Ba Bar South Lake Union
Vietnamese restaurant · South Lake Union ·
Vietnamese street eats, cocktails, pho, vermicelli bowls, and sweets
Vietnamese street eats, cocktails, pho, vermicelli bowls, and sweets
"Ba Bar, known for its Vietnamese street food, is hosting Tet Nguyen Dan celebrations with special dishes like bánh chưng and bánh tét, along with festive cocktails." - Harry Cheadle
"As hip local chain Ba Bar has grown, so have its restaurants, which means this one in South Lake Union and its sibling in the University District have ample space for groups, inside and out, and you can call about reservations for groups of seven to 10. You’ll find one of the best bowls of pho in town here, made with high-quality ingredients and priced accordingly, as well as cocktails and plenty of other Vietnamese specialties from duck and pork belly rotisserie to bun bowls with vermicelli noodles to macarons for dessert." - Meg van Huygen, Mark Van Streefkerk, Jade Yamazaki Stewart, Adam H. Callaghan
"This Capitol Hill favorite recently expanded into South Lake Union and the University Village. At each outpost, Chef Eric Banh brings the street food of his childhood in Saigon to Amazon's sprawling tech campus. So expect vermicelli bowls and Vietnamese noodle soups, plus spectacular house-made sweets. Small plates range from spinach-tofu paper wraps to fried yellow-curried frog legs, while the house specials include bánh nậm : banana-leaf-wrapped rice tamales with Carlton Farms pork. But return to the original Ba Bar in Capitol Hill for the mini-chain's crowning glory: a late-night happy hour with discountedIPAs and frites with pho gravy. No reservations."
"After being among the first restaurants in Seattle impacted by COVID-19, South Lake Union’s beloved Zheng Cafe is closing permanently. Co-owner Gregory Wetzel, who ran the Chinese restaurant with his wife Jing, says they’re “taking a break from the biz for awhile,” and the couple is in the process of selling the restaurant along with a Greenwood property that was a short-lived expansion. Opened in 2017 after about a year as a food truck, the menu included fluffy steamed buns filled with barbecue pork and curry chicken, but the main attraction was the “Wuhan style” dry noodles — Jing says the restaurant was the first to bring many dishes influenced by Wuhan cuisine to Seattle. Those noodles, Greg’s favorite from his time teaching in Wuhan where he met Jing in 2010, were continually tweaked by the couple and served with house-made chili oil and sesame paste, topped with pork; before the pandemic the spot was often packed with students and local tech workers, many from Wuhan who found a taste of home there. Concern for Jing’s family in Wuhan led to a temporary January closure, and as COVID spread and Washington’s stay-at-home order took effect the Wetzels attempted a couple of restarts but ultimately decided to shut down for good; South Lake Union’s loss of foot traffic as Amazon workers remain remote and Wetzel’s move to a “desk job” in Los Angeles make a Seattle revival unlikely, though a California offshoot remains a possibility." - Gabe Guarente
"The modern Vietnamese restaurant is offering 20 percent off call-in ordering at its Capitol Hill location (the South Lake Union and U Village outposts are also open for takeout and delivery from 11am-8pm daily). Some of the entrees available include bun moc (pork sausages with tofu and vermicelli), garlic crab noodles, and lemongrass rockfish." - Gabe Guarente