This Saturday, when we planned to lunch with our youngest and her soon to be in-laws, they deferred to me for a lunch spot.  I figured that Buford Highway was kind of in the middle and surveyed a couple of places on my lists, making some preliminary choices.  As we were making our plans, my bride suggested that I look at the pictures on line of the restaurants I was considering.

Then, that I look at those pictures through her eyes, not mine.  Most of the places I wanted to try quickly failed the sight test, then I remembered that Nam Phuong had a location on Buford Highway.  In 2013 (has it really been that long?), we dined at Nam Phuong in Norcross a couple of times, really enjoying the meals.  I knew it would pass the “clean” test and we arrived shortly before 1:00 to secure one of the round tables for our party of six.

We started with the bah da vi (three delights) one of the highlights from my first visits (in fact this photo is from one of those visits).

This dish is a seminar is making your own spring rolls.  One of the things that I enjoy most about Asian food is the almost implicit shareability.  The dishes seem designed for communal dining, and with this party of six it presented an opportunity to try a little bit of everyone’s meal.  Jo ordered a chicken and noodle dish, in the foreground, to the right, below, that was like Vietnamese chicken noodle soup, with large pieces of grilled chicken.  It was very good.

The highlight of the table was the shaking beef that I ordered (running a close second was the shaking chicken ordered by the father-in-law to be). These two dishes had a perfect amount of spice.  Shaking beef is a simple dish, based on every recipe I found on-line, but it was perfectly executed.

Not overly spicy,but incredibly flavorful.  I devoured every bite (except for the ones that everyone demanded that I share with them).

I will, honestly, be challenged to ever order anything else there.  The shaking beef is that good.