Since it's Saturday night, we wanted to try a new Mexican restaurant for dinner tonight, but it was booked. No matter -- we opened up our list to find another casual restaurant in the area. Our selection? DO's Vietnamese Street Food.
A very small image of the interior from DO's website
Matt first found DO's on one of our many walks through the city with Leo. It's located between the new Gerber mall on Tübinger Straße and the main shopping street of Königstraße. Much of the area was closed when we first moved here for construction, but now that it's finished, I feel like we're rediscovering all the new shops and restaurants there, DO's being one of them.
We arrived at the restaurant at a little after 7:30 pm. Actually, it's a bit small to call a restaurant, but the narrow interior is nicely decorated with matching tables and chairs with green and grey cushions, as well as lovely wall art and hanging lanterns. The half-dozen or so tables were only half full, and so we easily slipped into a small table for two.
The menu features a number of small appetizers, salads, three Vietnamese "street food" dishes, and two Vietnamese, Thai, and Chinese entrées. There's no drink menu, but our waiter was happy to recite the short list of beers to me, and I quickly chose the Chang Thai beer.
We decided to start with the fried wonton appetizer made with a chicken and shrimp filling since I love wontons and these promised to be homemade. They came out almost right away, and were a beautiful golden from the fry basket. They were clearly homemade based on the skins, but the consistency did remind me a bit of McDonald's chicken nuggets. Still, the flavor was good and they were a nice bite before our main meal.
For my entrée, I ordered the cơm thịt nướng with chicken under the "street food" section. I've never been to Vietnam, so I can't speak to the authenticity of the dish, but I found the flavor to be good. The platter consisted of grilled chicken on top of a bed of rice and pickled vegetables with slices of tomatoes and cucumbers in a lemongrass sauce, topped with mint, peanuts, and crispy onions. The crispy onions were the same kind that you get in the grocery store (I think), but the lemongrass sauce and pickled vegetables were fresh and tasty.
Matt went for the bánh mì, a Vietnamese sandwich made with meat (in this case pork) with cucumbers, cilantro, carrots, and a kind of chili sauce on a baguette. It's not on the menu, but we'd seen it advertised and the waiter said it was available. I managed one complete picture before Matt devoured it. Again, we really have nothing to compare it to, but the vegetables were fresh and "the cilantro was great" (says Matt).
TThe service was prompt and friendly, the food was simple and fresh, and the restaurant was clean and colorful. Best of all, the two of us ate a filling meal including two mains, an appetizer, and a drink each for just 25€, which is a hard price to beat in Stuttgart. Though I don't know if I'll be a frequent visitor for the Vietnamese food (I prefer Takeshii's at the moment), I liked DO's for its simplicity and for the fact that it offers extremely fresh food in an area that's crowded with greasy kebab shops and chain restaurants. I'm sure that the next time I'm out shopping when the weather gets warm, DO's will be on the top of my list for a quick, fresh meal.
DO's is easy to walk to from the Rotebühlplatz U-bahn up Tübinger Straße in the direction of the Gerber mall. They're open from Monday to Saturday from 11:30 am to 11:00 pm and on Sundays from 1:00 until 10:00 pm. They also do takeaway if you'd prefer to eat at home. Check out more food photos on their website if you need more convincing!