Seven One One Grill

A good Vietnamese place joins JP's restaurant row

by Robert Nadeau

DINING OUT

Seven One One Grill (11 Centre Street, Jamaica Plain (617) 522-1217, 1221 Open Mon-Thurs, 11:30 a.m.-10 p.m.; Fri, 11:30 a.m.-11 p.m.; Sat, 11 a.m.-3 p.m. and 4-11 p.m.; and Sun, 11 a.m.-2:30 p.m. and 4-10 p.m. AE, MC, Visa Beer and wine

Up two steps from sidewalk level No 7-Eleven this, with Vietnamese smoothies rather than convenience-store Slurpees, and a fine line of strictly Vietnamese-style cooking, despite the promise of "home-style Asian cooking." It's not really a grill, either, although it does a very passable job on the grilled-beef rice and vermicelli plates that are among the special treats of Vietnamese cuisine. Judging by the grilled chicken and spareribs, it's less of a grill than a "fry," but in any case, it's a welcome addition to a Jamaica Plain line-up that now features Korean, Japanese, Indian, Thai, and Cambodian food within a few blocks on Centre Street.

Vietnamese food is rich in appetizers, and Seven One One has invested well. Dinner starts with some complimentary pickled strips of turnip and carrot. The Vietnamese rolls ($4.50) are two fat cigars, wrapped in the real, imported ultrathin rice skins that fry up extra-crispy. The filling in the vegetarian version runs a bit heavy on cabbage and onions, with the usual cellophane noodles and tree-ear shreds for extra bounce. The wrap materials include a lot of lettuce leaves, mint, and cilantro to fulfill the Vietnamese aesthetic of mixing textures and flavors. The dipping sauce is an excellent nuoc mam -- fish sauce with vinegar and garlic, topped with shredded carrots and peanuts.

"Mint rolls" ($4) are this restaurant's version of fresh spring rolls: translucent uncooked wraps showing jewels of shrimp and herbs. Beef kebab ($5.45) is actually satay; it consists of apparently fried strips of beef without as much spice as most satay, but with a somewhat sharper version of the nuoc mam as a dip. "Steamed mini rice cakes" ($4.75) come as six charming little rounds of rice pancakes, topped with chopped shrimp, egg, and pork; they're served with a sweeter nuoc mam. (Most of these appetizers can be ordered with tofu substituting for the animal elements.)

Tofu house salad ($5.95) includes a dozen cubes of fried tofu on a slaw of carrots, mint, cilantro, and some onion, with a sweet-sour dressing.

About the most "home-style" thing we tasted was the "grilled coconut chicken platter" ($13.95). This is a split Cornish hen that has been marinated in coconut milk, giving it a strong, delectable flavor of the mustardy-gingery galangal we know from Thai food. It comes with sticky-rice patties -- fried to a crispy crust and with a slight aroma of cinnamon -- and a shredded salad of shrimp and green papaya.

Clay-pot lemongrass rice ($8.95) is all of that, with additional aromas of shrimp, squid, scallops, and Asian basil. Despite being served in a clay pot, this is less like risotto than like a dry paella. It's a little peppery, too. The grilled pork-sparerib platter ($13.95) is where it becomes clear that we aren't in Kansas anymore, and that grilled sometimes can mean fried. For all that, the four ribs are as meaty and relatively greaseless as possible, and make a very satisfying dinner with a few additional sticky-rice cakes, more of those good pickled slices, and another round of the papaya-shrimp salad.

For something truly grilled, try the grilled sliced-beef permutation from the vermicelli plates ($8.95), and probably also its equivalents in the noodle plates and the sticky-rice plates. This beef is marinated, in something with a lot of coriander seed and some lemongrass, and again we get lettuce leaves and herbs to roll our own, with additional nuoc mam and some cones of thin rice-paper pancakes to line the lettuce leaves. At lunch, I tried the grilled-chicken version of the sticky-rice plate ($6.95; $8.95 at dinner), and the chicken was a half-breast with wing -- lightly fried!

Seven One One has a wine list and a couple of beers. Despite the French influence on Vietnamese cuisine, I'm not sure that wine goes with any food that is salty, peppery, highly spiced, or made with vinegar. And many Vietnamese dishes set up all four barriers. That said, the Pierre Spaar pinot gris ($18) is priced for the experiment, and does rather well. For an Alsatian wine, it's not flamboyantly spicy but clean, dry, and slightly oaky -- the way Vietnamese chardonnay would be made, if grapes grew well in Vietnam. There are also Vietnamese smoothies, hot tea scented with vanilla, and Vietnamese coffee ($2.25), which is strong café filtré with condensed milk.

At a couple of lunches, I worked on the soup list, which boasts many permutations. The pho ($6.95; $7.95 at dinner) comes with eight different mix-ins, but the basic stock is chicken-based, where most Pho Pasteurites will be expecting beef. That said, it's a good chicken stock, with a hint of anise, and a mostly familiar list of mix-ins. "Tai name gau gan sach" (rare steak, well-done brisket, tendon, and tripe) is fully up to Dorchester/Chinatown standards. The dish is a little smaller than those downtown, but still enough for a light lunch for most people, especially if you mix in the bean sprouts and Asian basil served on the side (as well as hot chili sauce, a slice of lime, and some hoisin-like bean sauce). The tripe is shredded to look like the rice noodles, and I've come to love even the gelatinous "tendon" (which was "gristle" where I grew up).

Vietnamese hot-and-sour soup ($2.75) is a restaurant-sized bowl, and less hot and less sour than I've had it elsewhere. What I missed was cilantro, which thrives in a sour soup. The usual pineapple and tomato were there. The slices of green chili -- or at least the ones served to people who look like me -- were barely spicy at all. This soup comes with shrimp, tofu, or chicken; the traditional fish is available for $3.25.

Seven One One has a considerable range of desserts, from the familiar ginger ice cream ($2.50) and canned exotic fruit ($2.25) to cheesecakes ($3.25). We feasted on bananas à la mode ($5.50): four slices of banana deep-fried in egg-roll wrappers, then dressed with chocolate and presented with good vanilla ice cream topped with canned jackfruit and palm nuts. I also liked the "sweet rice coconut custard" ($4.50), which turned out to be a square of grayish custard with what resembled shreds of coconut, on a bed of sweetened rice, with whipped cream and a maraschino cherry.

Seven One One is a long room nicely done up in yellow with wood floors, granite café tables, black bentwood chairs, and a few reproduction petroglyphs, photos of Southeast Asia, fans, and coolie hats. Service is quite good, down to details like lemon slices in the water. Perhaps because the restaurant had been announced by signs for many months before it actually opened, it's been crowded in the early weeks, and may become a regular spot for many.

Robert Nadeau can be reached at RobtNadeau@aol.com.

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