Hungry in Berlin

Since the last visit to the Dong Xuan Center, the mammoth Vietnamese shopping mall/wholesale outlet/grocery center, was culinarily unsatisfactory, and since we found several other places to eat after we’d had a rather disappointing meal, we were anxious to get back and see what else the place offered. K, our intrepid researcher/photographer, had gone out on a weekend with his family and reported a fantastic meal in one of the larger restaurants, so we decided to drive out there again and see what was what.

Our path led us to Nha Hang Minh Vuong, in Hall 2, right at the end, a largish place with a stage and screen for weekend karaoke, and a far more detailed menu than the place we’d first gone to. Ah, but navigating it was the big problem.

The menu was mostly in Vietnamese, with curt German translations underneath what must have been more descriptive entries in the original. There were also several pages of dishes listed with no prices — grilled eel, in particular, looked nice, because I remember there were grills out behind the restaurant last time we were there. It seemed that an excellent cross-section of Vietnamese cuisine was at least being offered, albeit under what conditions was hard to say.

Time was short, though, so I settled for a bowl of beef-and-vegetable phô (Pho ap Chao Nuoc) after something listed as “special rice dish” proved unavailable (at least that day, or so said the waitress), and K, to his credit, ordered “rice noodles with soup,” Banh Cuon Nhung. We also ordered some spring rolls (Nem Ran) as an appetizer, although they came with the rest. The phô was, unlike any I’ve had here, aromatic with star anise, and loaded with beef shin and diced vegetables. I selected two small slices of fresh red chile from a little dish on the table, and they proved sufficient to up the fire content to a good level without interfering with the flavor of the soup.

K’s noodles, though, rocked the house. They’re not noodles in the pasta sense, but, rather, thickish sheets of steamed noodle dough with little black bits (not sure what they are, but they may be tree ear mushrooms) in them. The accompanying soup had rice noodles, fish balls, and some sort of fish sausage. Both the phô and the soup with the banh cuon had a nice complement of herbs, mostly coriander, and both, I’d better warn you, were loaded with MSG.  We later saw stacks of banh cuon for sale in one of the grocery stores, ready to take home.

The spring rolls were fried, but oh, no complaints there. Filled with a generous portion of savory ground pork and some rice vermicelli, they were served with lettuce to wrap them in (so your hands don’t get greasy) and with a squirt of Sriracha hot sauce, they were ready to be inhaled.

The Vietnamese iced coffee you can see in the picture was the best I’ve had in town, with some spices added to the coffee (which must be why the waitress couldn’t believe I wanted it), and a good layer of condensed milk.

The guy at the next table got another dish I want to try next time: small cubes of pork with some sort of coating, lettuce to hold them with, and a panoply of condiments. I suspect there are other discoveries lurking beneath bland German titles on Nha Hang Minh Vuong’s menu, and I’d also like to know when all that stuff on the unpriced pages is available.

Prices were quite reasonable: each of our dishes, including the spring rolls, was €6. The iced coffee was €3.

But you know what? After we’d had this great meal, we found another place that looked worth trying. I suspect the Dong Xuan Center will see us again soon. And if any Vietnamese-speaker out there wants to volunteer for lunch duty, we’d really, really appreciate it…

Nha Hang Minh Vuong is in Hall 2 of the Dong Xuan Center, Herzbergstr. 128-139. Telephone is 20 29 14 30. Tram M8, M 21.

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