BY HENRY STACK

Little Saigon is the destination for many Bowdoin students on Saturday nights. It is an intimate setting. The windows fog up during the winter, on warm summer nights the owners string up lights and put tables out on the sidewalk. It is a bustling restaurant and deservingly–Little Saigon has won “Best Vietnamese Restaurant in Mid-Coast Maine”  two of the last five years, and recently, Little Saigon made headlines in the Orient for their addition of Green Curry to the classic menu.

The article reported that the addition to the menu represents a shift in Little Saigon’s genre from a strictly Vietnamese restaurant to a Thai/Viet fusion restaurant. If this is true it would truly reshape the Brunswick dining environment, as Watami is already encroaching on the Asian fusion market in Brunswick. 

Yet while Little Saigon is beloved by many, few may know that Little Saigon is actually much smaller than the real Saigon. At first I was surprised myself. I had always assumed that the Big Saigon would be bigger than the Little Saigon in Brunswick. Perhaps a restaurant in Portland with more dining space. Or maybe even a strip of restaurants in Boston known as Big Saigon. Yet I started digging around, doing research, and conducting interviews. It turns out that Saigon (the one in Vietnam) is a city of over 10 million people. It is the capital city of Vietnam, a country of almost 100 million people. The name “Little Saigon” is an incomprehensible understatement. Little Saigon is so so itty bitty compared to Saigon. There are probably max 20 people in the restaurant at a time. I’ve been told that Saigon (the real one) has many restaurants, probably over 83. In addition, Saigon is known to have a better selection of Vietnamese food than Little Saigon offers; something that may be hard to believe. Calling Little Saigon “Baby Saigon” is not even appropriate. “Embryo Saigon” is probably more apt but still doesn’t capture the size difference between the two. 

This brings me to my resolution–we must petition to rename Little Saigon something appropriate. The current name is misleading. I suspect many people have fallen into the Saigon trap. They see Little Saigon and suspect Big Saigon to be proportionate in size. This is a lie. I have several proposals for new names, among them: Super Small Saigon, Miniscule Saigon, Itty Bitty Witty Saigon, and Little Saigon (not to scale). How far does this trend extend? Is Little Tokyo also a lot smaller than Big Tokyo? How big could Big Tokyo really be? For now, we must find solace in what we do know. The Goose at the Social Goose is very charming and charismatic–Richard from Richard’s has no plans of retirement.