Va Sua

As noted in viewtopic.php?p=444408#p444408
"Va Sua is a French Vietnamese place opening in the space that formerly housed Erwin "

We went on Sunday, and it was pretty quiet (though that was during the Bulls game). They made sure we knew it was still BYO before we sat down, which was considerate. They had lovely wine service, with nice glasses and the man who opened our wine was very good. A different man was our server, he seemed less confident and didn't seem to know the ingredients well. It seemed like he was working off a script to try to push certain menu items.

We had the shrimp/pork belly spring roll and the veggie tempura spring rolls. Although they are more or less the same ingredients (transparent wrapper with cucumber, Vietnamese noodles, carrots, mint, bean sprouts, peanut dipping sauce), they are set up differently and included the highlighted ingredients. The shrimp/pork belly were larger and cut into a larger size, the veggie was cut into bite sized bits with basil sprouts and shredded fried wonton skins on top. We also had oysters three ways, which were ok, but there were a lot of flavors going on on each oyster, and it was hard to eat. The oysters were VERY adhered to the shell, and the process of removing them from the shell removed most of the toppings (and perhaps I removed them too vigorously, but in my case also added sharp bits of shell). They were sitting on piles of wet salt to keep them upright, and one of mine ended up with a lot of that salt inside the shell. Our last course we had two of the sashimi dishes, white tuna (escolar) and hamachi. They were both tasty, but again hard to eat - the hamachi was sitting on beet slices that did not want to come up off the plate. Everything was sweet, and there wasn't a lot of acidity or funk (from fish sauce or other) to balance it out. I thought a lot of the toppings to the raw fish drowned out the flavor, so it didn't really matter what fish we were eating.

My mom had the asparagus soup, which she found very tasty and very sweet - our server didn't say it was sweet, though we heard another server tell another table that it was sweet later on in the evening - and the lobster salad, which was difficult to eat. It was a martini glass full of lobster salad standing on a plate of spring mix. Maybe you were supposed to dump the lobster on the greens? Anyway, the first thing that happened was that my mom went to eat the lobster, the martini glass slipped on the plate, and the whole thing dumped out onto the table.

It was pretty inside, very nicely redecorated, though I'm not sure what advantage the open kitchen gives, since we didn't see anyone cooking in the visible area. It seemed too elegant a space for an open kitchen. And having a TV in the front room seemed rather odd, though maybe they are intending the front area to be more casual.

Va Sua
2925 N. Halsted St.
Chicago IL
(773) 360-8816
http://vusuarestaurant.com/

Any more recent reports on Vu Sua? I have a reservation for tonight, but after reading Sula's review am tempted to cancel.

I have to agree with Sula's review. I've eaten dinner at the place twice. Both times have left me disappointed. I've tried maybe 7 or 8 dishes and the pho was the only dish I would consider getting again...if I had to go. Sauces tend to be sweet, and overwhelming.

Thanks for letting me know. As it turned out, we called an audible and went in a completely different direction --- decided to try 4 Suyos and were so glad we did. Warm welcome from a lovely family, comforting and flavorful food. Much better choice for a laid back Friday night, i think.