Pho Dat Thanh goes beyond Vietnamese dishes

The Front Burner

In many cultures, especially Asian, a humble facade hides a fancy home inside. In this case, though, the inside of Pho Dat Thanh (pronounced "Foe Daht Than") in Snowden Marketplace, Columbia, isn't all that fancy, either. A single room, with a small bar to one side near the entrance, features silvery green walls with a tangerine-hued chair rail in the middle and rather non-descript prints above.

The tables are bare-topped, with a stainless basket of condiments providing a bit of color. Utensils are a fork and a pair of chop sticks wrapped in a paper napkin.

What's fancy in this 10-year-old storefront eatery is the menu. Page after page of Vietnamese dishes make for delicious reading and create a decision-making quandary because everything looks so good.

While there's a common conception that Vietnamese food focuses on concoctions that feature meats, veggies and noodles in hot broth, the Pho Dat Thanh menu quickly dispels that notion. There are plenty of rice dishes, too, and offerings that are reminiscent of Thai and Chinese cookery as well. And actually, Vietnamese cuisine offers a variety of culinary approaches, with hearty fare from the North, more "sophisticated" goodies from the central part of the country and spicier dishes from the south.

This menu seems to feature all of them, with a few popular preparations (e.g. Pad Thai) from other countries.

Certainly the noodle soup dishes were being well received on the chilly night four of us visited recently. Plenty of customers – most probably regulars -- were happily tucking into big bowls of meats and poultry, noodles and broth with great gusto, using chopsticks for the chewables and Chinese crockery "spoons" for the broth.

Starting off

We wanted to sample as much variety as we could that night, so we took a lot longer to decide than most of our eatery mates; indeed, virtually all the tables turned at least once while we were there. During our ruminations, three of us sipped spirited beverages, including "Export 33," formerly Trente-Trois, a French-influenced beer that harks back to when that country occupied Vietnam. And our teetotaler enjoyed an avocado smoothie ($3.95 with tapioca). The tall glass of thick, pale green goodness had big black pasty tapioca beads on the bottom, while the smoothie itself tasted very lightly of avocado. Not sweet, but very refreshing, and a good accompaniment for any spicy food you might decide to order.

A quartet of appetizers started us on our exotic journey. Summer rolls ($3.75 for two) were a version of spring rolls, only steamed, not fried. The chewy rolls, wrapped in translucent rice paper, were replete with vegetables, bits of shrimp and pork, plenty of cilantro and crunchy (albeit cooked) vermicelli noodles. A ubiquitous peanut sauce (which we love) was served on the side.

Deep fried fish cake ($5.75) featured at least a dozen spongy-chewy morsels of (mild) ground fish that had been lightly breaded and fried. What's the word? Ah, yes, interesting. These were nicely presented (as were virtually all of our selections) with a generous garnish of iceberg lettuce, thin tomato slices, shredded carrots and cilantro sprigs.

Grilled beef in grape leaves ($5.75) boasted three large, soft and tender hand-rolled grape leaf wrappers plumped with marinated, grilled ground beef and featuring crushed peanuts and fish sauce (called nam pla in Thailand). The textures were appealing, the flavors beefy and "grapey," although a bit on the salty side (the fish sauce).

Roast quail ($7.95) is also from that 12-item appetizer section. Two whole quail (you know they're teeny tiny) had been halved, brushed with a smooth, quasi-sweet sauce and roasted to chewy goodness. A fun finger food. And to go with it, a salt/pepper mix for sprinkling and fresh lime wedges for squirting.

House specialties

At Pho Dat Thanh, the kitchen can provide more than 35 different soups, most of which could easily serve as your main dish, or certainly a hearty first course. But there's so much more to the menu that we decided to dispense with the broth-y things and order from elsewhere on the bill of fare. The rice crepes tempted, a trio of them. And there were menu sections featuring chicken, pork, beef and shrimp. Plus six lo mein and fried rice offerings. As well as a section titled "Chowfoon or Chowmein," which also proffered a variety of stir-fried noodles in combination with various protein sources.

One of our guests opted for a dish from this latter section —something familiar —Pad Thai ($11.25); and as good a version as you'd find in any Thai restaurant. Plenty of shrimp and eggs and veggies stirred up with rice noodles and the house "sweet" sauce, then topped with ample crushed peanuts. With just that little hint of heat in the background. Comfort, Asian style.