Seven years ago, South Bay diners faced Vietnamese menus that read like this: Banh cuon Tay Ho DAKAO Gia Truyen van nhueng mon an thuan tuy Viet Nam khac. And that was the cover page.

Vietnamese restaurants at the time served home-style cooking to mostly Vietnamese patrons. If the menu offered English translations, they were skimpy at best.

Suddenly Silicon Valley has fine dining, Vietnamese style, bursting out all over. You can sit down to contemporary California-Vietnamese fare at stylish restaurants from Palo Alto to San Jose's Evergreen area to Los Gatos. In the past year, not a great one for new restaurants, six upscale Vietnamese eateries have opened.

Nearly a decade after the trade embargo with Vietnam was lifted, enough travel has occurred to whet appetites for a new take on Vietnamese food. And nowhere is it more obvious than in California, with its access to fresh produce and reputation for culinary envelope pushing.

``Sushi was very hot 10 years ago. Then it was Thai food. I think this is just the next thing,'' said Anne Le, co-owner of Tamarine restaurant in Palo Alto, which opened last year.

Emblematic of the change is Citronelle on San Jose's mercantile Winchester Boulevard, where the signature dish is turmeric fish and the California Culinary Academy-educated chef is working on a lemongrass osso buco. Truc Dam and his sisters Mai Pham and Hong To opened the restaurant in 1995, but back then it was called Pho Saigon. An extensive remodel this year retained pho, the classic meal in a noodle soup, but otherwise upped the ante.

``For Vietnamese fine dining, we used to have to go to San Francisco,'' Dam said.

Even with the second-largest Vietnamese population outside Vietnam, the South Bay had fallen behind.

``We wanted to change Pho Saigon for two years,'' Dam said. ``Green Papaya started the trend in Los Gatos'' in late 1999. ``But we were late in San Jose. Seattle had upscale Vietnamese restaurants much earlier. Even Sacramento did.''

In the postwar years, rather than trying to attract non-Vietnamese diners, San Jose restaurants catered to the large Vietnamese community.

``And they have certain expectations,'' Dam said. ``They know what Vietnamese food looks like and tastes like.'' For the first wave of Vietnamese immigration, eating out was just about the convenience of not cooking. ``Now we want to dine,'' he said. ``The success of Tamarine helped a lot.''

Nighly crowds

The toast of Palo Alto has set the bar very high. Tamarine took over a jinxed location, hired a renowned restaurant design team and showcased dishes like ginger chicken salad. Even in this sour economy, it's packed night after night.

Proprietor Le has a marketing background. Her partner, aunt and executive chef, Tammy Huynh, has her own restaurant, Tam, in Milpitas. (Originally it was Pho Tam, but Huynh decided that name was too restrictive.) Their family also runs the Vung Tau dynasty of family-style Vietnamese restaurants in Fremont, Milpitas and San Jose.

``Five years ago, at Vung Tau you wouldn't find many non-Vietnamese,'' Le said. The family originally opened a 32-seat Vung Tau on San Carlos Street in San Jose in 1985. Within two years, they moved to the current location on Santa Clara Street, quintupling the capacity.

It took a while to get over the Vietnam War's aftermath, she said. Besides the daunting menus, there were Western misperceptions: ``No, we don't serve dog and cat.''

In Le's view, the most successful restaurants in the new wave of fine Vietnamese dining have given a California spin to traditional Vietnamese cuisine. Textures, especially, can stop Western palates cold. The shrimp-stuffed rice cupcake called banh khot that's served in Vietnam is gooey and slimy inside. Huynh modified the dish by simply making it 3/4 of an inch deep instead of the traditional 1 1/2 inches. It still has sweet shrimp inside and crispy shrimp flakes on top, but it's cooked through.

``At Tamarine, the flavors are very traditional,'' Le said, listing essentials such as kaffir lime leaves, lemongrass, mint and basil. ``And they are fresh and healthy. We don't want people to be distracted by textures.''

But in trying to attract Western diners, restaurants run the risk of offending traditionalists.

As Diana My Tran, author of ``The Vietnamese Cookbook'' said from her shop in Washington, D.C.: ``It has to be right. In some cases, food gets too Americanized.'' Some restaurants use scallions instead of cilantro on the pho, or use plain lettuce instead of mint with their spring rolls. ``People who don't know won't miss it.''

Martin Yan, chef, author and TV personality, dismisses those in the anti-fusion camp. He suspects that when Wolfgang Puck was starting out, people harped about a classically trained Austrian chef inventing pizzas. ``Some people are very provincial,'' said Yan, whose next television series will be filmed in Vietnam. ``If you adhere to the essence of a cuisine -- the basic spices and techniques -- while learning to appreciate new ingredients, the more the merrier.''

Yan's own childhood proves this out. Growing up in China, he said, ``I never saw broccoli or asparagus. Now every Chinese restaurant has them.'' Not to mention eggplant, snow peas, watercress and chile, all introduced to China.

With 1,000 years of Chinese domination, Vietnam closely reflects that giant neighbor's cooking techniques and eating methods, such as the use of chopsticks. Many ingredients, including star anise, lotus root and daikon radish, are shared. From 1883 until after World War II, French rule left a tradition of culinary finesse.

``Vietnamese foods are lighter and more refreshing than many Asian cuisines,'' Yan said. ``The fresh ingredients are more acceptable to Western palates. The look of it is very familiar.''

As Yan sees it, tourism to Thailand brought a boom in Thai restaurants in the United States, and the same thing is now happening with Vietnam.

Original fusion food

With all its neighbors and conquerors, Vietnamese cuisine may be the original fusion food. Many of the flavors -- fish sauce, galangal, palm sugar -- are similar to Cambodian, Malay and Thai cuisines. The Portuguese introduced chile peppers. And, in the south, many herbs and spices come from India.

Silicon Valley's newest contemporary Vietnamese restaurant, Dragonfly, opened last month in San Jose's Evergreen area. Among the features are a solid granite bar serving sake-based martinis and a ``rock 'n' roll'' version of the traditional seven courses of beef, easy to share on one platter for $12.

As Dragonfly's executive chef Huey Hubris put it, ``I don't know if it's a good time for a new restaurant, because of the economy. But after two generations, it's time to bring California and Vietnamese cuisines together.''