Traditional Asian, yet modern

My wife and I began our love affair with Vietnamese food about 15 years ago.

Before we had kids, we ate it once or twice a week. Now we have it about twice a month.

So we were excited when I found out a new Vietnamese restaurant was opening in Omaha.

Saigon Surface, one block south of Farnam Street on 14th Street, began serving customers in May. Owner Tu Nguyen describes the food as modern French Vietnamese cuisine. The French influence comes from France's invasion of Vietnam in the late 1800s, leaving behind foods like baguettes and several kinds of cheeses.

The d�cor at Saigon Surface is extremely modern — sharp angles and muted colors. Layered sections of light green, brown and gray stretch from the entrance to the rear of the restaurant. An interior decorator was hired to design the space. It's a look that might remind you of an upscale New York City restaurant in a loft.

Originally, the name Saigon Surface was supposed to refer to the restaurant's furniture. Nguyen planned to use "Microsoft surface" touch displays as the restaurant's tables.

That technology, which would allow diners to activate a computer with hand gestures or touches, was introduced in 2008. It proved to be too expensive, so instead, each table has an iPad hanging next to it.

This is the third restaurant in Nguyen's family since 1996. Nguyen's mom, Be Lam, still runs Saigon Restaurant near 120th Street and West Center Road. The family closed another location at 38th and Dodge Streets years ago. Nguyen says they selected the 14th Street location for Saigon Surface because they wanted to be a part of downtown development.

Saigon Surface has a full-service bar with wine by the glass and by the bottle. Two of the best-selling drinks — the Ginger Lemonade and Lemongrass Cocktail — came about, according to Nguyen, because they don't want to waste anything. The chefs had so much lemongrass and ginger left over that they started experimenting with both food and drink recipes.

One of the most difficult parts of having an authentic Vietnamese restaurant here is consistently finding traditional ingredients. Nguyen and I discussed several places across Omaha where he finds things like banana leaves, Asian spices and even plantains. I suggested the No Frills at 36th and Q Streets for a great selection of the traditional cooking banana. If he can't find certain items, the chefs improvise, trying to keep the dishes as close to authentic as possible.

I learned most of what I know about Vietnamese food from a co-worker in Albuquerque, who took me to eat pho (pronounced Fa) for the first time in 1998. Pho is a traditional Vietnamese breakfast soup usually eaten with slices of a baguette. It usually contains rare beef, among other ingredients.

In Vietnam, diners use a bowl and a plate to eat it: The plate is for dipping the beef into hot sauce and plum sauce and the bowl is for noodles and broth. When people finished eating in Vietnamese restaurants, they left the remaining broth in a bowl on the table and kids came from outdoors to drink it. When my friend told me that, pho became my favorite Vietnamese dish.

At Saigon Surface, a bowl of pho ($10) comes with rare beef, Thai meatballs and steamed brisket. The prep and cooking take some 24 hours and involves boiling chicken bones, steak bones and oxtail, being sure to keep the broth as clear as possible. The pho is served with fresh cilantro, bean sprouts, sliced jalape�os and basil on the side. Each two-day batch produces enough pho for around 100 bowls.

The pho at Saigon Surface has all the flavors you expect. You can even taste the oxtail that's boiled into the broth. It's not greasy like some I have had. The serving size, however was a little small, both the amount of noodles and meat.

We also tried another Vietnamese staple at Saigon Surface: fresh spring rolls (three for $6). They consist of rice paper around vermicelli noodles, bean sprouts, pork, prawns, cilantro and fresh mint. A very flavorful peanut sauce complete with a few drops of sriracha (hot chile sauce) is served with the spring rolls. When you bite into this appetizer, the first taste that lights up your senses is the mint. It takes a moment to recognize it and then you can't wait for the next bite. The size of the prawns in the rolls will surprise you.

My wife and I never pass up a chance to get calamari whenever we eat out. At Saigon Surface, the squid is marinated in Asian spices and then covered with batter and breadcrumbs for a light, crispy crust. It's served with a homemade sweet and sour sauce that contains pineapple and tomato juices with a dash of hot pepper sauce.

The chefs use so much fresh pineapple that they created a fried rice dish so they wouldn't waste the fruit shell. The folks at Saigon are so proud of the dish that a photo is on the front of their website. The pineapple fried rice ($14) is served inside a hollowed-out pineapple with grilled prawns, chicken, pork and Vietnamese sausage.

The must-have appetizer is something called Toasted Masago Bread ($7). It's four slices of baguette covered with Japanese mayo, shredded shrimp, crabmeat and fish eggs. The mixture is so creamy you would swear it contained cheese. Saigon also offers fried egg rolls ($6) that are stuffed with a mixture of shrimp, pork and glass noodles. Nyugen says the egg rolls are the best-selling appetizer.

My wife, Kris, ordered the Wokked Crispy Noodle ($12) as an entree. The dish is loaded with prawns, beef and chicken along with shiitake mushrooms and Asian veggies. The first thing Kris noticed was the tender and tasty beef in the dish. Nyugen says the key is an overnight marinade with five-spice powder. He says they use only ribeye for its tenderness. The sliced rare beef in the pho is also ribeye.

I ordered the 18-Hour Boneless Short Ribs ($14). The ribs are slow-cooked in fresh coconut milk in a clay pot with low heat over an open fire. The meat and coconut milk aren't added until the broth, onion, garlic and spices have cooked down. The dish is topped with egg, something you see more and more at restaurants highlighted on the Food Network. Nyugen tells me he has seen a number of different uses for egg in dishes not known for egg as an ingredient. In this case, the egg topping the ribs is hard-boiled, then deep-fried and sliced in half. The signature Grilled Pork dish also is served with a fried egg.

We ordered the Mango Sweet Rice ($4) for dessert. The sticky rice is steamed under a banana leaf, which leaves the rice with a lime green color. Crushed peanuts are served on top of the sweet rice with slices of mango on the side. It's another popular breakfast dish in Vietnam. We really liked the way the warm rice mixed with the chilled mango.

Saigon Surface is a nice addition to the downtown scene. The menu and ingredients are at a gourmet level, but the prices are reasonable.

Nyugen says he understands that people expect Asian food to be affordable no matter the quality. And he really wanted a social-network type of restaurant that mixes new technology with traditional Vietnamese cuisine.

It's arguably the first restaurant in Omaha where you can order using an online app with the table's iPad, then use the device to hear your favorite song.

Saigon Surface offers both style and substance.

Mike'l Severe is the co-host of "Unsportsmanlike Conduct," a sports talk show on 1620 The Zone Radio, weekdays from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. He grew up in New Orleans, spending most of his childhood in his grandmother's kitchen. He first learned to cook from his father, Henry, who was a chef for more than 50 years.