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Walking down Liberty Street, you\u2019ll find a big red canopy with \u201cSaigon Kitchen & Bar<\/a>\u201d written across. What once used to<\/a> be Red Lotus, and before that<\/a>, Taste Kitchen, is this newly conceived restaurant. The owner, Danny Van, wanted to rework his space into something that represented his Vietnamese culture. In an interview with The Michigan Daily, general manager Dan Poulos discussed how the owners wanted their restaurant to be something that reminded them of home.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201c(The owners) did fine dining for a very long time,\u201d Poulos said. \u201cThey wanted to get away from that and go more toward their traditional food that they grew up eating and get back to the students a little bit. And get a little more price-friendly and pocket-friendly.\u201d<\/p>\n Saigon Kitchen & Bar is a higher end restaurant with two purposes: bringing Vietnamese culture and flavors to Ann Arbor and making fine dining more accessible to students. In an attempt to welcome more guests into the restaurant, the manager redecorated the interior to shift the atmosphere from the previous restaurant \u2014 dark and moody \u2014 into something brighter. This started with redoing the floors from a matte black to a warmer, lighter tan, then adding little lanterns all over the ceiling. There are also pictures of Vietnam covering the walls for the owners to show their love and connection to their homeland.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWith Taste, the concept was fine dining but much darker. We redid the floors; the brown tan ceramic really makes the room just feel more open,\u201d Poulos said. \u201cDid a little bit of the traditional Vietnamese lanterns around the area and then just some pieces from Vietnam there and then just kind of brightened everything up. It\u2019s more inviting. It\u2019s more relaxing. It\u2019s more homey.\u201d<\/p>\n