Nam Phoung II Vietnamese Restaurant (Buford Highway Foodie Frenzy #3)

 

Audra and I are having a blast with our new “public service” endeavor Ha! Hopefully y’all are gaining as much from our blog as is my bathroom scale! That is my true meter of success.

For week 3, we decided to think a bit outside the box. Hmmm…what is better than a foodie frenzy, but a foodie frenzy with FriendZ!!!

We have both been thrilled by the number of people who have volunteered to be guinea pigs with us, so the thought of trying to pick “First Friendz” was tough. After much back and forth, we think we came up with a great first pick!

Drum roll please…our first Foodie Frenzy Friend is Dunwoody’s own PC hero, Adam Freedman and his adorable wife, Liz.

Because we wanted the Freedmans to know that we were serious food professionals, we arranged for a personal pick-up at their Meadowlake home and inducted Adam with his own Foodie Frenzy guest theme song that we ceremoniously cranked up when they got in the car. The tone for our gregarious outing was set!

The cuisine du jour was Vietnamese and the restaurant that kept hitting my radar was Nam Phuong II …..so it became Tuesday’s lunch destination.

We walked into a nice, large, clean dining room (waterfall included) that was the most Americanized BH restaurant visited to date. It is literally in the direct flight path for PDK, so it was fun watching planes come in for landing. The staff members were all friendly and there were no language barriers. Upon request, our waiter made suggestions of authentic Vietnamese dishes, as well as, popular favorites.

This restaurant does not have a liquor license, but has a vast array of non-alcoholic fun drinks to try. We started out with the following:

• Chanh muoi (Audra)-salted lemonade-$3.50 (yellow in photo)
• Tra Thai tran chau-thai tea  with tapioca (Adam)- $3.50 (caramel colored in photo)
• Nuoc Dua (Liz)-coconut drink -$3.50 (white in photo)
• Rau ma dau xanh (Patty)-pennywort w/ mung beans-$3.50 (green in photo) (which Liz later looked up to find out that pennywort is an herb used to help with menstrual issues-ha!)

For the meal, the strategy we agreed upon was to order a potpourri of items and then tackle them as a group.

We started with Bo bia – rice paper, jicama, eggs, Asian sausage and salted shrimp served with both a peanut and fish sauce. Yum, yum, we all agreed. ($3.50)

Next was Banh Hoi with BBQ shrimp– ($9.95)-It is a make your own Vietnamese roll with delicious, fresh veggies, herbs and a protein of choice. Check out  Audra’s video to see our waitress assembling and describing the dish. This was also very good and a fun experience to attempt to assemble on our own.

Liz ordered Bun Ga nuong, Bun Vermicelli with chicken that was good (plain), and a safe non-exotic choice ($6.95)

Adam ventured into Ca ri de-Goat curry stew with vermicelli ($9.95)- Audra and Liz were not interested in trying this dish but Adam and I very much enjoyed the flavor but will caution everyone that goat is served, bone in, so be ready for that.

I ordered Banh xeo-Vietnamese crepe w/shrimp and pork ($7.95)- It was good, but the fried crepe overpowered the flavor of the contents in our opinion.

The overwhelming favorite was Audra’s choice of Com Chien Bo Luc Lac or Shaking Beef ($10.95) It was a generous portion of chopped beef with onion served sizzling with fried rice on the side. It tasted like filet mignon to me, but can’t say for sure. The dipping sauce was a thick-ish blend of salt, pepper and lime juice. It was a perfect complement to this dish. We nicknamed this sauce, “Vietnamese salt lick”.

 

Overall, it was a very enjoyable dining experience. We all agreed that we would give it a solid 3 RATING. We enjoyed the freshness of all the ingredients, but the flavors were milder than we wanted.

 There are plenty of dishes to try out at Nam Phuong, but be sure not to miss the shaking beef. On my next visit, I would love to try the chicken wings (which had rave reviews from John Kessler) and some of the Pho noodle soups.

Thanks so much to Adam and Liz for joining us on our journey and for all the laughs!

Should you have computer needs requiring assistance, Adam Freedman of Dunwoody PC is great! Audra and I (as well as numerous Aha! subscribers) have worked with Adam on many occasions and give him a big thumbs up! When you give him a call, make sure you ask about his theme song! It will be even funnier coming from him! Better yet, face-time him and watch him blush!

Nam Phuong II
4051 Buford Hwy NE
Atlanta, GA 30345
404.633-0776
Current Health Rating:  86

Salud!

Patty

Foodie Frenzy Week 1 (El Rey del Taco)
Foodie Frenzy Week 2 (Han IL Kwan)

Disclaimer:  This is not a paid advertisement.   The owners of  Nam Phoung have no idea that we are even writing this article.  They saw us taking pictures and taking notes but we did not disclose that we were writing an article.   Also, Adam Freedman was treated to lunch and did not pay for his meal or to be mentioned in this article.  He is our friend and we just think he is great at his job and wanted you to know!