Saigon Social lives up to its name. It brings a little piece of Saigon to the Lower East Side and functions as much as a restaurant as it does a social third space for friends to gather around tables covered with food to share. The restaurant isn’t big, but the soul of it is. From the vibrant murals on the walls to the colorful plates of food, to the red plastic stools outside that make a hot summer night in lower Manhattan feel almost like Southeast Asia.

Chef and owner Helen Nguyen has crafted a restaurant that celebrates Vietnamese cuisine in a contemporary way. The menu is tightly curated and full of hits. The starters include a range of traditional bites like banh beo and banh cuon ap chao. Mains are crowd favorites like oxtail fried rice and garlic noodles with tiger prawns, a whole crispy fish and seasonal soups (pho, sometimes, but also a range of other noodle soups to intentionally expand the palates of New York diners). It’s a perfectly casual restaurant, best shared with friends.