Original Formula for Modern Vietnamese
FIVE-MONTH-OLD Fuel Restaurant and Lounge is Silicon Valley's latest entry into the modern Vietnamese restaurant concept. You know the kind: restaurants with urban chic dining rooms that play vibey, cool music and serve eclectic cocktails and Vietnamese food that incorporates nontraditional ingredients into dishes dressed up for a crossover clientele, places like Mountain View's Xanh, Tamarine in Palo Alto and Anise Café in San Jose.
Fuel's breezy interior is cool and inviting. A small lounge greets you as you walk through the glass doors. The lounge flows into the dining room, an attractive space that gets its design cues from a series of colorful portraits painted by a Vietnamese artist.
The appetizers and small-plate dishes I tried were some of Fuel's strengths. Goi ca ahi ($10) combines luscious ahi sashimi with precise cuts of tart green papaya and Granny Smith apples with basil, chile sauce and a lively lime vinaigrette into five artfully composed mouthfuls. It's an ideal starter that really revved up my mouth. Canh ga sot me ($7) are some of the best chicken wings I've had in these parts. The meaty nubbins are lacquered with a basil-infused tamarind sauce that's sweet and sour.
Every self-respecting modern Viet place has to have a lineup of rolls, and Fuel offers several good fresh rolls, but skip the fried cha gio tom cua ($8), a crab and shrimp roll. It's heavy with muddy, fried flavors.
I had several good noodle dishes. Mint often plays a supporting role in Vietnamese cuisine as a condiment you tear and sprinkle into noodles and soups, but here it plays a central part in the pho xao ga voi rau thom ($10), spicy chicken mint noodles. While the noodles weren't particularly spicy, the chopped mint mixed with the carrots, bean sprouts and green onions gave the dish a bright, light flavor. Good too was the ga xao xa ot ($10), spicy sliced chicken sautéed with the electric flavor of lemon grass served over jasmine rice. This one delivered the advertised spiciness. I like spicy.
The dessert list, so often a graveyard of the usual suspects (fried banana anyone?) is refreshingly good here. I loved the interplay of salty and sweet in the kem dua ($5), ground-peanut-sprinkled house-made coconut ice cream, and in spite of an off-brown color, the coconut-milk-topped mango crème brûlée was creamy and rich.
While some servers know the menu better than others, the restaurant's friendly waitstaff helps smooth out rough patches, too.
Has the modern Vietnamese restaurant concept been played out?
Two restaurants of the genre—San Jose's Onyx and Saigon 75—recently closed after brief runs. Silicon Valley may have a sufficient number of these restaurants, but I still think they have a lot to offer. No other Silicon Valley "ethnic" cuisine is pushing the boundaries of tradition and taking risks like modern Vietnamese food.
With few exceptions, South Bay Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indian, Ethiopian, Thai and Mexican restaurants are content to keep working the standards of their cuisines. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's exciting when an established cuisine mixes things up and plays with nontraditional ingredients and techniques. For restaurants, the trick is to mix things up in a way that keeps diners digging what's on their plates. Fuel can be a bit clumsy at times, but it still has enough good moves to make me believe it will find its groove.
Stett Holbrook, Food Critic
Metro Silicon Valley, June 11, 2008
Glitzy nightspot with more imagination than money
It's not enough anymore for a Vietnamese restaurant to serve a good traditional menu. In a prodigious burst of do-it-yourself ambition, the young partners created a glitzy nightspot with more imagination than money. They painted the lounge and 110-seat dining room in edgy fuchsia and chartreuse, hanging a massive multi-globe chandelier with a '60s feel in the center of a lounge furnished with wire basket chairs and a bar faced in plastic.
A wall of silver wire mesh curtains off the dining room, where edgy, outsized portraits in improbable colors line the wall above a plywood banquette. Black plastic cantilevered chairs worthy of the Jetsons pull up to a long wooden table.
