We decided to try to the fine dining Vietnamese space in Falls Church that has been getting raves and no way we will head back to NUE very fast as the prices are really sky high.
It was very difficult to find the place to begin with as the only outside sign is a large "N."
Once inside the setting is spacious and cozy with beautiful wall and ceiling paintings and lots of fake hanging plants. We were escorted to a back room and placed in between two tables despite the fact that the entire other side of the room was empty; very odd, but we were fine.
Our server explained the menu which had very limited descriptions, so we had plenty of questions. We ordered a bottle of red as the cocktails looked small and were pricey too(all over $16). The wines started close to $70 and up, so we went basic with a Tesselae Grenache Syrah Mourvèdre($63) blend which was nice from Cotes de Roussillon. Starters arrived and my Seafood Chia Gio was huge and fantastic. our server said they were like spring rolls with shrimp, crab, pork, taro and carrots and these were the fried version and came with a spicy sauce as well as tons of lettuce wraps of different kinds and an assortment of herbs (basil, mint, cilantro, etc) to adorn each wrap/roll. It was fun indeed and I was very full afterwards. At $16 this is the best deal on the menu. Will has the Chili Oil Wontons with shrimp & pork which were nice, but won no prize.
For his main, Will chose the veggie Coconut Curry Risotto and added the Hokkaido diver scallops ($19 for THREE!!) which was a huge and quite rich portion. My dish was even larger and at the $38 the Bo Kho Pappardelle is too rich and too big for one person. It is a large amount of pasta with a rich braised short rib topping and ragu. Somehow it ddid not seem Vietnamese. Needless to say, we took 1/2 of each portion home for the next day!
We really wanted to try a dessert, but we were so full we asked which was the lightest. The Tropical Che is really nothing exciting: a combination of lychee, mango, pineapple and sago with some sorbet. Refreshing yes, but we just felt so full.
We really wanted to try a dessert, but we were so full we asked which was the lightest. The Tropical Che is really nothing exciting: a combination of lychee, mango, pineapple and sago with some sorbet. Refreshing yes, but we just felt so full.
Many folks have asked us about Nue and while it is very elegant and very nice, we were shocked at the prices for the who crispy fluke ($67 for two people, $87 for four) and the duck to serve four was somewhere around $160!! This is not Falls Church pricing.
