GOURMET MAGAZINE
November, 1997

SPECIALITES DE LA MAISON
CALIFORNIA

By Caroline Bates

THE SLANTED DOOR

"In San Francisco there are fifty or sixty dishes on the typical Vietnamese menu. No kitchen could cook them all equally well," Charles Phan observed. "Why not write a short menu, like Chez Panisse and Zuni do, and change it frequently using fresh, top-notch ingredients?" Which is just what Phan and his family decided to do at The Slanted Door, in the Mission District, elevating Vietnamese cooking to a level it so richly deserves. After two years, the restaurant is still one of the most sought-after reservations in town. It may also be the best Vietnamese restaurant in the country.

It isn't simply a commitment to foods in their season that transforms all the Vietnamese favorites we thought we knew. It's a passion for cooking that is rarer in restaurant kitchens than you may think. A transcendent soup of asparagus and crab meat, its rich chicken broth just barely cornstarch-thickened, delivers freshness and intensity in every spoonful (and, you can be sure, no MSG-induced migraines). Crunchy caramelized shrimp, which could be cloying, are all fire and spice, glistening with a glaze of Chinese brown-sugar candy lashed with fish sauce. Phan, the principal chef and creative force, worked hard to perfect the beef broth for pho, the famous Vietnamese rice-stick noodle soup, preparing, as he says, "a very careful stock with roasted ginger and onions." But every one of the twenty or so dishes on The Slanted Door's changing menu reveals painstaking attention to detail and quality. Many draw on the homestyle recipes of Phan's mother and on Vietnamese street fare.

But the surprises aren't confined to the kitchen. The wine list, as astonishing for its intelligent adventurousness as for its low prices, uncovers little-seen French reds as well as German, Austrian, and French Rieslings, whose floral and fruity qualities match well with the spicier dishes. The waitstaff is hip and sharp. And, physically, the restaurant has traveled far from the travel-postered storefront or, so dear to the French, the retro-colonial decor. Phan, who studied architecture and design at the University of California at Berkeley, converted a loftlike space into an exciting, edgy urban stetting with an open kitchen, walls painted celadon green, handsome multi-colored wooden chairs, and contemporary Asian-influenced artwork. Dining upstairs one evening, I couldn't take my eyes off the powerful scenes of present-day Vietnam and its vibrant people captured by Michael McDonald's sensitive camera. With The Slanted Door, the Phans-Chinese Vietnamese who fled their home in Vietnam's central highlands after the fall of Saigon-are altering many perceptions of what the country is and is not.

Don't miss the exceptional banh zeo chay-a crisp rice-flour crepe enclosing tofu and shiitake among its vegetable treasures. Common to both Thailand and Vietnam, a salad of green papaya and carrot in ever-so-fine slivers is electrifying and quite simply the best I've tasted. Vegetarians, in fact, find Nirvana here, with soft spring rolls dipped in a fiery miso-peanut sauce, the market pick of vegetables awash in curry sauce, and spicy coconut-sauced eggplant and onions that melt in the mouth.

Others won't want to pass up the delicate sea bass steamed with lily buds, shiitake, and cellophane noodles or the assertive stir-fried fresh squid with pickled mustard greens. You will also find an excellent lemongrass-scented rack of lamb as well as "shaking beef" (wok-fried filet mignon and garlic with a salt-and-pepper sauce cut by line). And who would look for a sleeper in a chili-laced stir-fry of chicken, pineapple, cucumber, and cashews, so perfectly balanced between heat and fruit? Or imagine the goodness of succulent nuggets of chicken simmered in a deep, gingery caramel essence?

Dessert brings the best of two worlds-Justine Kelley's strawberry-rhubarb pie and blue plum tart (Chez Panisse and Zuni couldn't bake any better) and luscious ice creams flavored with jackfruit, green tea, lichee and coconut. All the sweeter when savored with premium Chinese teas in iron pots.