Viet Kitchen - Asian Fusion Restaurant — Restaurant in Washington

Dinner at Việt Kitchen was our first meal in Washington DC after arriving from Germany. Trinh and her team do an amazing job. The tables are clean, the cutlery comes hygienically wrapped, the sauces are always replenished. My husband had a classic phở gà, which I'm sure will have him fully recovered from his slight cold tomorrow. The chicken was so tender and the herbs and sprouts so fresh. I had the stewed beef with carrot (bò kho), which is familiar from French colonial times. It was delicately flavored with star anise spices and probably cloves and chili flakes. The flavors reminded me of my childhood home - it was almost as good as I remember it from my mother. The dish comes classically with baguette or alternatively with steamed rice or egg noodles. When I asked for rice noodles, that was no problem at all. This combination is my favorite. I was also given Thai basil leaves, bean sprouts and fresh lime. Sorry, I didn’t capture it in a photo. Thank you, Việt Kitchen, for a lovely start to my visit to the capital of the States. All the best for the owner and...

I'm sorry. But seriously? Upon arrival, we ordered our appetizer (that we received -- a veggie summer roll that was a flavorless 'meh', to boot) and our waters. Assigned Waiter was a negative, hot bundle of a mess. We then ordered our entrees from him at 7pm. At 740, I'm finally asking the OTHER waitress if there's an issue with our food. (I'm thinking they had to go fishing for my order!) SHE calls out the manager who THEN states that our waiter had deleted the order from his device!!!!!!????? What? And no one thought to communicate?... For over half an hour??!!! Give that guy a pen and paper! Was traveling that evening so ended up on a 3 hour train ride without the joy of dining out with my son... And on an empty stomach. Not charging us for the lackluster summer rolls was the consolation. Will I attempt again next visit? Nope: one and done. Too many great options in that area. Just hope THAT waiter gets the...

After seeing so many great reviews I decided to visit for lunch on a Saturday. I got the pork banh mi and the spicy wontons.

Everything came out pretty quick, there was one other table seated. I'm not sure what they got but it looked like a great portion. They weren't there for very long and took it to go.

Let me start off by saying, the actual bread part of the banh mi was really good. It was fresh and had a great crunch. The filling was bad. Very very strong sweet taste, cuts with lots and lots of thick pieces of fat that I was unable to chew. It was almost like a very saucy pork stir fry stuffed inside the sandwich. And there were hardly any vegetables or cilantro which would've added a very much needed freshness to the sandwich.

The spicy wontons had a nice filling, not very spicy though. Again, a little more cilantro would've gone a long way.

Overall, I might go again to try...