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Vietnamese fare gets fine diplomatic treatment in a stylish, appealing setting. The biggest conflict is what to choose.

Vietnam was a source of fascination for me as a child. My father, now a retired colonel, did two tours of duty during the American conflict. For me, Vietnam was not a war; it was his sketches of the villagers he met; the crackled, muted audio reel-to-reel tapes sent home at Christmas; his vivid descriptions in long letters of the people, their beautiful land and the food he explored. It seemed exotic and dangerous to me, a combination impossible to resist.

JOHN AMIS/SPECIAL (ENLARGE)
The pork spring rolls with fish sauce (left) and grilled mussel appetizers help make Com a tasty choice for Vietnamese dining.
JOHN AMIS/SPECIAL (ENLARGE)
For a burst of flavor, try the grilled fish (front clockwise), vegetables and flat noodles.
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It wasn't until I was an adult that I experienced Vietnamese food for myself. Perhaps because of my father's influence, it is by far my favorite Southeast Asian cuisine. The gastronomy of this small nation employs many Chinese techniques, such as stir frying as well as the predominant use of chopsticks. Portuguese, French and Indian influences (in the south) meld to make a congruency of flavors and textures far more delicate than most Chinese cuisines. Vietnamese food is complicated but not confusing; flavors are buoyant with subtle sophistication.

Com Vietnamese Grill Restaurant, new in Buford Plaza, is a hip little eatery that embraces Vietnamese food the way Pooh holds his honey. The digs are neat and trendy, with colorful drop glass lighting over tables and large paintings of Hong Kong and Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City). The staff speaks perfect English and loves to help out. The place even has a groovy Web site (www.comgrill.com).

Read: Com is not the typical Asian spot often found along the strip malls of Buford Highway that look like the backside of an old radio. Com is new. Fresh. Appealing to anyone who might want to enjoy the intricacies of Vietnamese cuisine — and earthy enough to skip the fancy linen, table settings and chichi ambience of a higher-priced joint like Nam.

That said, there's one quirky thing about this little oasis: It touts itself as a grill. Indeed, all the meats are marinated and grilled (nuong), then served over rice with delicate matchsticks of fresh cucumber and squash with a fried egg, or wrapped in a spring roll, or served minced as goi (salad) with beautifully fresh apple and green mango. Nothing about the menu screams "grill." Items are much more mainstream Vietnamese than that, although many classics such as shaking beef and catfish in a hot pot are nowhere to be tasted.

It doesn't matter. The aforementioned salad alone will keep your tastebuds busy through lunch. Stick to standards of beef or pork tossed over perfectly julienned lettuce, cucumber, apple, green mango and tiny bits of caramelized onion that really gives the meat more muscle. This dish seems like a mumbo jumbo mix of whatever happens to be on hand, but it's a perfect example of how Vietnamese dishes are realized — what seems a little messy is actually a calculated concoction of cleverly put-together ingredients.

La lot leaves are wrapped around beef or lamb (there are choices of goat, duck, catfish and even salmon, too, but trust me, the beef is omigod good and the lamb will rock your world), then grilled until they are ever so delicately crisp and served with julienned carrots and cucumbers (and more of those onion tidbits, which appear on almost everything).

Navigating the menu is a challenge. Everything comes with an array of meat choices: chicken, beef, pork, catfish, salmon (salmon?), duck, goat. Some items are listed more than once but seem the same. The staff readily admits that the nuoc nam (fish sauce) and vinegary arbol chile sauce come from a can. But the truth is you could close your eyes and play pin the whiskers on the catfish with the menu and come up with a great meal.

On first visit I was steered to the combination platters served with hefty portions of rice with shredded pork, a choice of meats (see above, and add succulent short ribs), a fried egg and a jelly-textured shrimp and crab cake with carrots and cucumbers. Exquisite.

Banh hoi (lettuce wraps) embrace the pre-Chinese Vietnamese ritual of rolling various vegetables and fresh herbs with meats into lettuce and dipping them in nuoc nam. Com places grilled shrimp on vermicelli to roll into fresh iceberg lettuce with ultra fresh Thai basil, mint, cilantro, carrots and cucumber. Divine.

And it all ends with a tall iced glass of Vietnamese coffee, an injection of espresso-strength mixed with sweetened condensed milk. Yum.

It adds up, actually. Exquisite + divine + yum = Com.