Fine Dining: Nguyen's (Reborn!)

My family failed me.

See, like many, I was (am) a big fan of Nguyen's, and news of their closing was sad. In fact, I've been in a sort of Fayette County blogging retirement, and my last post was lamenting the loss of such a treat. So imagine my surprise when I found out that not only had Nguyen's reopened and I missed the news, but no one had bothered to tell me, either. I found out the way we all learn of important, life-altering news these days--on Facebook.

One of the reasons for my semi-retirement was the fact that I no longer live in nor regularly visit the Nam. I moved (a whole county over!) a few years ago, and after my husband moved in with me, I spent significantly less time in the area. Yes, we're back often enough visiting both of our families, but we're usually at one of their respective houses and that's about it. On top of that, keeping up with the news was depressing. I do intend to pop back in with news from time to time, but honestly, I forget.

While I'm living in another county, a lot of my stuff isn't. After upgrading from a mediocre one-bedroom apartment to a little house, my mom was like, "Hey, come get your shit out of my basement," except she didn't actually say that, so I ended up spending a day off doing just that. And with Nguyen's on my mind, I said, "Hey, I'd like to go there for dinner," and my parents were cool with that despite having gone days before. Another betrayal. "I want you to see how nice it is inside now," she said, rubbing salt in the wound.

It always was a nice restaurant, but she was right--the decor now is even classier, and I was glad we didn't just order take-out.

Again, everyone but me probably knows this by now, but the restaurant didn't just change the decor. The menu got an upgrade, too. A lot of things were chopped off, our waitress told me, because ingredients would go bad and get wasted faster than the dishes were being ordered, even in some cases where a dish was relatively popular. There's also more traditional Vietnamese food now, like pho, and a lot of favorites remain, particularly sushi. I always loved their cucumber rolls--it's my favorite sushi to get just about anywhere because I love cucumber and am a simple creature--so I couldn't leave without one. Narrowing down a meal was a struggle with so many great-sounding options, even with a smaller menu, but I settled on a mango drink and orange shrimp because I thought a mango drink and mango shrimp would be too much mango, except I know myself well enough to know there's no such thing as too much mango.

It was delicious as always, and I look forward to making my way back sometime for the mango shrimp. I do not, however, look forward to having to choose between it and my other UT food love, Meloni's.