FISCO, TX – The pandemic has caused restaurants to adapt to new technology, devote themselves to delivery, and find savings wherever they can. The result: $4 sandwiches, hand pulled noodles straight from the Manhattan playbook, and local sourcing at affordable prices. We’re declaring 2021 the year of the great meal at a steal. These are five great cheat eats in Frisco.
Saigon Box
A mother-daughter team owns and operates Saigon Box, and their concept is simple: fresh homemade Vietnamese food, packaged in boxes for quick-service lunches. Though they have egg rolls, bahn mi, fried chicken wings, and Vietnamese iced coffee with condensed milk, for the most part it’s about rice boxes, noodle boxes, and salad boxes. It’s that easy.
The rice box special, for example, features broken white rice, egg, and your choice of two proteins (like lemongrass pork, five spices chicken, and caramelized shrimp). It also comes with a vegetarian eggroll, pickled veggies, fresh cucumber, tomatoes, green onions, and finally, onion crisps and a side of fish sauce. It’s a little bit of everything.
However, if a bowl holds more appeal than a box, then there’s always Mama Tha’s Pho, built on the bedrock of slow-cooked broth that simmers for 48 hours.
Hibachi Master
We know hibachi by its frills: the show, the onion volcanoes, the elegant lobbies where hypnotic koi fish swim in shallow pools.
But Hibachi Master is different. There are no koi fish; there isn’t even a lobby. It’s a blue trailer parked just off of Preston Road, with the warning “dangerously delicious” emblazoned over the window.
Here, it’s not about the show; it’s all about the food, which comes in generous portions. Beyond teriyaki chicken and steak, they’ve got scallops, ribeye, a special 10-ounce cut of filet mignon, even twin lobsters with shooters of melted butter on the side. They sell until 7 p.m., or as long as supplies last.
No one ever guesses that some of the best hibachi north of Highway 121 comes out of a trailer, served in styrofoam takeout containers.
