Hometown Favorites: PPQ Dungeness Island

I suppose referring to San Francisco as my "hometown" would offend some actual city natives, but I'm sure getting tired of telling people I'm from "right next to Oakland, California." I speak expansively; I like to think that I am a product of the entire Bay Area, despite how little time I spent in the "city" when I was growing up. Still, if I'm looking for dungeness crab in San Francisco, there are only to places I go--R&G Lounge in Chinatown for Cantonese salt and pepper crab and PPQ Dungeness Island for Vietnamese roasted garlic crab.





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The restaurant is located in the Outer Richmond neighborhood. It's not particularly accessible by anything except a car and finding parking could be a real deterrent to coming here. Nonetheless, it looks like they expanded the restaurant since I had been here last, so you may have a much easier time getting a table. I had no trouble calling on Thursday to get a ten person reservation for Sunday evening though.



The above picture is PPQ's famed garlic roasted crab. Even though it isn't dungeness crab season, the flavor was still phenomenal. Part of the crab eating experience is the shell and the work. Personally, I always think that the reward tastes sweeter when it's earned with stainless steel crackers, digital dexterity, and your teeth (a bad idea for your teeth but oh so satisfying).





PPQ also has a peppercorn crab (pictured above), drunken crab, curry crab, and spicy crab, along with several other common Vietnamese dishes. Honestly, I couldn't distinguish much between the roast crab and the peppercorn; both are delicious. The restaurant is confident enough to name the place after its crab.



The other dish that you must get at PPQ Dungeness Island is the garlic noodles. I don't know how the Vietnamese do it, but their garlic noodles are so satisfying they could make a meal in themselves. In a glance, they look like plain noodles with nothing in them, but the flavors of those plain looking noodles will astound you.



PPQ Dungeness Island

2332 Clement St

(between 24th Ave & 25th Ave)

San Francisco, CA 94121

(415) 386-8266

Crab priced seasonally



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Buddhists Know How to Vegan: Golden Era Vegetarian, San Francisco

Let's be honest here. If you're a vegetarian, or even more astonishingly, vegan, you limit yourself from an incredible diversity of food out there. Whatever their reasons for not eating meat, I don't know any vegetarians who can deny the appeal of meat and animal products. I generally have a live and let live attitude towards vegetarians, but my personal stance is that if you're going to be a vegetarian, then give up on the meat substitutes and embrace cuisines that are traditionally vegetarian.



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There are plenty of cultures that are vegetarian, either by ideology or necessity. A good example of perfectly acceptable vegan cuisine would be Ethiopian. Many of the traditional dishes have been refined over generations without meat. Indian cuisine is also very amenable to vegetarian options. An example of bad vegetarian food is fake meat, which tends to predominate Western cuisines. I'm just generally against food posing as something else, such as the M Cafe muffaletta. Tofurkey, Boca burgers, soy cheese, fakon, fake meat is usually awful. If you're going to be a vegetarian, then embrace vegetables, grains, legumes, fruits, all the diversity that the Earth has to offer. Stop trying to recapture something (meat and cheese mostly) that you've voluntarily given up.



There is one exception. Instead of merely tolerating it, I completely embrace Buddhist vegetarian cooking. True, Buddhist cuisine has fake meat too, usually in the form of soy and wheat gluten, but it has perfected the form over hundreds of years. You'd be shocked at how indistinguishable some dishes are to their carnivorous cousins. Usually my Buddhist vegetarian experience is Chinese, but I had an opportunity to explore Vietnamese vegetarian at Golden Era in San Francisco.







The menu consists of common Vietnamese dishes, pho, bun hue, lemongrass chicken (pictured above). In fact, hardly anything from the menu identified the restaurant as vegan. I had the lemongrass chicken, which tasted a little more like pork than chicken, but still tasted meaty nonetheless. It was delicious and it made me think that I could be a vegetarian if I had easy access to this kind of food. The only thing I was a little suspicious of was the fish sauce. As you can imagine, it's very hard to get the fishy flavor without any fish. Instead, it was sweeter than usual and relied on more of a vinegar base than fish.



If you didn't think you could be a vegetarian before, I implore you to search out cuisines that specialize in vegetarian cooking. You really don't need fake burgers and hot dogs, which are often super processed and not any healthier for you. Embrace the flavors and ingredients of the Earth. And if you really need that meat fix, go with people who know what they're doing.



Golden Era Vegetarian

goldeneravegetarian.com

572 O'Farrell St

Btwn Leavenworth & Jones St

(415) 673-3136



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Banh Mi in NYC

I've been going to my favorite banh mi place in Oakland since high school. Until now, I haven't been able to find a place quite like it in New York. Of course in West LA you can drive an hour east or an hour south and find delicious Vietnamese sandwiches in either direction. But with my first visit to Banh Mi Saigon, I finally found a place I can return to regularly.

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In a very Vietnamese fashion, Banh Mi Saigon shares its store space with a jewelry shop. The owners are well aware that the sandwiches are the main draw so they make you walk past display cases of jade necklaces and gold bracelets to get to the banh mi. I wonder how effective that is? It seems unlikely to me that a $5 sandwich order would turn into a $200 jewelry purchase.

While the sandwiches are not as cheap as they are in places with a vibrant Vietnamese population and low rent, you can still get a Banh Mi Saigon signature sandwich with grilled pork, pate, pickled daikon and carrot, and cilantro (spicy or not, up to you) for less than $5.

