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Don't be fooled by the name or Vietnamese chef at this East Village hole-in-the-wall. New Saigon isn't so much a Vietnamese restaurant as a take-out place serving Americanized Chinese fast food with the occasional chunk of lemongrass thrown in. Many dishes--whether on the main menu or on the smaller "Vietnamese menu"-- are indistinguishable from one another, and often consist of a combination of peppers, onions and the meat of choice in a salty brown sauce. The shrimp and chicken the restaurant uses are passable, but the beef and pork are tough, gristly and unpleasantly gamey—better avoided. The Vietnamese iced-tea and ice-coffee drinks taste mostly of cane sugar and stale ice, and little else. The Vietnamese spring rolls, though they appear to have been wrapped in pork rinds, are substantial and flavorful, with a surprisingly meaty interior. The place itself is cramped and grungy--the staff occasionally comes out from behind the counter to stomp on the plentiful roaches, who outnumber the occasional down-and-out East Village patrons who pop in ever-so-briefly for some quick take-out. — Michael Y. Park

Vietnamese spring rolls, $4