Wedged like a grain of rice into a corner of Federal Boulevard's Far East Center, Nguyen Hue is a sticky-table Vietnamese joint, sandwiched between Asian markets, Chinese gift emporiums, other Asian restaurants and a small Vietnamese bakery and barbecue storefront that hawks everything from pastries and binh minh to dead chickens and ducks dangling from the ceiling.

The parking lot is a jam, with horns blaring, bumpers kissing and fingers flying.

Clangorous with mostly Vietnamese diners - suited businessmen barking on their cell phones, dainty women and spiky-haired teenagers slogging their way through the seemingly endless menu - and rife with riveting dishes that symbolize the heart and soul of the Vietnamese kitchen, Nguyen Hue's dining room, like the parking lot, is chaotic.

On weekdays, especially, people pack the small, rectangular room with its burgundy booths, long tables, potted plants and white walls tacked with crooked photos of Vietnam and pastel-shaded artificial flowers protruding from conical hats. Tables are overlaid with emerald-green polyester tablecloths protected with glass, and tangerine-tinted fish swim in a kaleidoscopic tank .

The service is similarly colorful, which is to say that it's hued by a cast of characters that run on warp speed, especially when the dining room is overflowing.

Sometimes you'll get a menu within five minutes, other times it will take 15. Your green bubble tea ($3.25), milky, icy and bouncing with boba (tapioca pearls), will arrive when the staff feels compelled to bust out the blender. Leftovers linger at the table like loiterers at 7-Eleven and it might take the equivalent of a calendar year to get your to-go boxes and bill.

All of this would annoy me, were it not for the endearingly hospitable staff intermittently stopping at your table to apologize for the delays, for the crowds, and then, when you leave, thanking you profusely for your patronage.

In reality, I should be thanking the kitchen for the rapturous marvels - the blasts of fresh herbs, the flurry of vibrant flavors - that appear on the table in fits and bursts.

Many people order pho (small $4.75; medium $5.25; large $5.95). Scented with cloves and star anise, intensely beefy and buoyant with chopped scallions, rice noodles and simmering beef, the huge bowl perfumes the air. Bean sprouts, lime wedges, rings of jalapeno peppers and bundles of cilantro, mint leaves, basil leaves and tia-tô, a peppery Vietnamese herb - the classic accompaniments to pho - are heaped on a separate plate. Hoisin sauce and bottles of Sriracha chili are on the table for dipping your slices of steak.

Nearly all of the dishes I sampled here come with glistening romaine leaves and that hill of fresh herbs, including the canh gu dôn that ($6.95), medieval-size chicken wings, sliced into fat coins, stuffed with a blend of ground pork, peanuts and chiles and fried until their golden skins crackle.

But the menu has its clinkers. The seafood delight ($12.95), mugged by a soupy pond of coconut milk, longed for the promised jalapenos that never surfaced; and the deep-fried soft-shell crab ($7 for one; $12.95 for two) was greasy and overbearingly fried.

To make amends, the sizzling Vietnamese pancake ($4.95 for one; $7.95 for two), a crisped rice flour crepe sweetened with just a hint of coconut milk and pelted with scallions, produced a planet-size sphere enveloping shrimp, bean sprouts, pork and onions. It, too, is served alongside a platter of leafy herbs and cool romaine leaves, which are used to wrap the pancake before dipping the package into nuoc cham, the invigorating tart and sweet Vietnamese fish sauce spiked with lime juice and vinegar.

The bà tai chanh ($9.95), or lemon beef salad, emphasizes the light, refreshing ingredients of Vietnamese cooking with its melange of vegetables and herbs - tomatoes, onions, basil, razored cucumbers, cilantro, chilies, red peppers and mint - and thinly sliced, tender tarps of beef spritzed with lemon and lime juices.

Curi ($8.95), a Vietnamese soup teeming with yams, potatoes, chicken, beef and pork, is assertive and bold, its pronounced notes of lemongrass and curried spices distinct and robust, while the whole sea bass ($19.95), steamed with soy, ginger, cilantro and scallions and draped with slivers of ginger, is moist, flaky and fragile.

Your server will warn you that it takes 20 minutes to prepare the sea bass. It may take 40. Go with the flow. Food this good is worth waiting for.

Nguyen Hue

* Grade: B

* Address: 333 S. Federal Blvd.

* Hours: 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Mon.-Thurs; 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Fri.-Sun.

* Food: Vietnamese

* How much: $1.75-$19.95 appetizers; $4.95-$20.95 main dishes; $4.75-$5.25 lunch specials

* Reservations: Not accepted

* Noise: Constant chatter

* Information: 303-922-5774 or nguyenhuerestaurant.com

* Parking: Complimentary lot