NEW YORK TIMES WHERE TO EAT REWIEW 2026
Falansai - ★★
By Ryan Sutton
Perhaps you’ve heard of third-culture cuisine, a style of cooking that emphasizes the experience of growing up in a country other than where the chef’s parents are from. There has been a lot of great writing about the subject — Zaynab Issa’s cookbook, “Third Culture Cooking,” is a fine place to start — but there’s something also compelling about letting the food do the talking. That’s precisely what happens at Falansai, a quiet yet confident Vietnamese Mexican spot in Brooklyn.
Just as a brasserie doesn’t explain why it offers steak frites, Falansai believes diners will accept its bánh tráng mè tuna tostada without a tableside monologue. Eric Tran, the chef, layers guacamole and scarlet yellowfin over a sesame rice crisp that’s as large as a rib-eye. It looks like a deconstructed Mexican flag.
Tran earned raves for this sort of fusion after he took over Falansai in 2020. In November, he relocated the Bushwick restaurant to a more intimate Greenpoint space decked out with a pressed tinned ceiling, orb light fixtures and a big orange La Marzocco espresso machine that fuels the daytime cafe service.
The kitchen doesn’t shy away from strong flavors. Pork sausages sing with tropical notes of lemongrass; wrap them up in lettuce with pickled jalapeños. Duck confit tamales, on the more uneven prix fixe, pack the deeply earthy flavors of good banana leaves. Crispy carnitas top off a bowl of mild, bouncy vermicelli. And braised lamb neck, packed with pastoral funk, sits in a warming bowl of pho. Tear off the fatty ovine flesh and place it into a blue corn tortilla; then, dunk your taco into the broth for a cinnamon-scented, Southeast Asian daydream of birria.
Recommended Dishes: Silver Bell oysters with green tomato mignonette, Vietnamese tamales, pork noodles, raw tuna crunch, Berkshire pork skewers, spicy red curry with turnip cakes, braised lamb neck with pho broth, chia pudding dessert.
Price: À la carte dishes range from $12 (for duck neck tamales) to $35 (for lamb neck with pho spices). The four-course dac biet dinner runs $58 per person.
Wheelchair Access: The restaurant has a portable ramp for the front entrance; the restroom is fully accessible.