"What Tâm Tâm has done for bathrooms, it can also do with salads. There’s no singing (long story) involved in their lotus root salad, but it does make a lot of noise with all of the snappy lotus roots, pickles, cabbage, and peanuts involved. It’s even a bit interactive, with purple rice crackers for scooping up shrimp, pork belly, and crunchy vegetables all covered in nuoc cham. There are many delicious things that hit the table after this arrives, but this salad refuses to be upstaged by any of them. Book at least two weeks out if you’re looking for a reasonable Saturday night table. But if you stink at planning, expect to sit outside. The sidewalk tables are for walk-ins, and you can call (they usually answer) before you head over to see how long the wait is. If you go towards the end of service, you might be able to find a couple of open bar seats." - virginia otazo, ryan pfeffer