Category Archives: Vietnamese

Banh Mi, Midtown West, Pho, Restaurant Reviews, Vietnamese

Cha Pas

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Cha Pas is a pretty good little mostly-Vietnamese restaurant in Hell’s Kitchen. They serve up some pretty good food here, but the prices reflect a place that is not like the downtown joints. This is more expensive. For some dishes, it’s worth it, but for others, not so much. That said, everything I’ve had here is very good. I’ve tried the banh mi, the pho, the Vietnamese chicken wings, the clay pot pork belly, and the chicken curry. No real disappointments to speak of, and the Vietnamese coffee is very good. They also have some more difficult to find Southeast Asian beers as well, and a really cool painted, exposed brick wall on the inside.

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beef pho chapas

chicken pho chapas

salad chapas

spring roll chapas

CHA PAS
314 W. 52nd St.
New York, NY 10019

Midtown East, Pho, Restaurant Reviews, Vietnamese

Le Colonial

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My wife found this cool article that featured Le Colonial’s foie gras pho. It looked amazing, so we had to try it out.

We went for lunch on a Friday. It wasn’t packed or anything like that: we sat right away. Yet it took us an hour to have three appetizers. The wait time between the first appetizer and the second two appetizers was horrendous. Probably a half hour.

We started with the wok fried monk fish, called ca bam. Though very salty, small, and overpriced ($15) it WAS very tasty. The rice chips were the perfect crunchy vessel to eat the peanutty and lightly spiced fish.

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Fast forward 30 minutes and our soups FINALLY came to the table. We each ordered the signature pho dish. At $19 a pop I was expecting something at least as filling as a bowl of pho from Chinatown. No such luck. There was about 10-12oz of liquid broth, a few thin slices of the meat, a small handful of noodles, and a small piece of fois gras. The bowl, in all, is a bit smaller than what you’d make with instant ramen or instant pho. While I realize that it is an appetizer portion, I feel that for $19 you should get more substance. At least it was delicious. It was hearty, tasty, and it contained quality ingredients. The foie gras was deliciously fatty and perfectly executed.

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The decor was definitely beautiful. I should have thought to snap a pic of that. It was very reminiscent of real French-Vietnamese structures in Vietnam. Hence the name Le Colonial.

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But paying $68, tax included for three appetizers to come out over the course of over an hour was fucking absurd. I’ll never eat here again, though I’m glad I got to try the soup. In the future I’ll just stick with the Chinatown pho joints. Only in midtown NYC can you pay $68 for lunch and still be hungry. Fuck that. I guess the good thing is that I got to spend some quality time with my wife in the middle of a work day.

LE COLONIAL
149 E. 57th St.
New York, NY 10022