By Paul Reidinger

LIKE A PAIR of colorful birds perched side by side on a utility line, Mangosteen and Bodega Bistro are hard not to notice if you happen to be standing at the corner of Eddy and Larkin. And why would you be standing there? Well, you might be loitering at the fringes of a party at the Phoenix Hotel, hoping for a glimpse of some rock star and noticing, as you glance across the street, Mangosteen's electric-lime-green transom and wondering what's up with that and where did it come from and should you go there instead of waiting for the rock star? Yes.

If the two Vietnamese restaurants were cardinals or Baltimore orioles, Mangosteen (which opened over the summer) would definitely be the male, with its self-advertising hue and slightly antic temper. Bodega Bistro, by contrast, as befits its status as elder (it opened early last year), offers a more sober face to the street, gray and composed, though once you step inside you feel the rich warmth of its claret walls. Together they are something of an odd couple, but in the (thus far) short run of their togetherness (which does not extend to ownership), they have established themselves as rulers of the roost of Vietnamese restaurants along Larkin Street, several blocks of which now constitute a Little Saigon – or perhaps (sign of these more relaxed times) a Little Hanoi.

Of the two, Bodega Bistro is definitely the grander, with pronounced French accents and of lofty enough reputation to attract well-to-do expatriates despite the slightly shady location. We watched, rapt, one evening as a late-model Mercedes the size of Hitler's limousine swept to the curb in front of the restaurant and disgorged an entire family, including several well-scrubbed and well-dressed little boys who, over the next 90 minutes, were guilty of remarkably little fidgeting. Possibly they were as pleased as we were by the food, whose high quality is refreshingly underhyped by the laconic menu. Descriptions here avoid logorrheic recitations of ingredients; "friture de calamars" ($7.20), for instance – crisp-fried calamari, for non-Francophones – were crusted with "piquant spices" and served with a sweet chili sauce that didn't even get mentioned. No matter: The pieces of calamari were plump and tender and the general effect one of confident simplicity.

While I tend to leave the deconstruction of lobster to notables who more passionately respond to its subtle charms, I do dabble from time to time, mostly to reinforce my bias in favor of crab. But Bodega Bistro's efforts upset this calculus; the lobster turned out to be immense (three pounds, $42 – not a bad bang-for-buck ratio) and was more than enough to satisfy my lobster-maniac companion despite my frequent cross-table pilferings. The preparation was winningly simple: a steaming of the great crustacean and a straightforward sauce of garlic, ginger, and butter that asserted itself without overwhelming the mild sweetness of the flesh. An accompanying dish of garlic noodles, though quite tasty and mountainous in its way, turned out to be superfluous, though we devoured it anyway.

Just as direct was rack of lamb ($22.50), four neatly frenched chops roasted medium rare and seated atop quartered fuji apples in a tarragon-mustard sauce. I detected not a hint of Indo-Chinese influence in any of this; you could easily find a similar dish in many a French bistro. The only arguably un-Gallic elements of the entire presentation, in fact, were the sliverings of carrot and cucumber raked up into neat little piles at one side of the plate. Also not Gallic, and not all that good, was a crème caramel ($3.50), with a decent sauce but a mealy, not particularly tasty custard. Too much fridge time?

Bodega Bistro's dinner menu also includes a brief run of choices called "Hanoi Street Cuisine," and the lunchtime menu expands on this theme while dispensing with the French stuff. The transformation makes the place seem more like one of the old-line pho houses elsewhere on the block and brings it into a tighter alignment with next-door-neighbor Mangosteen, whose food is a brightened-up version of what many of us probably think of as Vietnamese standards. An example: You would find imperial rolls at practically every Vietnamese restaurant in town, and Mangosteen's ($5.95 for six) look typical – golden-crisp cylinders stuffed with seasoned pork. But the meat here is shredded, not ground or minced, and the effect, though sly, is luxurious; the elongated bits of flesh are plumper and juicier, and they seem to last longer in the mouth.

The pho – noodles in broth – is available in several guises, most with beef, and for sheer scale matches up to anything in the neighborhood. I could comfortably have dunked my head in my bowl of pho bo vien ($5.95), an ocean of beef broth, with a kelplike profusion of rice noodles and a wealth of well-seasoned meatballs, which struck me as belonging on the ground-meat spectrum somewhere between sausage and country pâté. The soup was robust enough not to need the bean sprouts and mint served on the side, but I chucked them in anyway, for the fun of it.

There was no such frolicking across the table, just the steady demolishment of five-spice roast chicken ($6.95), a half-bird with glisteningly bronzed skin and meat whose tender moistness could not be improved on and is, indeed, the standard (the gold standard?) for bird roasters of chicken worldwide. By bird I mean poultry, of course, and only. Mangosteen. 601 Larkin (at Eddy), SF. (415) 776-3999, mangosteensf.com. Lunch: daily, 10 a.m.-3:30 p.m. Dinner: Sun.-Thurs., 5:30-9:30 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., 5:30-10 p.m. Beer and wine. Cash only. Noisy. Wheelchair accessible. Bodega Bistro. 607 Larkin (at Eddy), SF. (415) 921-1218. Lunch: daily, 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Dinner: daily, 5-10 p.m. Beer and wine. Diners Club, Discover, MasterCard, Visa. Moderately noisy. Wheelchair accessible.