Bricolage - Vietnamese in Park Slope

Went to Bricolage this weekend, housed in what used to be Brooklyn Fish Camp. They've done a lovely job with the space and the restaurant looks rustic chic. The open kitchen is a nice touch but the restaurant soon begins to thickly smell of the food, similar to at a Korean bbq restaurant.

I ordered the summer rolls, berkshire pork chops, chicken clay pot and tapioca pudding.

The summer rolls had much higher quality ingredients than your standard greasy spoon places, the herbs were fresh and wonderfully pungent, good pork, shrimp were firm and fresh. Flavors were balanced, nothing too salty, peanut sauce was excellent, not too sweet.

Pork chop was perfectly cooked, I ordered it medium rare, was lovely throughout, juicy and tender. Not quite as bright with herbs (could use a generous handful of smashed lemongrass) as I would have liked but the sauce adds zip. The pink lady apple salad is fresh and tasty.

The clay pot chicken is chicken thigh with salt cod and the chicken was surprisingly overcooked. The thigh meat was a little squeaky. It could use more herbs as well, more ginger, etc. The dish is very monotone in color, which doesn't bother me, but the flavor was not there either.

The tapioca was delicious, very lovely coconut but the mango topping wasn't ripe, it was a little hard and I'm not sure if that was on purpose or unintentional.

All in, it's a lovely neighborhood restaurant offering some solid but unadventurous Vietnamese cuisine. I look forward to them offering pho and I hope they ramp up the use of herbs. It's a little safe right now with the flavors and I think the Park Slope crowd can handle the dial being turned up a notch with stronger Southeast Asian spicing.