Mekong Vietnamese Restaurant
Category: Vietnamese
29 Willow St
Johnson City, NY 13790
(607) 770-9628
This is another family owned Binghamton restaurant slightly off the beaten path that most likely will provide good times for everyone. Just off Main, it’s hard to notice, but if you look around the corner to Willow you will see Mekong.
Vietnamese is one of the more exotic sounding food nationalities served in Binghamton, but the meal itself is definitely not as experimental as the squeamish like to think. For the unfamiliar, Mekong is like Chinese but cleaner and frequently mixes the sweet with sour. You can’t go wrong with typical rice or noodle dishes. No pho, but plenty of vermicelli dishes (noodles made from rice), although if you mention “pho” I am sure they will love you and treat you like you deserve to be treated.
Great place to take a date if you want to show her you know what’s up. Not Monday though, closed. That would be a big time folly if you made that mistake.
The most important factor, though, is the love they put into their food. This is always what separates who stays and who is gone tomorrow. And from their longevity despite relative anonymity, it is what maintains their success.
Links:
Mekong official site
While there is pho on the Mekong menu (albeit as Beef Noodle Soup), it’s a very weak offering.
I moved to this area from San Jose, so my Vietnamese standards may be calibrated weirdly. Thanks for poking through the strange restaurant space of Binghamton. I found your blog via your post on the Ramblin’ Pig in Greene, but I didn’t make it up there before they folded.
By: Andrew on March 31, 2009
at 20:56