Sunflower

Show up for lunch on any given day at Sunflower, a large Vietnamese restaurant in North Austin, and there’s a decent chance you’ll have to wait a bit. Use that time to finish up today’s Wordle—you’ll be glad you waited. This is the go-to spot for central Vietnamese specialties like banh xeo and canh chua, and it’s our favorite spot in town for both (and apparently, a lot of others agree). 

Despite the strip mall setting, the dining room at Sunflower never feels like it once housed a Radio Shack or a Blockbuster. It probably helps that the space is filled with plants and there’s a large wall of windows spilling light to the farthest reaches of the room, adding a sense of liveliness to it all. 

Order the bánh xèo to try one of the dishes of which Sunflower is most well known. The crispy rice and turmeric flour crepe takes up half the plate, with the other half reserved for a small mountain of fresh herbs, pickled vegetables, and sheets of lettuce for building your own hand rolls. We like the pork and shrimp variety, but you can also sub out the pork for poultry or calamari. And it’s all served with a spicy fish sauce-based dip that adds a bit of brightness and heat to each savory bite. You can get a good bowl of pho here, but you’d be missing out on one of the other soup specialties you won’t find almost anywhere else in town—canh chua. The tart and savory soup comes packed with catfish, fresh herbs, pineapples, and elephant ear stalks that become little crunchy sponges for all that broth. 

photo credit: Nicolai McCrary