Yesterday, we grabbed lunch at Starry Kitchen, the former underground restaurant sensation that started in owners Nguyen and Thi Tran's apartment. The restaurant serves an ever-rotating mix of pan-Asian food, and they're all over the Twitter and the Facebook things. (Nguyen even tweeted about hanging out with us!)

We ate a tofu banh mi with garlic noodles and a chopped salad with lemongrass chicken. Tran told us he thinks the restaurant's vegetarian food actually outshines its meat dishes, and the tofu in the banh mi really was flavor-packed; pressed and marinated with lots of lemongrass, then pan-fried. It was stuffed in a soft baguette, with a little bit of crackly exterior—just the right roll for a banh mi. The chopped salad had fried wonton strips, tomato, lettuce, and chicken. We think they picked their location right: It's around a bunch of office buildings in the Water Court. If this was by our office, we'd be hitting it for lunch, too.

We took a second to chat with the hyper-enthusiastic Tran about inviting strangers over to his house for dinner, and surveyed the damage he's wrought in his excitement. Check out the video.

Posted on Thursday, July 15th, 2010 by Davina Baum in CHOW Tour: Innovation No Comments