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Diners may not usually look to spiky-haired teenagers for culinary guidance, but the Vietnamese youths who pile into the hard-backed booths and eight-top tables of Sunset Park's Gia Lam II are definitely onto something—the place is a find. Its menu of Vietnamese specialties is richly varied and priced to move, with beverages served soda-fountain tall and cartoonishly sweet (especially the "three color sweet bean ice drink"), and finger foods like thinly sliced and grilled beef sticks and translucent summer shrimp rolls disappearing like last year's shoe fads. Rich curry stews of chicken or beef are accompanied by soft, sop-ready banh mi loaves; beer-steamed shrimp are generously piled atop platters; and pho soups are packed with tender meats and glistening with flavor-packed globulets of oil. Plus, the nightly teenage-immigrant-chic fashion show keeps things interesting, to say the least. — Jon Steinberg

Grilled beef rice stick, $6; curry chicken banh mi, $4.75; sweet bean ice drink, $2.50