Laura Nguyen, the original owner, traded in her long list of noodle soups, rice plates and clay pot dishes for a more tightly focused menu. Familiar items such as grilled shrimp salad rolls ($8) and shaken beef ($17) share the menu with new riffs on Vietnamese ingredients, among them crispy ribs glazed in tamarind sauce and garnished with toasted almonds, sesame seeds and shreds of ginger candy ($17).
The restaurant is such a labor of love and the staff so eager to please that you can't help but root for it to succeed. There's promise here in the small portions designed for sharing. Savory ahi sashimi ($10) was attractively plated in four stacks of shredded carrots and daikon with papaya, apple and avocado, all topped with paper-thin ahi and a thatch of fried shallots and toasted pine nuts. The interplay of flavors and textures was pleasing.
Sesame seeds, avocado and mango added interest to the grilled shrimp salad rolls ($8), dramatically presented on a black plate with a calligraphic swath of red chile sauce. The sweet and sour nuoc cham was especially nice.
The simplest offerings were often the best. Shaken beef ($17) - juicy, fork-tender cubes of filet mignon, tossed in a wok with onions and tomatoes, and served with a nest of watercress dressed in scallion oil and lemon juice - was delightful. Low-key ginger heat wafted through the clay pot of caramelized rice cooked with shrimp, chicken and a plethora of vegetables ($15). Bok choy and shiitake mushrooms ($7) made the ideal side dish with crisp vegetables and meaty mushrooms in a light sauce.
There's a lot of promise in this home-grown nightspot with its flashy retro decor and a menu that mixes traditional fare with new dishes prepared with Vietnamese ingredients.
Aleta Watson, Restaurant Reviewer
San Jose Mercury News, May 4, 2008
Fun and Hip place
I've been to Fuel Restaurant and Lounge several times! I love the environment and I especially love the appearance of the restaurant. I think that the place looks great and it truly is a fun and hip place for everyone. They play all different kinds of music making the environment fun and different for everyone to enjoy. Besides having a fun and enjoying atmosphere, the food however is fantastic! I have been eating at Fuel several times and have been satisfied every time. The food is great, the waiter/waitresses know how to give great customer service, the staff members are great also and very friendly and they know how to keep a clientele profile with their customers. Some of my favorite foods there? I would have to say the tiger prawns and garlic noodles, the chicken wings, definitely both the calamari and mango beef salads, and most of all the beef carpaccio. Again, the food is great and I definitely enjoy lounging in the bar area where they also make some of their amazing cocktails. I'll definitely be back this weekend!
C. H., Yelp.com reviewer
Fit for the younger generation
Food was very good - great makeover from the previous "Asia Moon". The decor is much nicer, looks like it is a better fit for the younger generation. The bar area looks very nice. Service was quick and attentive.
Joel C., Yelp.com reviewer
Relaxed, hassle-free
Plain and simple, Fuel is a great place to go. Fuel offers a relaxed, hassle-free environment that the South Bay lacks! I've eaten there on several occasions, and I have never had a negative experience. Their servers were engaging, the food and the environment were delightful.
I've even gone with a large group and they were able to accommodate us without hesitation. The events they host, the drinks they concoct - very creative and captivating. Fuel is a great way to introduce those not familiar with the Vietnamese cuisine to the various dishes the culture has to offer wthout scaring them off. A place worth going to again and again.
Joseph Vu, San Jose Mercury News
Chic with great music
I love the restaurant, the food, the drinks and the staff. The environment is chic with great music. The food is good. I love the raw fish appetizer, the shaken beef, the garlic noodles with king prawns. The flavor and presetantion are beautiful.
Their house drinks are great as well. I love the Vietnamese coffee martini, the Jack Me Up martini, and the Lychee martini.
It is great how the owners actually came up to my table to introduce themselves and ask for comments and opinions. I would say that this restaurant makeover is a miracle.
I would recommend the restaurant to all my friends and clients for a new and fresh experience of Vietnamese food.
Bao Dang, San Jose Mercury News
