Namnam Cafe

Every time I eat here I attempt to get something different. Pretty sure at this point I have had everything on the menu. Simple, fresh, and flavorful Vietnamese food is the easiest way to sum this place up. Nice people and there is very minimal wait.

NamNam is kind of a hole-in-the-wall, but it's cute and breezy, nicely toeing the line between casual and divey. I see one other reviewer describing it as "fusion" but I'd say the dishes are pretty straight-ahead Vietnamese, perhaps a touch Americanized in that you're not likely to get much in the way of gristle and cartilage and to some degree, spice (and they do ease off the fish sauce a bit). In fact, if I were to create a Vietnamese menu it would look a lot like what they have. The pho didn't come with mint, their bun bo hue was somehow lemongrass-free, and my crepe wasn't loaded with bean sprouts but everything we tried was solid and decidedly Vietnamese. Better still, they had a whole bunch of craft beer choices to appease the middle aged white suburbanites. Hooray!

The only unpleasantness we experienced came from the pungent smell of grape bubble gum that came from the small child at the table next to us. Damn those chemists and their long-lasting flavor!

It's small. And it was freezing inside. But their strip mall, hole in the wall image should not be held against them. Meaning mostly that I expected the menus to be oily-stained paper and the staff to be in jeans and dirty shirts. But its a bit more high end  than that....uniform shirts and laminated menus. (it's still strip mall-y and hole in the wall-y...but it makes the prices easier to swallow...)

I got an order of the Imperial rolls. I liked them better than the Summer roll my friend shared with me (everything seemed to fall to one end of the roll, so you either got a mouthful of nothing but noodles or ALL THE PORK AND SHRIMP...though the pork in the roll....DElicious!).
My friend and I both got the Saigon Noodles with shrimp (I got it on her suggestion). Boy...there was a lot of food on that plate. And it was yummy, with just enough spice for my preferences. (as I ate though, it started to taste a lot like cinnamon...I don't think I was having a stroke....it was strange, not terrible, but unexpected...)
The service was prompt and pleasant.

I'd love to go back some time and try something else with that pork....and maybe have some bubble tea for the first time ever....