"Saigon Rendezvous" - Vietnamese Lunch in Olympia

Another oh-so-opinionated, narrow-minded restaurant review. :P I swear I do eat at home too - more recipes to come soon!

So, my friend, 'Froggy' and I had lunch today at Saigon Rendezvous, a Vietnamese restaurant (some reviews list it as Korean) a short drive from here, in Olympia, Washington. We'd heard it had a great selection (several pages!) of vegetarian and faux meat menu items, so we were pretty excited.

But sometimes the anticipation doesn't match the hype. I hate to say it, but we were very much disappointed. It's not a bad little place; clean, fast service, fresh veggies, lots of options for veg and omni alike - but I would classify the menu offerings as "generic 1050's-style Chinese", nothing that we saw on the menu even remotely resembled "Vietnamese" or "Korean" options that we've had at other places.

And maybe we ordered the wrong things or the kitchen was having an off day, but aside from a couple items, most of our selections were bland, greasy and overcooked.

All the faux meats were exactly the same; flat, chewy rehydrated TVP product, just covered with different sauces - and the tofu was small mushy flavorless pieces that seemed like they'd been added as an afterthought. Bummer!

If I sound like a disgruntled restaurant reviewer, I'm not trying to, I think you could get a decent meal here; we just didn't hit the culinary jackpot today. Such is life.

But all was not lost.

The company was great, and though it wasn't the best dinner I've ever had, it was edible and it was vegan! That's better than a lot of places I could have gone!

And you gotta love this - the fortune in my cookie made the whole dinner worth while! Sweeeeeet!