Selection of dishes with a difference helps Vietnamese Garden stand out

Most Vietnamese menus in the United States are striking in how similar they are. You got your summer rolls and your spring rolls, your steaming bowls of pho and the ubiquitous combination noodle bowl.

Even though Vietnamese cuisine is wildly diverse and highly regional, its American-menu counterpart is often so uniform you get the impression that somewhere there is a bureau of Vietnamese-restaurant conformity. In Colorado, you have to hunt South Federal Street in Denver to find Vietnamese-food menus that dare to be different.

Or so I thought until I grabbed dinner at Vietnamese Garden.

The menu in this small wood house on the West Side (former home of Coda Café, Las Enchiladas and Sweet Georgia Brown) has all the standards, and when I tried them I felt sure that the place was destined to join the list of closed restaurants that had come before it.

But Vietnamese Garden also has a string of unusual and delicious dishes I had never tried before and quickly grew to love.

The white seaweed soup ($2.75) was the first to catch my eye. A steaming bowl of clear, light broth swimming with chicken, diced scallion and crinkly white fins of seaweed that offer that unmistakable underwater crunch, manages to be soothing and unusual in the same spoonful. It is wonderful on a brisk February evening.

Even better are the potato fritters ($7.75). Owner Dung My Tram shreds carrot and yam, then fries it to make a crunchy sweet potato hash brown. Diners wrap chunks of the hot, sweet, wonderful fritter in cool robes of lettuce and tassels of Thai basil and mint.

"It's nice to have an appetizer that is both deep-fried and a salad," a friend said as we munched.

The dish is an instant favorite. I can't help but think America would be slightly better off if we all first wrapped our biggie fries in salad.

Lemon Grass Chicken ($7.95) was another nice surprise. Though the entree shows up on most Vietnamese menus, it usually boasts a Chinese takeout kind of thick sauce.

Here the entree is different and probably more authentic. The chicken comes with no noticeable sauce but you can sense the blast of fresh lemongrass long before fork reaches mouth. It is intense, astringent, fantastic stuff, best tempered with the light white rice on the side.

Stir-fried eggplant ($7.95), made with long, slender Asian eggplant with tofu in a rich, basily sauce, was also a hit.

With so many good things, I was surprisingly disappointed by the standards I tried.

The broth in the pho, a classic beef and noodle soup ($7.55), lacked the slow, complex notes of cinnamon, star anise, and charred ginger that a good pho packs. The accompanying pile of peppers, herbs and limes was stingy, and worst of all, the thin shavings of raw beef diners traditionally mix into the steaming broth came already cooked in the bowl.

The combination noodle bowl ($9.25) suffered from a similar blandness and stingy greens. There are better noodle bowls to be had for the same price, most notably at Saigon Café.

Still, there is much to like about Vietnamese Garden. The service has been excellent every time. The quiet setting lends itself to conversation (and free tables during the lunch rush).

Prices are good, and, most of all, the unique dishes are enough to make this a regular stop for west-side diners.

VIETNAMESE GARDEN

*** (distinctive)

Address: 3043 W. Pikes Peak Ave.

Hours: 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays; 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Sundays

Contact: 520-9299, vietnamesegarden.net

Entrees: $8-$10

Vegetarian: Lots of choices

Alcohol: Beer and wine

Plastic: Yes