Tuan Pham’s new Four Sisters Vietnamese restaurant doesn’t even have walls or floors yet, and diners are already talking about it.
The former Shinjuku Station chef is taking his skills to a new restaurant in the South Main Village, a tribute to his sisters and mother and the Vietnamese home cooking he knew growing up.
Pham’s lemongrass pork skewers and grilled sugarcane shrimp sticks at a Dallas-area event last week spurred emails asking, “Where is that guy’s restaurant?”
Four Sisters is barely under construction. It’ll open by the holidays at 1001 S. Main St., a block from the popular Pouring Glory Restaurant & Taphouse.
“Growing up as the only boy in the family, I would find myself in the kitchen cooking with my mom,” Pham wrote in a Facebook message.
He eventually learned to cook enough to share with family and friends. Now, his patrons become his “sisters.”
His sample menu includes pho and noodles made fresh in-house, seafood fried rice with fresh Dungeness crab or lobster or pork belly with a soy-braised egg.
Drinks will include a milk tea with coffee jelly and tapioca pearls, or Vietnamese-coffee flan. The bar will serve craft Vietnamese cocktails with ginger, coconut, tamarind or lemongrass.
Four Sisters will be among several new restaurants along repaved and improved South Main Street, including Tinie’s Rotisserie Chicken (by the owners of Taco Heads). That will include an upstairs cocktail lounge, El Escondite.
Already taking advantage of the beautiful new South Main streetscape: Jesús BBQ Family Restaurant, the Borja family’s 40-year landmark cafe known for old-timey Tex-Mex enchiladas, chicken-fried steaks, pork ribs and homemade fried pies.
If you haven’t seen South Main Street lately, go by Jesús’ for an enchilada plate. It’s at 810 S. Main St.; 817-332-0168, facebook.com/JesusBBQ.
Sammie’s says wait ’til September
Sammie’s BBQ, undergoing a quick cleanup and remodeling, will reopen about Sept. 1, owner Sam Gibbins said this week.
Sammie’s, a 71-year mainstay on East Belknap Street, is getting a new kitchen but keeping the same employees and many of the same recipes, particularly the bracelet-sized onion rings, sour slaw and light, vinegary sauce.
Gibbins, a part-owner of the nearby Smoke Pit, is sending customers there until Sammie’s returns. The Smoke Pit, known for its lunch specials, will continue, Gibbins said.
New Tex-Mex in River Oaks
A new Los Jimadores Tex-Mex Tequila Factory is open in River Oaks.
The Acosta family’s restaurants started in Bedford. They’re known for the 19 varieties of margaritas and the widely varied menu, including standards but also spinach or squash enchiladas, flatiron steak Tampiqueña and seafood dishes such as grilled salmon with serrano-pineapple sauce.
The menu also includes guisadas, a grilled chicken breast topped with nopalitos and chorizo and a “pastel imposible” chocolate cake-flan.
Diners are greeted with chips, a warmed salsa and also a black bean sauce.
The new Los Jimadores is open for lunch and dinner weekdays, breakfast through dinner weekends at 4335 River Oaks Blvd.; 817-625-0999, jimadores.com. Other locations are in Bedford and North Richland Hills.
Bud Kennedy: 817-390-7538, @EatsBeat. His column appears in Life & Arts and DFW.com.
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