"This is just like eating in Hanoi," said Top Chef winner Hung Huynh the first time we dined at Gà 2 To. The restaurant, hidden within the V-shaped cluster of businesses inside the "1216" plaza near the corner of Mills and Colonial, bills itself as a "Vietnamese coffee shop with a twist." The twist? It's really a Vietnamese noodle shop that serves coffee. And not just any Vietnamese noodle shop, but a North Vietnamese noodle shop specializing in all things chicken, or gà as they say in Vietnam.
Chef-owner Ty Hoang clearly wanted to create a transportive experience, and Gà 2 To does exactly that (minus the motorcycle exhaust or hokey sentimentality). There are inviting front and back patios, should the need to replicate eating in the sticky swelter of a Hanoi summer arise. It's all a part of the restaurant's allure — though, in all honesty, the restaurant's air-conditioned confines proved a lot more alluring to us.
So, after a complimentary serving of iced jasmine tea, and a glance at the focused menu of chicken dishes, we knew exactly what to do. "Let's get everything," I said, and in a matter of minutes we were popping stir-fried chicken gizzards ($15) off a gorgeous plate stacked with chicken hearts and small eggs. Or ... not eggs?
"They're ovaries," said Huynh with a chuckle, and we dug into the fiery offal salad reinforced with whole garlic. The ovaries taste like dense egg yolks and further charge this protein-charger of a starter. But don't pass on the actual salad ($13.75).
This is no chicken salad gunked in mayo — oh, no. It's a bracing, infernal, vibrant salad with various greens, cherry belle and watermelon radishes, red bell peppers, cabbage, and slivers of chicken and chicken cartilage. Glorious. It's one of my fave salads, and the chicken has a lot to do with it. Hoang sources the free-range, antibiotic-free cluckers from Orlando Halal Live Poultry.
Then we got our slurp on, deeming the miến gà, a soup with mung bean noodles, chicken, intestines, liver and those eggy ova ($13.95) a suctorial success. Along with herbs, sprouts, scallions and cilantro, the soup is topped with dried bamboo shoots grown in the highlands of Vietnam. And that pristine bone broth buoys the phở gà ($13.95) as well, a bowl of Vietnamese penicillin that I'll be ordering the next time I'm under the weather.
When Huynh and I meet at Gà 2 To three months later, the menu features additional items, including the eponymous gà 2 tô ($14.50). It translates to "chicken in 2 bowls" and that's what you get — a bowl consisting of rice noodles, chicken, pig heart and herbs in a blistering sauce; and another bowl with chicken broth, also spicy, with those "young eggs." Do the dip or alternate bites between dry and wet. Either way, it makes an incredible meal. Enjoying the soup with fried imperial rolls ($12) makes it a superlative one. They're superbly crisp and come filled with a mix of chicken and shiitake mushrooms.
We also try the marinated chicken with mung bean sticky rice ($16.95). The seasoned legs slicked with soy and secrets take a back seat to the rice. Mung beans are steamed, mashed into balls, then shaved onto the turmeric-tinged rice topped with fried shallots. I can see why Hanoians consider xôi xéo a breakfast staple — in addition to being soft and chewy, the rice is subtly sweet as well.
Certainly not as sweet as the egg coffee ($7), though. Egg yolks are beaten into an airy fluff with sweetened condensed milk for 10 minutes before being poured atop bold, caffeine-rich robusta coffee. It's wickedly addictive, this cà phê trứng, and another breakfast staple as well.
And if you're wondering if Gà 2 To is open for breakfast, they're not — maybe that's the twist.