The Two-faced Vietnamese Restaurant
Every once in awhile I’ll go off my usual home route and take BART to 16th and Mission for a bite to eat. I’ve waxed poetic about Ti Couz before, and it’s usually where I tend to go when I’m in the area (excellent crepes, plus top notch Cafe Au Lait and the to-die-for gelato with a shot of espresso — what’s not to like). However, I also sometimes stop by Sunflower Restaurant, which bills itself as an Authentic Vietnamese Restaurant. I’ve usually eaten at their 16th Street shop, which is a couple doors down from the Roxie. It has a nice and simple open-door setting reminiscent of hole-in-the-wall Asian diners prevalent in Chinatown and the inner Sunset (think King of Thai Noodle in the Richmond).
But I have never dared venture to that OTHER Sunflower restaurant, which is right around the corner on Valencia Street. That’s right, there are TWO Sunflower Authentic Vietnamese Restaurants mere feet away from each other. I’ve just never entered the one on Valencia because it looked much more formal — white table cloths, uniformed wait staff, etc. But today I decided I’ll just go in and find out if it really is the same restaurant.
And by all accounts, it is. The menu is EXACTLY the same as the one on 16th St. But boy, is the setting completely different. Instead of a hole-in-the-wall feel, I got a very restaurant-y feel. Carpeted floor, ambient lighting, picturesque paintings of what I presume to be the pastures of Vietnam, etc. I felt like I was entering some odd twilight zone — why were there two restaurants of the same name, with the same menu, located right around the corner from each other, but with completely different settings? Heck, the prices were the same too.
Once I got over my slight amusement over the whole two-faced restaurant scenario, I went ahead and ordered the pot stickers (yum!) and the combination crispy egg noodles (not as yum, but good anyway). Yeah, the food tastes the same too. I wonder what the reasoning was behind the two-storefront business. I guess they didn’t want to scare away the casual diner crowd, and they wanted to entice the white-table-cloth restaurant crowd at the same time. Interesting strategy, though I bet they’ve experienced confused customers coming in looking for the other restaurant.
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it is not a two faced restaurant, it is the same. You can go from one to the other through the back. It is the same kitchen for both I believe.
Well, I did say it was the same restaurant. I just said it was the same restaurant, with two faces (ie. two storefronts). So, yes, I think it still qualifies as a two-faced restaurant.