An Choi

"In terms of looks, these guys are hipper than your average pho spot. That means you can have dinner here with a friend who wants to take pictures of their food. And you can watch them do this while you eat a banh mi or a bowl of pho - or both if you get the “French Dip” banh mi, which comes with a side of broth for dipping. An Choi is on a lively (but not crazy) block on the LES, it’s very laid-back, and you won’t spend too much here." - Bryan Kim

"An Choi arrived on Orchard Street in 2009, at a time when some of the city’s best bowls of pho came not from Vietnamese chefs, but from Hoa, ethnic Chinese immigrants who were born and raised in Vietnam. A decade ago, many food critics still cited Hoa-run businesses in Chinatown as their top Vietnamese restaurants. Not for any lack of love, but because that’s “all New York had,” according to Tuan Bui, who opened An Choi with his brother Huy. “There was Chinatown, there was a sizable Korean community, but there really wasn’t any Vietnamese community.” And then came An Choi. Bui never meant for the restaurant to make a splash — he merely wanted to bring some representation to Vietnamese food — but An Choi was an immediate hit. Seated in the restaurant’s alley-like dining room, customers ordered crusty banh mi sandwiches and bowls of slow-simmered pho, many for the first time. A reader balked at the $8 price tag of its banh mi at the time, completely missing that something spectacular was afoot: After years of underrepresentation, An Choi had helped pave the way for a decade of high-profile Vietnamese restaurant openings in New York City, including Madame Vo and Hanoi House in the East Village and Bui’s second restaurant, Di An Di, in Greenpoint. “They weren’t all in the same neighborhood,” he says. But it was official: Vietnamese restaurant owners had dug their roots. An Choi closed on July 26, 2020." - Eater Staff

"Tuan Bui, Kim Hoang, and Dennis Ngo, who opened the stylish An Choi more than a decade ago." - Eater Staff

"Brothers Tuan and Huy Bui opened An Choi a decade ago, an early presence in the city’s growing hip Vietnamese restaurant scene." - Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya

"The Vietnamese restaurant, sister to An Choi in the Lower East Side, is also mentioned as part of the family of venues but not as the main focus of the article." - ByElyse Inamine