Vietnam Restaurant is an old-school hole in the wall in the Medical District, located a few doors down from my favorite — and one of the few — Vietnamese grocery stores in town, Viet Hoa.

Vietnam Restaurant is a no-frills, unfussy joint, home to many Vietnamese classics you can find almost anywhere, like pho, bún bò hue and bánh xèo.

The space is large yet unassuming, with foam ceiling tiles that match the white tiled floor. The ceiling is held up by bright red arches in the middle of the room, between which a frosted glass bust of palm trees partitions part of the dining room. The large counter is decked out with golden trinkets and sunflowers, across from which small fish swim about under LED lights in a giant fish tank.

Simple Tastes: Vietnam Restaurant

A warm gray sky insinuates a midsummer rain, and it’s the perfect day for pho, but I’m here for something else.

On menus at many Asian restaurants around the city, the lunch specials are reserved for smaller portions of Chinese-American dishes, often catering to the less adventurous palate, such as Mongolian beef or orange chicken, often served with a scoop of white rice. For the most part, this is the case at Vietnam Restaurant, as well, with a few exceptions — one being the lemongrass beef.

The lemongrass beef is not the most thoughtfully plated or beautifully constructed dish on the menu at Vietnam Restaurant, but it is a bit of a sleeper hit, tucked away among the lunch specials in a small font, and ringing in right at $9.99. It is one of the few menu items left under $10 — something growing increasingly more common on all Memphian menus, with the rising tide of inflation.

It comes to me as a mound of beef strips, sliced sweet onions and scallions, all tossed generously in a classic Vietnamese sauce very dear to my heart: tuong ot sa te, or lemongrass chili oil paste. In my past life, I’ve made this sauce countless times while working in a Vietnamese kitchen, and it is certainly a labor of love.

Lemongrass stalks are meticulously chopped into a fine shred and fried in oil with chili flakes until soft and no longer fibrous. The result is an aromatic, citrus-like and satisfyingly spicy oil that can be used as either a condiment or an ingredient.

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The beef strips in this dish are stir-fried hard, almost like beef jerky — they would be too tough without the sa te. The chili oil coats the meat and alliums, adding a lot of moisture and the entirety of the dish’s flavor profile. It’s served alongside white rice, which takes up the sa te really well, but you can also opt for fried rice instead for an extra dollar.

Not all lunch specials are created equal, and I’m often one to skip. But if you’re looking for something to spice up a muggy day, try the lemongrass beef.

Vietnam Restaurant, 74 N. Cleveland St., is open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. every day but Tuesday, when it is closed.