San Francisco’s Tenderloin has long been a key neighborhood for Vietnamese food, its western blocks dubbed Little Saigon. Head out to the entire half of the city that includes the Richmond, Sunset and Parkside districts and you have an array of Vietnamese restaurants, banh mi shops, pho houses and the like.
But there’s nothing quite like new Bodega, from its sleek, modern diner decor to cocktails with Vietnamese food — a combo long pioneered by Charles Phan at Slanted Door but still rare in Vietnamese restaurants nationally. I’ve been dining at Slanted Door and combing the endless Vietnamese restaurants and shops of SF, plus densely Vietnamese San Jose and around the Bay Area, the entire 21 years I’ve lived here. I did the same in over a 3-month stint here working with homeless in the Tenderloin and Haight-Ashbury in 1998.
Then I spent a life-changing month across Vietnam way back in 1999 as a girl. From Hanoi to Danang, south to Saigon, I roamed its cities and lush, green rice paddies, forever haunted by a still struggling, difficult country, as I saw pre-tourist era, when it was still quite untouched — even pre-McDonald’s (not that adding McD’s is a win, but just to illustrate its minimal “outsiders” days).
Returning post-Vietnam in more of my SoCal years, I formed relationships with Vietnamese immigrants in the dense community of Westminster in Orange County (a town over 40% Vietnamese). I’ve also delved into the Vietnamese food and communities of Chicago, New Orleans, Houston and my birth state of Oklahoma, not to mention the much smaller but still present communities in Berlin, Canada and beyond. But I was weaned on the biggest communities in California. Three of the top five — including the top two — biggest Vietnamese populations in the U.S. are in CA (LA/OC, San Jose, San Francisco respectively), the other two in Houston and Dallas.
In CA, this is not just recently but for decades, particularly since the fall of Saigon — April 30, 1975 — when a huge influx of refugees came post-Vietnam War to the U.S. It has been an honor to be weaned on real Vietnamese food and communities both before and after my month in Vietnam. And especially to dig deep around the Bay Area, home to two of the nation’s biggest populations in cities roughly 45 minutes from each other (SF and SJ). When a place with a different feel from the hundreds of beloved traditional Vietnamese spots comes along (like forward-thinking Lily on Clement, the old world French Vietnamese elegance of decades’ old Le Colonial, or roasted crab and garlic noodle classics like Thanh Long, PPQ and Crustacean), you take notice.
Enter Bodega, a “something different” Vietnamese spot. Matt Ho’s family (father and uncles) opened Bodega Bistro, which, after 14 years, shut down in 2017. Thankfully, Ho had dreams of reopening the restaurant, having worked there for years and at the time of Bodega Bistro’s closure, he was also helping to open Nobu Palo Alto, where he went on to take on a managerial role.
A popular Bodega pop-up in December 2019 led to planning for more… then pandemic hit. Ho and his uncle sold Bodega meal kits and a la carte dishes out of Rooster and Rice in the Castro, moving into this full time after Matt was furloughed from Nobu. Eventually, as they sought a location, 138 Mason Street in the Tenderloin became available.
June 10, 2022, was opening day as Ho’s parents and uncle are back in the kitchen alongside business partners Eugene Kim and Adrienne Fornier on the front of house side. Visiting on a weekday for lunch, as they’re (happily) open for lunch and dinner (and there are extensive takeout menus), I was delighted with the wood paneled walls, blue back wall and tan banquettes, the touches of gold and the gorgeous wood floors. Utilizing the bones already already, it feels like a chic, modern, downtown diner with cool, understated elegance. There is no Vietnamese restaurant that looks or feels like it.
Then the food rolls out. Think Vietnamese and Bodega Bistro classics like Hoi An chicken rice, Bodega beef pho (beef bone broth, meatballs, brisket, filet) and filet mignon shaking beef with cubes of maggi butter-seasoned potatoes. Their garlic noodles are light and springy Kim Hong egg noodles tossed with Chinese celery and leeks in chicken broth. While I like mine uber-garlicky, these are more subtle, breezy yet savory.
My favorite dish on this initial visit may be bánh cuốn, a fresh rice roll, wrapped around ground pork and wood ear mushrooms, dusted in crispy shallots with a killer house nuoc mam fish sauce. Meaty, umami goodness meets silky rice sheets, brightened by that sauce in one damn delicious dish — and despite our hundreds of Vietnamese restaurants, its a less common offering.
But a hefty soup-like bowl of bun rieu gave bánh cuốn the proverbial “run for its money.” A tomato-y broth over vermicelli noodles is doused in shreds of Dungeness crab, tofu and egg, tasting like a Vietnamese sister to SF-originated cioppino. I can imagine on a foggy day this would deeply comfort.
Another Hanoi speciality, bun cha, is a Bodega signature, its meatball-esque heritage pork belly “patties” aromatic with lemongrass and fish sauce. A dinner offering is cha ca, whole, deboned branzino fish, dotted with turmeric, dill, galangal root and Vietnamese herbs (mint, cilantro, etc.). Bo tai chanh has long been one of my favorite Vietnamese dishes, essentially a raw beef salad with beef carpaccio vibes. The paper thin mound of beef dissolves cool and meaty with Maui onions, fried shallots, Thai basil and citrus nuoc mam fish sauce.
Asian-inspired cocktails feature ingredients like lemongrass and rau ram (Vietnamese coriander), with non-alcoholic options including sugar cane calamansi juice. While the cocktails may not be the most intricate in one of the world’s three most pioneering cocktail cities, they are balanced and delightful with the food. Origami did the trick with more than one dish, a mix of Mezcal Union, Aperol, Amaro Nonino and a house serrano shrub bringing subtle vinegar and vegetal green pepper brightness. Ha Long Way From Home is a simple cocktail — Cazadores Tequila, yuzu and rau ram — but a straightforward, citrusy tequila drink with an herbaceous whisper.
An ideal dessert, One Night In Saigon is the Vietnamese coffee cocktail, amped up by Hennessy Cognac and Frangelico Fernet menthe/mint foam on top, but not too sweet. As a chronic insomniac, I can’t drink any caffeine at night, but that makes this all the more fun with lunch. You might as well also have an actual dessert of shamrock green pandan mochi cake topped with creamy coconut gelato from Marco Polo Italian Ice Cream, a longtime Asian ice cream shop classic in SF’s Parkside district.
Bodega is absolutely “real deal” Vietnamese food, but feels like modern day America with a classic touch that could be at home in NYC as it is here. From cocktails to soothing woods, tans and blues, this family-run SF classic reborn is a refreshingly different and all-day environment from which to enjoy Vietnamese food made with soul. It’s good to have you back, Ho family.
// 138 Mason Street, http://bodegarestaurants.com
