The Little Saigon brouhaha is over but the good Vietnamese food lives on.

Bun Bo Hue An Nam
As the name implies, this the place for bun bo hue, central Vietnam’s most beloved noodle soup. In addition to thin slices of beef, the soup comes with fat, spaghettilike noodles, beef tendon (it’s better than it sounds), pork sausage and blood cake. The latter is an acquired taste and easily removed if it’s not your thing. If you like, the kitchen will add a few slices of ox penis at no extra charge. But don’t let the exotic ingredients scare you. It’s a great bowl of soup.

Crawdaddy
This is one of my favorite Vietnamese-owned businesses specializing in spicy, garlicky and buttery boiled crawfish and other Cajun specialties. The Viet-Cajun trend started in Houston and moved to Orange County before appearing here a few years ago. In addition to the freshness of the crawfish, what distinguishes one crawfish boil from the next is the sauce. Crawdaddy’s crawfish is flown in from Louisiana (or, when not available, the Sacramento Delta) and served in plastic bags with a cayenne-spiked butter sauce. The sauces come in a range of spiciness. All are good.

Dinh Cong Trang
This small takeout counter seems to always have a crowd in front of it digging into their banh xeo (pronounced “bun say-oh”), rice flour pancakes tinted yellow by turmeric. The lacy, half-moon crepes are loaded with shrimp, pork and bean sprouts and accompanied with a forest of lettuce, basil, mint and other herbs. The idea is to tear off a piece of crepe and roll it up into a piece of lettuce, sprinkled with herbs and drizzle with the accompanying nuoc cham (fish sauce). It’s Vietnamese fast food and it’s great.

My Khe Quan Hue
One of the few Story Road restaurants to specialize in central Vietnamese food—most restaurants serve southern-style Vietnamese food. The restaurant is named after a central Vietnamese town called My Khe (pronounced “me kay”). The food from the central city of Hue, once the royal capital of the country, and nearby hills is spicy, ornate and often labor-intensive.My Khe has only a dozen or so tables, and it’s packed at lunch. Starters such as banh beo (tiny dishes of thick rice pudding dusted with shrimp powder and dried pork) and banh uot thit nuong (thick rice noodle rolls filled with grilled pork sausage, basil and lettuce) are good, but the best starter I tried was banh xeo.

Pho Ga An Nam
Located just a few storefronts away from Bun Bo Hue Nam, Pho Ga An Nam specializes in chicken noodle soup. When it opens for lunch there’s typically a crowd bunched up at the door waiting to get in. If you’re a chicken lover, this is your place. The restaurant serves 47 different chicken dishes—noodle soup, chicken over rice, egg noodle soup and other chicken-centric items. The soup is showered with fresh chopped cilantro and cooked with thin slices of onion. The standard accompaniments of bean sprouts, basil leaves, lime wedge and jalapeño slices are served on a plate alongside the soup. For me, pho ga lives and dies on the strength of its broth, and An Nam’s was clear and bright with fresh chicken goodness.