Sen Vietnamese Cuisine
Excellent crispy rolls and drinks offset acceptable soups at this northern Vietnamese restaurant
At Sen Vietnamese Cuisine, a northern Vietnamese shop that joined Little Saigon’s collection of restaurants in 2022, the real star of the show is not their Banh Mi Pate Que – miniature pate and floss sandwiches that are becoming more widely available locally, and taste at least as good at Little Saigon Night Market. Rather, it’s the Cha Nem, fried Northern Vietnamese egg rolls that are somehow more delicate and more intensely flavored (with crab, shrimp, and pork) here than the comparatively ubiquitous Cha Gio served everyplace else in Westminster. Ideally wrapped in fresh lettuce and dipped into a just-right sweet/tangy fish sauce, Sen’s little rolls are the stuff of dreams: truly a standout in an area with countless competitors.
So too are Sen’s teas and coffees, especially a long-lasting Coconut Coffee filled with shaved ice and topped with toasted coconut shavings, and an orange, peach, and lemongrass jasmine tea that tasted too good to make it through five minutes. We were also pleased by Sen’s attentive, efficient service.
Other dishes we tried, including three soups, made less of an impact. Mien Tron Sen was a take on Cambodian dry glass noodles – soup served on the side – with pricing higher than Hu Tieu De Nhat’s, but not quite as much flavor. The Banh Da Cua Hai Phong, crab soup with wide “red” noodles, meat balls, and pork rind, tasted less of crab than the heavy, dominant noodles; a Pho Bac Dac Biet – notably a Northern Vietnamese-style pho – looked more different from common pho than it tasted, with a fair portion of decent meats and an almost soy sauce-colored brown broth that was only modestly more intense than typical beef stock.
The menu was pretty small, so we covered a lot on one visit. But between the drinks, the egg rolls, and a few menu items we missed (including Bun vermicelli with fish and Xoi sticky rice with some interesting items), we would gladly come back again and try a mostly different collection of items.
Stats
Price: $$
Service: Table
Open Since: 2022
Addresses
15619 Brookhurst St.
Westminster, CA 92683
714.759.5959
Instagram: @senvietnamesecuisine