Fan Si Pan

By Rachelle Bowden in Food on Oct 3, 2005 11:47AM

Chicagoist first heard about Fan Si Pan when paging through an issue of Time Out Chicago a month or so ago and wanted to try it out but forgot about it and got busy and you know the drill. This weekend we didn't have much going on so we decided to walk over and give it a try.

Fan Si Pan is a really cute little Vietnamese restaurant that opened 3 months ago right near the corner of Ashland and Chicago. It's named after the Fan Si Pan Summit in Vietnam, but it's also a play on words - it's pronounced like "fancy pan." We went early because we heard that there weren't a ton of tables and that it gets busy. .. but we were the only ones there at 11:30 on a Saturday. The guy that worked there told us sometimes they're really busy and sometimes they're "like this."

Before Chicagoist went we read up all we could on Metromix, Citysearch and the LTH forum so we'd know what other people had tried off the menu. Thus, we knew exactly what we wanted to order when we got there - Five Star Beef Spring Roll, French Fried Green Beans, and Honey Dew Limeade. The springroll was fresh and light with mango giving a sweet surprise to the beef, rice noodles, bean sprouts, shredded carrots and cilantro. This was the biggest spring roll we've ever eaten. As someone on LTH forum pointed out - it's bigger than a taco, smaller than a burrito. But what we really loved were the French Fried Green Beans. They had a light batter on them that was super crispy. We had a couple bites of the spring roll and then plowed through the entire order of beans (dipped in wasabi dipping sauce) before going back for more spring roll. Yum! And the Honey Dew Limeade was suprisingly good too. Maybe a little sweet, and maybe a little pricey ($3.25) but still a refreshing treat. There are chucks of honey dew melon in the drink and they give you one of those big bubble tea straws so it's fun to drink, too.

Chicagoist is loving this cute, yummy new option in our neighborhood and is looking forward to going back and trying the curried sweet potatoes with coconut milk (roasted and mashed with red curry and coconut milk, topped with coconut milk gravy and crispy shallots) and the mochi on stick.

Oh, we almost forgot to mention! This place is definately light on the wallet. The most expensive thing on the menu is $4.75, which is a major bonus in Chicagoist's book!

Fan Si Pan
1618 W Chicago Ave
Chicago, IL 60622
(312) 738-1405

More photographs of Fan Si Pan at rachelleb.com.