SUP Vietnamese opens in Rockville Centre

Southeast Asian food gets the P.F. Chang's treatment at SUP Vietnamese, a growing brand of upscale pho restaurants that now sports three Long Island locations. The latest opened earlier this summer in a cavernous Rockville Centre space that previously held Voodoo Crab, following other locations in Stony Brook and Massapequa.

SUP follows on the coattails of Lâu Vietnamese Pho, another fancy spot that opened in St. James in May. While the two have different ownership, they both offer an approachable menu of Vietnamese classics served on beautiful platewear in a refined setting. 

The thick-bound menu at SUP, which is dominated by gorgeous food photography, probably won't push your boundaries or expose you to new regional dishes. Soup, or súp in Vietnamese, is the focus here, but even these choices are limited to nine varieties of basic but well-executed pho. (No spicy bún bò Huế or puffy tapioca flour noodle soups). But the menu differentiates with coffee and desserts: SUP may be the only place on Long Island to get a cup of egg coffee ($7), the frothy delicacy that's finally starting to show up in the United States.

With its history of French colonization, Vietnam has a unique coffee tradition of brewing strong robusta beans with condensed milk, which was more easily transportable back in Vietnamese coffee's early days in the 1850s. Egg coffee came along about a century later when, as the story goes, Hanoi bartender Nguyen Van Giang wasn't able to get any condensed milk and decided to use egg yolk instead. Today it's popular across Vietnam and has popped up in trendy Vietnamese coffee shops in larger U.S. cities. The texture is similar to cheese foam boba, except at SUP it's served hot. A thick, custardy layer of foam sits atop the strong coffee. It's incredibly rich and sweet, but it makes the black coffee go down easier. 

The dessert menu's other interesting specimens include pandan coconut sago pudding (which appears to be green in color), an egg tart with purple ube chips and a sweet dish of "warm tofu with orange ginger syrup." 

SUP Vietnamese, 208 Sunrise Hwy., Rockville Centre, 516-960-0013, supvietnamese.com. Open 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday, noon to 10:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, noon to 9 p.m. Sunday.

By Andi Berlin

andi.berlin@newsday.comAndiBerlin

Andi Berlin is from Arizona and does not know where she is going. But when she gets there, she’ll find something beautiful and delicious that the world needs to taste.