin with mozzarella cheese and basil pesto on ciabatta. It was pretty decent as airline food goes, but of course is hard to compare against food freshly prepared.

We also ordered a Half Caprese Sandwich with Salad. The sandwich had "fresh Buffala mozzarella, roasted yellow tomato and juicy sliced tomato, and frisee lettuce with a drizzle of fresh basil pesto served on a crusty French baguette". The salad contained marinated artichoke hearts, grape tomatoes, cannellini beans, and fresh herbs. It also was pretty decent as airline food goes. I liked the use of the frisee which brought a crispness to the sandwich that makes you think it's fresh.

For dinner, we took a chance with a local restaurant called Saigon 48 that was just outside our hotel on 48th St. We wanted somewhere fast and cheap enough that we wouldn't mind leaving food that we couldn't finish before having to run off to "Wicked". Standing outside and trying to decide between Saigon 48 and Pongsri Thai Restaurant next door, a couple of other diners walked up to the door and told me, "This place is awesome! We visit about once a year and we always come here." Upon that recommendation, we entered the restaurant.

We ordered Steamed Crystal Shrimp Dumplings ($5.75), medium-rare beef cold ($12.95), a small bowl of pho ($4.25), and fresh lemonade soda ($2).

As we waited about ten minutes for our food, we noticed a few things about the restaurant. Pad thai was labelled as a vietnamese noodle dish. Front of the house were all Mandarin speaking Chinese. Ambient music was also Chinese.

Crystal Shrimp Dumplings - ample shrimp contents and chewy thin skin, but no depth of flavor. Like a Cantonese har gau shrimp dumplings served at dim sum but with only shrimp flavor (no bamboo shoots or other discernible seasonings). Too simple and bland for our tastes. It was served with a hoisin sauce that completely overwhelmed the dumpling.

Pho - soup is more like a Chinese oxtail with daikon soup than traditional pho soup base (this wasn't a big surprise since it says oxtail soup on the menu) and noodles didn't have any of the distinctive pho chewiness. More like pad thai noodles in soup than anything else. The rest of the pho was normal with a couple different beef cuts and vegetables in the soup. We liked it, but it wasn't really pho as we know it

Medium Rare Beef Cold - flavorful, spicy and tender. well matched with lettuce lemon and cilantro that its served on. We'd recommend ordering this dish.

Saigon 48 (Google Maps) [Not recommended]
234 W 48th St
New York, NY 10036
(212) 247-8669