Review: Golden Flower's flip-flopping pho

A barbecued pork banh mi, a Vietnamese sandwich, from Golden Flower Vietnamese Restaurant. Soft yet crunchy French rolls are essential to good banh mi. (Credit: Johnathan L. Wright)

Pho, when it's done right, inspires me to take the expansive view.

Pho is large. It contains multitudes (to paraphrase Whitman). Pho encompasses the cosmos — rice noodles swirl like interstellar gases; mint and cilantro burst with freshness, like supernovas; beef balls, dense and weighty as white dwarf stars, emerge from the depths of rich, deeply flavored broth.

When pho succeeds at Golden Flower Vietnamese Restaurant, as it does on some visits (No. 1 pho is my favorite), all is right with the universe. But when it doesn't — when its broth is timid, hesitant, too mild — the culinary stars seem aligned against me. On such visits, I long for the Big Bang in my soup spoon but taste only entropy instead.

Street food

This inconsistency is disconcerting, absolutely, but Golden Flower redeems itself elsewhere.

Summer rolls are tight, taut and fresh, and who could tire of dredging them in peanut sauce?

Shredded pork rolls are made with the same rice wrappers as summer rolls. The filling has a slightly powdery, slightly crumbly quality that's oddly appealing; a dipping sauce made from sugar, fish sauce, lime juice and other ingredients — the same sauce that accompanies cold rice vermicelli dishes — only improves matters.

Banh mi, the street sandwiches that unite French and Vietnamese traditions, are stuffed with shredded pork or (marvelous in their sweet smokiness) charbroiled beef or pork; swiped with mayonnaise; and dressed with cilantro, pickled carrots and onions, and jalapeño chiles.

On one visit, the dressings aren't as fresh as they could be, and the French roll isn't crusty enough (the right bread is essential to banh mi). But another time, the dressings deliver gusts of flavor, and the roll offers just the right commingling of crust, softness and chew.

More fowl

Several dishes provide shelter for Vietnamese newbies or for those disinclined to explore the pho-driven pleasures of brisket, flank, tendon and tripe.

A stir-fry of chicken, vegetables and egg noodles features tender chicken. A pan-fried noodle version is even better, the interlaced noodles forming a basket that's crisp yet yielding.

With both dishes, I wish for a protein-to-vegetable ratio that favors the fowl, and that's even more the case with curry chicken teeming with slices of green bell pepper. Still, the dish offers good curry flavor.

Impromptu seating

Service at Golden Flower is famously brusque, in the way of many family-owned Asian restaurants, but it's also efficient, with the lunch rush no match for the waiters. Refills on water are the most frequent in town.

In another context (a bistro or grill, say), the brusqueness wouldn't be acceptable, but I don't mind it at Golden Flower. Like a cranky coffee shop waitress, it adds to the authenticity.

So does Golden Flower's decor. It's not the distress-sale-modern of some Asian restaurants, and Asian flower images do brighten the room a bit. But the serviceable tables are numbered and clearly arranged for efficiency, not aesthetics.

And when the restaurant is busy, waiters deposit parties of two at the open seats of otherwise occupied tables. The preferences of those seated and those about to be don't seem to be taken into account.

My deathless opposition to such seating is well documented — I'd rather don a tutu at high noon on South Virginia Street and turn cartwheels — so I tend to visit Golden Flower on off hours. I need privacy to taste what the stars have in store.

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