As Wall Street takes a dive and fossil fuel prices soar, Duc Nguyen's recent menu makeover to ostensibly go back to his roots was clearly a prescient move. Because what it really means is a fire sale at this Chinatown den that has been luring people to Maunakea Street since 1992 — two years before Indigo opened. Can you say pioneer?

While there are a few more Vietnamese dishes, the European favorites are still there. Right underneath the "breast of duck Saigon" is the "breast of duck Grand Marnier." But where you used to lay down $26.95 for the French version, now it's $16. Remember paying $32.95 for rack of lamb? Now you get a half rack in a red wine reduction for $15. You just don't get a mountain of mashed potatoes on the side anymore — but you couldn't finish it all anyway, right? The new a la carte format is a win-win for everyone.

Nguyen's establishment is a hard-core regulars spot. And regulars don't like to have their menus messed with. So you can have your blue-crab cake, tomato lobster bisque, escargots Chablisienne and the best beef tartare ($18) in town (a coarsely chopped Wagyu beef perky with capers and all the other requisite tartare trimmings). In fact, the beef tartare is $2 cheaper than it was in 2005. Duc's gift to your reeling wallet.

The new Vietnamese dishes aren't the innovative zingers of San Francisco's Slanted Door, as one local critic promised, but they are well-executed and presented cleanly on snow white rectangular plates that fit on the table like a minimalist mosaic. The server pours a fresh crushed-ginger sauce over a nicely crisp basa fillet topped with a few slivers of green mango ($12) at the table. The kitchen does a nice pork tofu, long-simmering kurobuta in a sweet shoyu sauce with tofu and green onions ($12). Order dishes and supplement them with sides such as an enticingly smoky plate of fire-roasted eggplant, accented with chopped basil and a spicy lime dressing, and asparagus sauteed in garlic and olive oil.

The traditional dish of beef wrapped in la lot leaves (wild pepper) is given a twist by using veal, but the baby beef meat is too mild to stand up to this preparation, which includes a pineapple-anchovy sauce.

Nguyen's wife, Minh Nga, makes all the desserts in-house. She creates an exceptionally light creme brulee by reducing the amount of sugar and adding egg white.

The old-Saigon-by-way-of-Manhattan look and feel has always been Duc's biggest draw. Business movers and shakers and Downtown characters make house at the inviting wood bar, a real bar made for real conversation and real whiskey-sipping. Then they adjourn to the white-clothed tables, tucked discretely in corners bathed in the trademark rose light that makes everyone look good, or at least kind of mysterious.

A good business changes with the times, and Duc's Bistro does it admirably while keeping intact all the things that make it special.

Lesa Griffith, former Advertiser assistant features editor, reviews restaurants for TGIF once a month.