Xahn Vietnamese restaurant on Castro street

[Guest guest]

Just thought I'd mention that I tried the new Vietnamese restaurant on

Castro Street in Mountain View, and it wasn't especially good for a

gluten free diner, although the hostess was helpful. The fish sauce

they use contains wheat protein (on my visit at 8/31/06), so make sure

you ask if dishes contain fish sauce as well as soy sauce. The first

waitress was nice, but when she asked the chef he said " nothing on

their menu contains wheat. " Um, actually...The prawn crackers, the egg

noodles... lots of things blatantly contain wheat! There are some rice

noodle dishes, but most of the meats and seafoods etc. are marinated

in the fish sauce, so the hostess said i should avoid them. I did try

the crab martini (avoid the crackers on the plate below the martini

glass), the spicy ahi tuna roll (in rice paper, but avoid the dipping

sauce- contains fish sauce), and ankle biters (prawns) with salt and

pepper instead of whatever they usually season them with. They

prepared mine separate (we were all sharing) and served them on a

separate plate from the others, and seemed to give us a few extra for

kicks. Then I had rice. It was probably better with the original

seasonings, but it was good- just not amazing, and fairly pricey. I

really appreciated the help of the hostess, but wish I could have had

more options on the menu...

http://www.xanhrestaurant.com/