Kitchen Cô Út

There’s a ton of seating (and a neon conjoined cow and pig) at this Vietnamese spot on the LES. Both a beef and chicken phở are available, and we prefer the latter. (The chicken broth tastes like it’s been cooked with bones for at least two days straight.) Their broken rice dish with a pork chop and quiche has an interesting hodgepodge of things, and it’s especially good when you combine everything in one bite and drown it with fish sauce. But skip the bánh bột lọc, which has too much tapioca and seems like it’s been sitting around for too long. Surprisingly, you can’t get bánh mì here, but there’s a whole display case of pre-packaged items like mung bean rice balls and pandan coconut jelly that you can grab to go.

photo credit: David A. Lee