Indochine is a French-Vietnamese fusion restaurant nestled in the downtown NYU area, near Astor Place. While its exterior is quite simple, almost hidden, the interior is lovely, utilizing exotic-meets-tropical design elements such as Japanese box lights, palm trees painted onto the walls and a sleek tiled floor. It is dark, lit with candles and quite romantic.
The Restaurant Week menu was seriously appetizing, with plenty of choices for appetizers, a main dish, side and dessert. It was tough for me to choose which appetizer, but finally picked fried spring roll for myself. The spring rolls came with chicken, vegetables and glass vermicelli, with plenty of lettuce, carrots and pickled vegetable on the side. Spring rolls were very tasty, fried to perfection and full of flavor. I also got to try the steamed Vietnamese ravioli (looked more like a Vietnamese summer roll with the see-through wrap) which had chicken, shrimp, bean sprouts, shiitake mushrooms, ricotta cheese which gave it an interesting flavor, but was still quite good.
As for the main dish, I choose the marinated hunger steak with daikon and taro shoestring fries, along with a side of sticky rice. I always get my steak well done, and will defy anyone who has a problem with that! The steak came already cut in bite-sized pieces, neatly atop the poached daikon with the taro fries sprinkled on top. The steak was delicious, little bursts of juicy tender flavor and the fries were crispy delights. The daikon underneath was fresh and light.
As for the side dish, I’ve always been a fan of sticky rice and this one was filled with yummy extras: Dried baby shrimp, shiitakes, and Vietnamese sausage. I would’ve enjoyed a little more sausage, but overall quite good.
There were only 2 choices for dessert, and none of them were chocolate so I wasn’t as excited about this course. I picked lemon tart, over the pineapple and raspberry sorbet. It was decent, very lemony and tart with a side of what looked like creme fraiche.
It was a lovely meal, filled with fun conversation and much laughter.
Dress, Dine & Sparkle 