berkeley food #4: saigon express

2045 Shattuck

Today I decided to go up to campus even though the only thing I had to do there was pick up my free laptop (IBM Thinkpad T41) from ITS (this was the purpose of attending the IT orientation yesterday). I’m not exactly sure what I’ll do with the computer, but I’m installing Gentoo Linux right now because I’m curious.

For lunch, we went to a Vietnamese place called “Saigon Express.” It was your standard college noodle house. In its defense, it was very clean, well-lit, and spacious, with curteous staff that spoke pretty good english. All the food was out on display, which is always a good sign. I got a dry vermicelli bowl with chicken, and George got spicy beef phó. Mine was alright, I guess it was pretty much in line with your traditional noodle bowl. As usual in Vietnamese places, the meat was a little sketchy, with plenty of skin and gristle to avoid (or boldly scarf, I guess). I didn’t get remotely full, partly because I got annoyed at the bad meat and partly because there just weren’t that many calories to be had among the bean sprouts and cilantro and whatnot. Maybe I’m just not a phó guy, but I wouldn’t go to this place again.