Quán Kiên Giang Vietnamese Cuisine

In most places, you order a whole fish and it slumbers on the plate, maybe in a bath of citrus, scallions, spices, peppers and some fermented fluid to race it up. At Quán Kiên Giang, the whole (fried) fish (our server didn't know how to translate the species into English) is upright, resting on its belly, flaunting its array of vicious spiny fins. The meat is pulled off the sides, and bunched up near the fish's belly--like a pair of trousers rumpled around the ankles--leaving the exposed needle-like rib bones, adding to its menacing demeanor. Meat is moist and tasty though, even if those scales looked like saw teeth that could reduce the rice paper binding on the deliciously obese shrimp and pork spring rolls to hair-like shreds in a splintered second. But that's Quán Kiên Giang. It's a secret space loaded with compelling surprises and gripping mysteries. Hearty hot pots, rancorously spicy soups littered with pert vegetables, fondues loaded with bright green foliage, and hot pans for sizzling beef slices and seafood-all fresh and delicious. Plus there's a special marathon meal called "7 courses of beef" designed to load you up so that you have to be hauled out like a whole fish on a plate.