Cox Review: Anh Linh

Fresh rolls at Anh Linh (photo by Jeff Kan Lee)

A large neon sign outside Anh Linh, the Vietnamese restaurant on Santa Rosa’s West Third Street that used to be Saigon Cuisine, proclaims “PHO,” Vietnamese for soup. And among all the tasty items on the menu, it is indeed the pho that will capture your fancy.

The soup can be ordered with egg noodles — opaque, thin, spaghetti-like noodles like the kind served with chow mein — or with glassy, translucent rice noodles, whichever you prefer. This particular soup was Pho Ga ($6.50 ***), or chicken soup, and the broth was a lovely, meaty chicken broth with just the right amount of salt. It came to the table steaming hot and begging to be slurped. Within its clear depths were little broccoli florets, green onions and thin slices of chicken breast floating in the liquid. A separate plate held two sprigs of Thai basil, slices of crunchy-fresh and spiritedly spicy jalapeños, and a handful of fresh bean sprouts.

The idea is to add as much jalapeño to the soup as you’re willing to stand, bean sprouts to your satisfaction, and basil to enhance the soup with its cinnamon-like aroma and flavor. The best way to handle the basil is to pull the little leaves off the tough stems, adding the leaves to the soup and setting the stems aside. This bowl was the small size. The large (and large is an understatement) is just $7.50. The small bowl would have been plenty for dinner alone, if there weren’t so much else to try.

Vietnamese food is known for its freshness and intriguing Asian flavors, both of which are on full display with the Fresh Rolls ($5.25 **½). These are three six-inch rolls of translucent rice-noodle wrappers, each containing vermicelli noodles, lettuce, a couple of pieces of grilled pork and four small prawns. They’re cut in half through the middle, effectively giving you six pieces and a small bowl of pureed peanut sauce for dipping. The lackluster peanut sauce holds back the delightful freshness of the rolls, and a typical leaf or two of mint in the rolls is also missing.

The menu has an introduction by His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales, that reads, “I think a garden should delight the eye, warm the heart, and feed the soul.” Perhaps this is the owner’s wish for his cuisine. If so, the pretty presentation of the food whets the appetite, the Sriracha hot chili sauce on each of the 14 tables will warm the mouth if not the heart, and the healthy food will definitely feed the body.

Anh Linh is not an upscale Asian restaurant. It’s a neighborhood place with the look of a lunchroom. The walls are decorated with paintings of pretty, young, Vietnamese women. Music on the sound system runs to accordion and mandolin renditions of standards like “Que Sera Sera” and “Jamaica Farewell.” There is no wine, but bottled beer is available, as well as fresh-made fruit juices and smoothies. And the restaurant offers seniors a 10 percent discount on what is already inexpensive food, which makes it the perfect place for the grandparents to take the kids for dinner when mom and dad want to see a movie.

What food would kids like? There’s a kids’ menu that includes barbecued pork over rice, grilled chicken over rice, chicken noodle soup, and more for $4.50 a serving.

You will not leave Anh Linh hungry. The portions are big. Chicken Chow Mein ($7.95 **½), for instance, is a huge plate of chow mein noodles, broccoli, carrots, cabbage, onions and tender chicken topped with cilantro. It needs some spicy heat, but the Sriracha bottle is always close by.

For vegetarians, there’s a Tofu Stir Fry ($7.50 ***), another big plate, this one of stir-fried tofu squares, green beans, cabbage, broccoli and summer squash (lightly cooked to a crunchy bright green), given a savory sauce and topped with fresh cilantro.

If you’re really hungry, consider ordering the Combination Vermicelli ($9.25 **). Translucent, slender rice noodles are laden with grilled chicken, barbecued pork, grilled beef slices, grilled ground pork roll-ups, and grilled pork meatballs, with lettuce, carrots and cabbage on the side. The chicken was overcooked and the beef tough, but with a little judicious use of the knife and fork to cut up the chicken and beef into small pieces, it was all perfectly edible.

The name of the dish, Grilled Beef with Onion over Rice ($7.50 ***), sounds simple enough, but the dish itself is more complex. Besides a generous helping of 12 spicy-hot grilled beef roll-ups — the meat sliced thin and rolled up like German rouladen — accompanied by a dipping sauce, the mound of white rice on the plate is surrounded by lightly cooked broccoli, carrots, cabbage, cucumber and lettuce, topped with sprigs of fresh cilantro.

Most Asian restaurants give good value, but Anh Linh, named for the owner’s late father-in-law, gives excellent value.

To sum up: Go for the pho, but there’s lots more to know.

Jeff Cox writes a weekly restaurant review column for the Sonoma Living section. You can reach him at jeffcox@sonic.net.