Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

Dining room aesthetics and Saigon on Fifth

Vietnamese restaurant in Hillcrest is a textbook example of classy, effective design.

The ideas behind designing a proper dinging room often elude restaurateurs. Part of this is because the trend right now is to create big, open spaces that are more like lofts or barns than restaurants. But hanging an Edison bulb from an exposed beam doesn’t actually create automatic ambiance, despite what the majority of local designers seem to think!

For a fine example of a beautiful dining room, look at Saigon on 5th (3900 Fifth Avenue, 619-220-8828). The Vietnamese restaurant is a veritable praise magnet, here at the Reader and elsewhere, but that’s mostly for its food. Granted, the cuisine there is commendable. The banana flower salad--piquant, crispy, and laden with baby clams--flat out rocks. The kitchen roasts a mean duck as well, served with yellow curry and all the rice in the world. The cooking is a little toned down across the board to make it more accessible, but the net effect of that is actually positive. It doesn’t come across as half-baked Vietnamese at all, which is an easy pit to fall into.

But, back to the dining area. Saigon’s interior space has some beautiful qualities. The division into multiple, smaller areas, for one, makes the restaurant feel more like a series of small rooms than one, huge space. Not only does this create a greater sense of privacy for diners, it gives the dining room a greater variety of character. Lots of great restaurants employ similar tactics, but it’s important to see that this design element isn’t reserved solely for luxurious establishments.

http://www.sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2013/aug/27/52163/

Lighting is another issue where Saigon, if you’ll pardon the pun, shines. The dining room is dimly lighted, with levels low enough that cell-phone photography becomes difficult for the average Instagram-happy hipster. Thankfully, the light is white. Orange and yellow lights have become commonplace because they are perceived as having “soft” qualities, but the effect is more like light pollution. In low light conditions, the human eye is more sensitive to blue and white light (something called the Purkinje effect) Low intensity orange lighting, like what’s popular in restaurants, dulls colors. Emphasizing the blue shift is not only more comfortable on the eyes, it makes things seem clearer, even when the lights are turned down low to set the mood.

http://www.sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2013/aug/27/52162/

The fact that Saigon goes the extra mile, with nice table settings and super-pro service is just the icing on the cake. All those little details pile on top of the restaurant’s basic structure. Just like a house, starting with a solid foundation is important, because anything laid on top of a weak base would be compromised.

There’s some validity to the objection that some of the stylistic cues used by Saigon, and restaurants like it, are terribly old school and indicative of a snooty Frenchness that modern restaurants are loathe to embrace for fear of seeming antiquated. At the same time, there’s no denying that Saigon feels nice inside; that it has a certain polish, even a touch of extravagance, that’s too often missing in new restaurants. Restaurateurs these days would do well to pay attention to some of those details. Their incorporation in the next wave of restaurants to spring up in San Diego could legitimize a culture that’s become pretentious over its own unpretentiousness.

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all

Previous article

Tuna within 3-day range Back in the Counts

Mind the rockfish regulations
Next Article

Mang Tomas, banana ketchup barred in San Diego

What will happen to Filipino Christmas here?

The ideas behind designing a proper dinging room often elude restaurateurs. Part of this is because the trend right now is to create big, open spaces that are more like lofts or barns than restaurants. But hanging an Edison bulb from an exposed beam doesn’t actually create automatic ambiance, despite what the majority of local designers seem to think!

For a fine example of a beautiful dining room, look at Saigon on 5th (3900 Fifth Avenue, 619-220-8828). The Vietnamese restaurant is a veritable praise magnet, here at the Reader and elsewhere, but that’s mostly for its food. Granted, the cuisine there is commendable. The banana flower salad--piquant, crispy, and laden with baby clams--flat out rocks. The kitchen roasts a mean duck as well, served with yellow curry and all the rice in the world. The cooking is a little toned down across the board to make it more accessible, but the net effect of that is actually positive. It doesn’t come across as half-baked Vietnamese at all, which is an easy pit to fall into.

But, back to the dining area. Saigon’s interior space has some beautiful qualities. The division into multiple, smaller areas, for one, makes the restaurant feel more like a series of small rooms than one, huge space. Not only does this create a greater sense of privacy for diners, it gives the dining room a greater variety of character. Lots of great restaurants employ similar tactics, but it’s important to see that this design element isn’t reserved solely for luxurious establishments.

http://www.sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2013/aug/27/52163/

Lighting is another issue where Saigon, if you’ll pardon the pun, shines. The dining room is dimly lighted, with levels low enough that cell-phone photography becomes difficult for the average Instagram-happy hipster. Thankfully, the light is white. Orange and yellow lights have become commonplace because they are perceived as having “soft” qualities, but the effect is more like light pollution. In low light conditions, the human eye is more sensitive to blue and white light (something called the Purkinje effect) Low intensity orange lighting, like what’s popular in restaurants, dulls colors. Emphasizing the blue shift is not only more comfortable on the eyes, it makes things seem clearer, even when the lights are turned down low to set the mood.

http://www.sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2013/aug/27/52162/

The fact that Saigon goes the extra mile, with nice table settings and super-pro service is just the icing on the cake. All those little details pile on top of the restaurant’s basic structure. Just like a house, starting with a solid foundation is important, because anything laid on top of a weak base would be compromised.

There’s some validity to the objection that some of the stylistic cues used by Saigon, and restaurants like it, are terribly old school and indicative of a snooty Frenchness that modern restaurants are loathe to embrace for fear of seeming antiquated. At the same time, there’s no denying that Saigon feels nice inside; that it has a certain polish, even a touch of extravagance, that’s too often missing in new restaurants. Restaurateurs these days would do well to pay attention to some of those details. Their incorporation in the next wave of restaurants to spring up in San Diego could legitimize a culture that’s become pretentious over its own unpretentiousness.

Sponsored
Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Want to live across the street from the Marston House?

Also a Mills Act historic designation
Next Article

Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) Do's and Don'ts

Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

This Week’s Reader This Week’s Reader