Love Those Foreign Accents

"Does this have fennel in it as well?" I asked Suzanne.

"No, it’s a special basil I grow," she said. "A lot of people say that about it!"

"I love it so much, I want to take this home with me," I said to Tom over a spoonful.
"Not me," said Tom. "I want to eat it all right now."

Soon, we were devouring the stir-fried lemon grass and garlic chicken (with steamed rice or rice vermicelli) entrée ($10.95) and the Miss Saigon combination fried rice ($11.95). Best of all was the Vietnamese crepe, an entrée served with lettuce and clear sauce, a Vietnamese staple ($9.95).
Miss Saigon Gourmet advertises itself as purveyors of "Healthy Vietnamese Cuisine: Low Carb, Low Fat, Low Cholesterol." Tom and I have never been so happy to be so good. We were impressed by how flavorful the dishes were without being overloaded with oil. We ate quite a bit without feeling overly stuffed.

For dessert, we tried three fresh, homemade items: a flan, a mung bean shake and an extraordinarily dense banana cake topped with peanuts and drizzled with coconut milk. Just as the appetizers and entrees were flavorful, satisfying and light, the desserts delivered large helpings of pleasure without being cloyingly sweet.

When all of the patrons had been helped, we got Suzanne to sit with us for a while and tell us her extraordinary tale, which includes the murder of her parents as spies, three years in a Filipino refugee camp, the opening of a series of businesses around the United States, and her brief return to Vietnam as a Vietnamese-American entrepreneur.

If someone doesn’t make a major motion picture out of it one day, it will be a terrible waste of a riveting narrative. We just hope it doesn’t happen too soon, because we don’t want to lose our favorite new Vietnamese restaurateur to Hollywood.

I’d like to hurry back to Miss Saigon Gourmet, and while I’m there I will make a point of drinking my way down the menu. I don’t necessarily mean the beer and wine menu. I loved the iced jasmine tea ($1.50), but how had I missed the salted plum lemonade ($3), the Vietnamese coffee ($3.25), the young coconut juice ($3), and the pot of hot artichoke tea ($3)? Clearly, we must become regulars, too.

Miss Saigon Gourmet, 3106 Tamiami Trail N., Naples. (239) 353-0400. Monday– Saturday, 11 a.m.–9 p.m.; and Sunday, noon–7:30 p.m. Credit cards accepted. Handicapped accessible.