Shaking the Beef

Taking a brief break from the home bar guide to bring you a restaurant recommendation.

You need to eat at Dragonfly.

According to the reviews, it's contemporary Vietnamese cuisine. Sounds about right. Also according to the reviews, it's really good. That sounds about right, too. But I'll go so far as to add that it's really damn good. Good enough that Brandy and I had to inquire about getting a takeout menu (they're printing up new ones, but we did get a lunch menu).

There seem to be a number of people who agree with our assessment as well:

From the friendly diners-about-town at Yelp

From the SF Metroblogs

From the San Francisco Bay Guardian

They were also named in the SFBG's Best of the Bay 2006 as the Best New Vietnamese Ensconcement (text follows):

While day-trippers, tourists, and others among the less well informed and less adventurous are paying through the nose at the Ferry Building for their contemporary Vietnamese food, you could be safely ensconced at Dragonfly, a year-old Inner Sunset restaurant whose stylish urban interpretations of Vietnamese cooking are as good as any in town, at calming prices. The setting (once a dim Chinese seafood place) is modest but crisply appointed; there are elegant white table linens, glossy wood chairs, and a view--not of the bay, alas, but of Muni's N Judah trains squealing through a 90-degree turn on their way to and from the neighborhood's foggiest outlands. So maybe money can buy some things. On the other hand, some of us are afraid of water, to say nothing of day-trippers roaming in packs. Since you rode public transport here, you can get as tipsy as you like at dinner without having to worry about a DUI bust on the way home.

That's right. A thinly-veiled reference to Slanted Door. If you read through the other reviews, you'll find outright comparisons. And they're right; it's just as good.

My (incredibly miniscule) complaints: I like a squeeze more lime on my shaking beef. It's cheaper than Slanted Door, but it's not cheap. You could dine on a budget, but you'd probably miss out on some really great stuff.

Some raves: Dragonfly makes ginger - garlic rice with chicken broth and coconut rice, both of which come out wrapped in banana leaf. Yum. I would be perfectly happy ordering a shaking beef (with an extra lime wedge) and three orders of the ginger - garlic rice (or maybe two of those and one coconut rice for variety).

We also got the steamed sea bass (divine and divinely cooked, almost sous-vide in its wonderfully translucent succulence) and the seafood hot plate (seafood, hot plate, spicy sauce, all-around yumminess).

And as mentioned in the reviews, it is literally in front of an N-Judah stop. Convenient. But for those of you driving in from out of town, there is a small, free parking lot for customers across the street as well. Let that sink in for a second. There's a free parking lot across the street. Anyone who's had to find parking in the Inner Sunset on a weekend knows how truly monumental that is.

I highly recommend Dragonfly. So highly, in fact, that you could very well see me eating there when you go.

How the hell did I not find this place sooner?

420 Judah Street, San Francisco, 94122, 415-661-7755