November 25, 2007
Yay!: Truc Lam
It took me, oh, about 15 years to walk into Truc Lam, the little Vietnamese place at the corner of Gravois and Spring. Man, that was some wasted time.
I'm now only mildly obsessed with the spot, which has a good selection of vegetarian fare and - based on my four, first visits - distinct lack of non-Vietnamese patronage. I dig that.
I don't dig the smoke, which can be heavy. Yesterday, four guys at the long, center table managed to light up about a dozen squares during the course of my meal. Not so enjoyable.
But the wood paneling? Delightful. The hot tea? It'll put pep in your step. The service? Just fine, especially if you speak Vietnamese.
I love Truc Lam: 3737 Gravois, 314-776-1299; open Thursday-Tuesday, 10 a.m.-10 p.m., closed Wednesday.
The first and last time I was at Truc Lam i counted 3 roaches while sitting at the table. One of which was crawling up that wood paneling. After eating I went outside to find my car was broken into and a shattered back window. I hate Truc Lam.
Posted by jc on Mon., Nov 26, 2007 at 1:14 PMI had none of the problems that jc did. I love the food, love the service, and can't get enough of their very free hand with the ginger. Truc Lam rocks.
Posted by Kathy on Mon., Nov 26, 2007 at 1:38 PMi thought cockroaches were part of the flavor? not that i'm into that sort of thing. does this place warrant a visit?
ps - i've noticed my comments are not allowed when i use the blog I write for as my URL, or even anywhere in a comment. why would my URL be blocked, especially conidering the readers we like to send your way :(
Posted by Matthew Hurst on Mon., Nov 26, 2007 at 5:06 PMI ate there once...it was about 2 years ago during christmas....
the people were great, very friendly. the place was nice.
of course they like you more if you speak vietnamese but the waitress i had wasn't even vietnamse and she was extremly friendly.
anyone who wants a good experience should try the place... but if you dont like knew things, stay away...vietnamse food is not for the timid.
oh , btw, "jc" is mot nguoi du mei. tai sao phai noi do ? troi oi toi nghi jc chua lam o nha hang...khi nao co lam, se biet...roach la binh thuong, het nha hang co....
i said: i think jc is a mother fucker...why would he talk about roaches? every freakin restaurant has them, if you know it or not. he must have never worked in a restuarant before.
anyway...like i said before, Truc Lam is a good restuarnt and you should go there if you want to learn about other cultres. unlike chinese restaurants (0r Japanese epsecially) Viet restaurants are very authentic...just ask the owner...well, u've heard enough (and i'm sure JC the Du(dau nang) mei(dau nang luon) {hieu khong?} has had enough....lol for those of you that don't understand my (_) i made fun of JC...uh, dung roi...coui wua...
I've been eating there a few times every year since 2001, and have never seen a roach or had a bad meal.
Posted by Michael Allen on Tue., Nov 27, 2007 at 4:53 PMMan, MF-ing somebody. Whoa. Let's keep it clean here, people.
As for Skewgee's concern, what happens is that I occasionally clean out the prolific amounts of spam in our comments section and probably I inadvertently knocked one of your notes into the banned file. That's happened to other folks. But when going through, literally, hundreds of spam pieces, I will accidentally knock out a valued commenter. Sorry 'bout that.
As for roaches, I once saw them during a birthday meal at one of my favorite U. City spots. I've eaten there many times since and just assume they had a bad turn of luck that evening. I know from working at numerous places over the years that those types of things can regrettably happen. As for the car break-in... yuck.
Posted by thomas on Tue., Nov 27, 2007 at 10:45 PM