Review Preview: Mai Lee

By Ian Froeb Mon., Apr. 19 2010 at 4:21 PM

Categories: Restaurant News & Reviews

Jennifer Silverberg

This week I visit Mai Lee, which relocated earlier this year from Delmar Boulevard at I-170 to, of all places, the ground floor of the new MetroLink and BJC parking lot in Brentwood. Follow me after the jump for a sneak preview of my review.

On Friday evening, the new location of the Vietnamese restaurant Mai Lee is packed, and we wait fifteen minutes for a table for two. When we return for a late lunch on Sunday, we're seated immediately, but occupied tables outnumber unoccupied tables at least three to one. Back once again, alone this time, for a weekday lunch, I take one look at the crowd lingering around the entrance -- business types and college students listening for the host to call their names -- and decide to sit at the bar. Several other solo diners have made the same choice. Next day? Same thing.

Each visit, it seems, the employees and one or two customers greet one another with the sort of enthusiasm usually reserved for the end of hostage crises or rescues at sea. While I admire the devotion, I'm more than a little perplexed. Between the closing of Mai Lee's original home at Delmar Boulevard and I-170 and the opening of its new digs in Brentwood, only a few weeks passed.

Visit the RFT restaurant page late tomorrow afternoon or check back here Wednesday morning to see what I think.