Two Wheels: Banh Xeo
Almost all of the world’s cuisine can be found in New York City. When I moved to New York, I was pleasantly surprised by the sheer amount and variety of food choices. And even though I moved here for the food specifically, the breadth of options available to me was definitely still overwhelming. However, when I moved here in 2015, the quality of Vietnamese food was sorely lacking.
There were a large number of Vietnamese restaurants in Manhattan’s Chinatown but most of them were just okay. I grew up in the San Gabriel Valley in the Los Angeles area, so I am accustomed to great (and cheap) Vietnamese and Chinese restaurants. In fact, I took them for granted until I had really terrible Chinese food in San Diego and realized I had been spoiled. Similarly, I tried many a Vietnamese restaurant all over NYC and was mostly disappointed. I almost lost all hope until a couple of years back when a wave of new Vietnamese restaurants started popping up all over the city.
Inside Two Wheels Upper East Side. Diners sit in wooden booths, surrounded by many plants, mirrors, and lighting.
Two Wheels was one of those new places. They originally started in the Upper West Side and very recently opened an Upper East Side outpost serving classic Vietnamese fare. The decor is not what you typically expect from a Vietnamese restaurant. It is much more modernized, minimalistic and sleek compared to the ones you’d find in the Chinatown area. The kitchen is behind-the scenes, but you see a massive counter space to sling their crispy banh mis and beefy bowls of pho into to-go containers. Takeout and delivery has of course fueled the bulk of their business for several months (that’s how I started eating their food), but they have nice indoor tables and a small outdoor seating area if you choose to enjoy their food fresh.
Menu and ordering at the counter at Two Wheels. Safety divider in place.
Outdoor dining at Two Wheels Upper East Side.
For my first time dining in person at this establishment, I decided on the harder-to-find banh xeo or vietnamese crepe. Traditionally, banh xeo is a large crepe made from rice flour, egg, and coconut milk that is overstuffed with plenty of herbs and vegetables, usually mung bean sprouts, and some type of protein like shrimp or pork. The edges are lacy and super crispy and it is typically dipped in fish sauce and eaten with lettuce as wraps. Pieces of the crepe are cut off and placed on lettuce with more herbs such as basil, mint or cilantro. A very delicious, fun and refreshing dish.
At Two Wheels, their banh xeo innovation is to turn an order into two hefty sized tacos! As tacos, the dish is streamlined and modernized in a way that is easy for newcomers to the dish to partake in. The taco duo is served in a customized to-go box with slots, akin to metal taco serving racks and seemingly created just to fit these crepe-taco hybrids. very similar to the metal taco racks that they serve with at certain taco joints. The fillings stay relatively traditional, and the crepes are overflowing with halved mung bean sprouts, shredded red cabbage, ubiquitous spring mix, chargrilled pork and topped with fried shallots and cilantro. The empty middle slot of the to-go box is even filled with more spring mix that serves as a mini side salad. The crepe itself looks very sturdy and the color is a very rich, deep golden brown. The firmness of the crepe ensures all the contents are held inside without everything falling apart.
“Vietnamese crepes” at Two Wheels NYC. Protein choices include pork, chicken, shrimp, and tofu.
Picking them up was easy enough, like a stout, hearty hard shell taco. Difficulty came when it came to dipping the crepes into the fish sauce. It is literally not possible to dip because the fish sauce was served in very tiny dipping cups that don’t even fit the smallest tip of the crepes -- the kind used as to-go sauce containers. My solution: pour the fish sauce onto the crepe tacos. Pouring takes out the fun of dipping, but the fish sauce is essential and must be added by any means necessary. And naturally, some of the dipping sauce seeps out due to this little thing called gravity. I manage to keep as much sauce as possible by quickly swooping in with the obligatory sideways taco bite.
The crisp shell shatters easily as my teeth break through the crepe and find the (watery) snap of the mung bean sprouts and the crispy crunch of the fried shallots. The changes in texture are pleasant and create a symphony of sensation with the addition of the soft, charred pork and the fresh leafy greens. Hints of salty fish sauce and floral flavor from the coconut milk in the crepe hit my tongue first. Then the rich, smoky pork taste glides onto my palate mixed with the fresh green flavors from the spring mix, shredded cabbage and the cilantro. The fish sauce is a cornerstone component of the dish because it provides a lot of the salt and acidity to season and round out the dish.
Crispy banh xeo tacos filled with bean sprouts, red cabbage, fresh greens, and choice of protein. Don’t forget the flavorful fish sauce! Other menu options include pho, banh mi sandwiches, rice bowls, chicken wings, and truffle parmesan fries.
One surprising update to this dish was the addition of the spring mix salad greens. The flavor profile of these greens isn’t typically found in the Vietnamese flavor palate. Usually just some simple lettuce is used. It’s not a dealbreaker though, as the spring mix does not fundamentally change the dish, and may even entice some health-minded diners. It’s a personal preference. As a whole, this banh xeo version stays true to the spirit of the dish. Two Wheels puts fun twists on the dish that make it friendly to people eating banh xeo for the first time while still providing something new and interesting to someone like me eating for the umpteenth time.
For the new influx of talent who want to move the Vietnamese food scene in New York forward, the sky's the limit. The options for diners are only getting bigger and better. It’s not just pho and banh mis anymore. A lot of the new places are showing the variety of Vietnamese food, venturing into steamed rice cakes and beef jerky papaya salads. All of this would have been impossible previously. Unlike four years ago, today I leave Vietnamese restaurants with a lot of happiness and hope.
