Dining Out

Mary Furr

It’s a different world in Doson Beach. There’s a slower pace with no

apologies. It’s service with dignity. Open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily,

the kitchen will oblige but it will take time, so relax and catch up with

news from friends.

Lunch ($5.95-$8.95) is a bargain with several choices -- one a rather

dry beef mixed with good, fresh broccoli, bok choy, mushrooms and water

chestnuts. Another is crusty grilled chicken in a medium thick

soy-flavored potent sauce. Both are served with small grain, rather

creamy rice, the chicken with a mix of greens. But it is the dinner

entrees ($9.95-$34.95) that reveal the exotic French Vietnamese flavor of

Doson Beach, named for a resort on the northwestern tip of Vietnam.

Poached pale pink fresh salmon (D. $12.95) rests in a creamy white

sauce over which spears of fat white asparagus are laid. It’s tender with

an elusive flavor of spices and lemon. The colorful plate has bok choy --

Chinese cabbage with crunchy white stalks and dark green leaves, orange

carrots, red skin-on perfectly boiled potatoes and slices of roasted

green and red bell peppers. Everything on the big white platter is very

hot, made when ordered.

A wonderful thick cut of filet mignon ($18.95) topped with a thick

blob of bleu cheese in a dark port-flavored sauce is served with the same

potato and vegetable mix. The pungent characteristic flavor of the cheese

seems to melt into the meat -- a most unusual combination I’d never had

before that is just right. It is served with quite ordinary mixed green

salad -- a better choice would have been the carrot soup.

You can’t miss with the warm fried banana dessert ($4.25), two mushy

banana halves covered with a thick batter. The fruit shell coconut ice

cream ($4.50) was frozen so hard in its lacquer cup, it was impossible to

eat it all. The kitchen really slipped up here as what we could chip away

from the hard frozen ball had a good fresh coconut flavor.

Doson Beach, the only restaurant owned by Andy Nguyen, has two chefs

-- Nga Cao for Vietnamese dishes and Henry Nguyen who studied at a cordon

bleu culinary school in Paris. Each dish he prepares has an exact touch

of a great cook.

Several years ago former President Carter, a guest at a Canadian hotel

where Henry was chef, made a special request -- the filet mignon with

bleu cheese. If you’d like to eat like a president, Doson Beach, a

multilevel restaurant with the multiple flavor of French Vietnamese

cuisine, is ready to serve you.

FYI

Doson Beach

WHERE: 8901 Warner Ave

HOURS: 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily. Open Thanksgiving.

PHONE: (714) 848-8891

MISC.: Full bar