155 Hillwood Ave., Falls Church, Va. (703) 534-5450 Hours of Operation and Prices Lunch: Daily 11:30-3 Dinner: Daily 5-11 Closed: Tues. Entrees: $5-$25 Other Information • All major credit cards • Reservations recommended • Dress: casual • Free parking • Entertainment: Dancing Fri-Sun evenings • Handicapped accessible

With its huge crystal light fixture reflected in glass tabletops, Galaxy looks half cafe and half nightclub. Even if it didn't serve food, it would serve as a fascinating introduction to Vietnam. Our waitress offered up tales of her Vietnamese childhood along with our dinner.

As for the food, there's one dish to remember: appetizer No. 15, an addictive mixture of chopped baby clams with shredded pork, peanuts, onions, hot peppers, mint and ginger. It's piled on a red cabbage leaf and comes with two plate-sized, puffy crackers studded with black seeds. It's served warm and seasoned hot; with a wedge of lime to squeeze over it before you scoop up bits of the clam mix with pieces of the puffy cracker. The appetizer list also includes the usual rice paper-wrapped spring rolls - cha gio - and three other kinds of pork rolls served cold. And there are greasy but pleasant rice cakes, small custardy hemispheres with bits of shrimp and scallion - appetizer No. 5.

I'd fill up on appetizers here. Entrees suffer by comparison. Scallops are topped with a thick red sauce shot with cilantro, lemon grass, chilies and garlic, but it is too sweet and the scallops are chewy. Jumbo shrimp are expensive and, for the price, the salt-cooked version is disappointing. Yet the menu is long, with plenty of seafood and noodle dishes. In light of the party atmosphere, the most appropriate might be the steam boats, seafood entrees you cook at the table. Add a bottle of brandy, and you, too, might be inspired to sing about San Francisco.