Mỹ Linh Birthday Dinner

Birthdays for me are a serious business. I’ve been known to start celebrating my birthday a couple weeks in advance and continue the festivities days afterward. That’s just how I roll. You may have seen my other posts on the wine and cheese party and birthday brunch, but there’s still more to come. For my family birthday celebration, we headed out to Mỹ Linh in Albany, New York, for what has become the traditional spot for my birthday dinner with my parents. My younger sister, Tara, was able to join us this year as well.

You know you’re in a good place when the manager hugs you when you walk in the door. I’ve been going to Mỹ Linh since I was a kid, and it’s definitely a place where I feel comfortable and welcome.

We started off the meal with Mỹ Linh martinis and some appetizers. The martinis consist of Bombay Sapphire gin and salted lime juice with garnishes of salted lime rind and lemongrass. It’s one of my favorite cocktails, and I’ve only seen it at Mỹ Linh. These drinks have a very distinctive, clean taste that enhances the flavors of the cuisine without being overpowering.

For appetizers we ordered Chã Giò, Bò Tai Chánh, and Sướn Ram. Chã Giò are lightly fried rolls filled with minced pork, shrimp, and vegetables. They are served with lettuce, mint, and cucumber. Traditionally you take the rolls and wrap them up in the lettuce, mint, and cucumber before dipping them into nuoc mam sauce. I love eating this style of fried rolls because the vegetables add a nice, fresh element to the dish. You get the crispy satisfying aspect of the fried roll juxtaposed with the cleanness of the vegetables—a perfectly balanced appetizer.

Bò Tai Chánh is a Vietnamese style beef carpaccio with lime juice that is topped with red onions, basil, and chopped peanuts. I only had beef carpaccio once before (at ALTA in New York City), and I was interested in trying a different style. The Vietnamese version was super limey, which I really liked, and the toppings added some interesting flavors as well.

The Sướn Ram are another one of my favorite Mỹ Linh appetizers. It consists of small bite size bits of pork rib simmered in a sweet, caramelized nuoc mam sauce and is finished with scallions. Do I even need to say more? I love pork, I love ribs, I love nuoc mam, and I love scallions. They are pretty amazing.

For entrees I opted for my absolute favorite Mỹ Linh dish—Vịt Rút Xương. This dish is half of a boneless duck marinated with lemongrass, garlic, and wine. The duck is pan fried until crispy and served with spicy nuoc mam, perfumed rice, and broccoli. Although I’ve tried many other Mỹ Linh entrees, I just always come back to the duck! It’s an amazing balance of flavors and the crispiness is simply heavenly. A lot of people find duck too fatty, but I think it’s fantastic, and since I don’t have it very often it’s hard to resist it at Mỹ Linh since they always cook it up perfectly. 

Vịt Rút Xương

My mom ordered the Cá Nứớng, which is grilled salmon, topped with ginger nuoc mam and served with perfumed rice and vegetables. Tara and my dad ordered the Bánh Tầm Ðồ Biển, which consists of shrimp and scallops cooked in a light coconut milk blended with nuoc mam sauce and served over large vermicelli. I took a couple of bites and can say that both these dishes were great…but the Vịt Rút Xương is still my favorite.

Cá Nứớng

Bánh Tầm Ðồ Biển

All in all it was a fantastic dinner shared in the company of wonderful people. And my birthday celebrations still weren’t over…

*special thanks to my mom for taking photos on her Iphone for me since the batteries died in my camera!

Mỹ Linh

The other night I went out for a meal at one of my favorite restaurants in Albany—Mỹ Linh. It is an excellent Vietnamese restaurant with a fascinating history. The family that runs Mỹ Linh escaped from Vietnam during the Vietnam War and came to Albany in 1979. After years of saving they first opened Mỹ Linh in 1993 and still manage the restaurant.

On the night of my most recent visit I went for two of my favorite dishes: Chã Giò (fried rolls) for the appetizer and Vit Rút Xu’o’ng (crispy duck) for the entrée. We also selected an item from their new teaser plate menu—Su’o ’n Ram, which are bite-size pork ribs that are simmered in a sweet, caramelized nuoc mam sauce and finished with scallions. The pork was nice and tender, and the sauce was slightly sweet but not cloying.

Chã Giò are definitely my favorite appetizer at Mỹ Linh. The rolls are lightly fried to crisp and are stuffed with a succulent filling of minced pork, shrimp, and vegetables. The rolls are accompanied by lettuce, cucumber, carrot, and mint. You take each roll and wrap it in the lettuce and other vegetables and then dip it all in a nuoc mam sauce. The rolls are crispy and warm and the vegetables are cool and refreshing—together they create the perfect appetizer for a Vietnamese meal.

Many of the dishes are served with nuoc mam sauce. The restaurant’s Web sites describes nuoc mam as “a clear piquant sauce” and says “it is almost broth-like in its intriguing delicacy.” This sauce “does not shout at you. Rather, it speaks softly of gentle breezes and moonlit nights.” Poetry in a sauce—delicious! The Web site also explains that nuoc mam is to Vietnam as soy sauce is to China or Japan. I’m not sure exactly how Mỹ Linh creates this delightful sauce, but nuoc mam usually contains lime juice, fish sauce, red pepper flakes, sugar, rice vinegar, and garlic. The resulting sauce is light and subtle yet incredibly flavorful. You can even buy Mỹ Linh’s signature sauces on their Web site.

To accompany the tasty dishes I ordered a Mỹ Linh Martini. This drink is a concoction of Bombay Sapphire gin and salted lime juice with garnishes of salted lime rind and lemongrass. Usually this drink perfectly complements the flavors of Vietnamese food, but something went horribly wrong with the drink on this particular night. The culprit: too much salted lime juice. All I could taste was salt—it was as though the bartender had filled the glass with ocean water rather than gin. The waiter was kind enough to replace the drink with a new one, but he didn’t seem to grasp the idea that a subtle balance could be reached between no salted lime juice and too much, so I just ordered the martini minus the salted lime juice. I still highly recommend this beverage as I’ve had it before with no issues, but from now on I think I’ll ask them to go easy on the salted lime juice just to be safe.

I first went to Mỹ Linh when I was a kid, and that was when I discovered that I loved duck. I’ve had various excellent meals at Mỹ Linh, but by far my favorite is Vit Rút Xu’o’ng, which is half of a boneless duck that is marinated with lemongrass, garlic, and wine. The duck is pan fried until it is nice and crispy and served with a spicy nuoc mam sauce, perfumed rice, and broccoli. Because of the high-fat content of duck, I always believe it is best when chefs leave the skin and let is get extra crispy—Mỹ Linh always does it right.

My boyfriend got Bò Bõn Món, a dish of four different styles of beef. These four styles are beef wrapped around sugarcane and grilled, beef seasoned with lemongrass and served with green peppers, beef marinated with plum sauce and red pepper, and New York strip steak marinated with garlic and grilled with black pepper. These variations on beef were served with a spicy dipping sauce. My boyfriend enjoyed all the styles except the beef with sugarcane. I've had this dish before and think it's an excellent choice for a red-meat lover.

I highly recommend Mỹ Linh to anyone who loves food. The flavors of the cuisine are always light, delicate, and flavorful—never heavy or greasy. If you’ve never had Vietnamese food, this restaurant is definitely the place to try it for the first time. You can check out the Web site and menu here:

http://www.mylinhrestaurant.com/