I like my banh mi a little sweet, with an abundance of sweet pickles. The buttered toast is also a nice addition. And of course, you need a flaky, fresh baguette for the proper sandwich. The banh mi here hit all those marks.

Banh Mi Saigon
banhmisaigonnyc.com
198 Grand St
(between Mulberry St & Mott St)
Little Italy/Chinatown, NY 10013
(212) 941-1541

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Destination Vietnam #5: The Dog Meat Entry (Thịt Chó)

Just follow the signs or ask the taxi drivers. Where do you go when you want to find dog in Vietnam? Search out the words thịt chó, Vietnamese for dog meat. However, there is a superstition that eating dog in the first half of the lunar month is considered unlucky. So on those days, the restaurants might all be abandoned, or even closed. My friends certainly had their moral reservations, but I was more concerned about the sanitation of the meat than the origin. In fact, I was right. Either we faced cosmic punishment for eating man's best friend, or the dog restaurant was the dirtiest place we ate at the entire trip.

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Having not grown up with any type of cuddly family pet, I didn't have any reservations about dog dining. If you've read The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan, you'd have a sense of the argument that eating meat in general makes you a "specist." Essentially, indulging in carnal pleasure makes you guilty of discriminating against certain species as "food." Despite my contentment with this label, I won't discriminate against dogs as another source of food. In fact, I feel better about eating dog than any one of the myriad of endangered species commonly degustated at high-end restaurants now. Eating an unsustainable species and further removing them from existence, or eating an animal that some cultures tend to raise as pets? What's the real moral dilemma? Judge me all you want, but I'm giving you the chance to eat vicariously through me if you can't stomach the animal.



Since I didn't go to Vietnam planning to eat dog, I hadn't done any prior research. I took a chance, jumped into a taxi and asked for thịt chó. I'm sure that the driver took me to his kickback restaurant for a slice of the receipt, but I had no other reference to go off. We ended up on the side of the highway at Anh Tú Béo, a lofted restaurant with dining seating on the top floor above the kitchen. We sat on mats on the ground around a low table and proceeded to order some lukewarm Vietnamese beer. As bad as Vietnamese beer is already, they don't serve it cold. Besides taking the drink order, the server proceeded to start bringing out side dishes. They probably figured that we would only come all the way out there just for one thing.



From the bill we received at the end of the meal, I can try to piece out the dishes we received. On the table are a few bottles of Bia Hà Nội, the better of the Vietnamese beers. The first things we received were a plate of cucumbers (dưa chuột) and a basket of lemongrass, lime and basil. We started suspiciously nibbling on a big sesame cracker (bánh đa), my friends worried that somehow the Vietnamese and baked a puppy into the cracker.


Thịt hấp - steamed dog meat

First to arrive were the dog cold cuts, similar to the cold cut appetizers I've had at Cantonese restaurants. Since this was the simplest dish, it would be most appropriate to explicate the taste of dog meat here. If you're looking for something mysterious or mystical, you'll be disappointed. Dog tastes like a cross between beef and pork. That's all. It didn't taste like game, exoticism, nor tears. It is exactly you'd imagine a boring meat to be. The dish also had slices of liver. And dog liver tastes just as offensive to me as pork or beef liver.


Dồi nướng - dog sausage

Tasted like overcooked sausage. Tough, overcooked sausage. Whatever the casing was made out of (I suspect dog intestine), it harden in the grilling process. Biting into it was actually somewhat crunchy. Tastewise, there was much more going on in the sausage than in the steamed dog. Seasonings were added, and other dog parts I'd rather not know about (likely dog blood and fat).


Chả nướng - grilled dog

The final dish we had was the most mysterious. Since we actually were heading to the Snake Village for a meal of snake (which failed to materialize), we cut the dog degustation after this plate. I can't tell how many more were going to come, but this was too much meat, dog or not. I want to say this was a dish of dog belly, with thick fatty pieces of skin on the small bits of meat. But I can't tell you much beyond that. I can't even identify the crumbled yellow stuff on top of the meat. As inscrutable as it was, this was my favorite of the three dishes.

Even in Vietnam, dog is a novelty. You should have no fears of accidentally ordering a dog dish by pointing at a menu. It just isn't that common, though dog restaurants occur more in the North than South. From what I could tell, all the dog I saw was only served in special dog restaurants. So unless you're intentionally searching it out, you won't find it easily. Each of the plates we had were 40K đong, about $2.20 at the time of my trip.

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Destination Vietnam #3: Bánh Mì

Bánh Mì from a Bakery in Sa Pa

As you can imagine, I encountered many Vietnamese sandwiches on my journey through the country. I discovered, much to my ordering difficulties, that bánh mì typically refers to only the baguette in Northern Vietnam and not an entire sandwich. I didn't have too many difficulties getting sandwiches in Saigon, but in Hanoi, I typically had to ask for bánh mì thịt nướng for bánh mì with grilled pork, or bánh mì patê for bánh mì with pate mixture.

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So how are bánh mì different in Vietnam? Well for one thing, the ingredients vary much more widely. Here in the States, you can find the pate, but more commonly is grilled pork, chicken, or even char-siu, pickled carrots and daikon, cilantro, cucumber, jalepeños, and seasonings, which may include soy sauce, Maggi sauce, mayonnaise, etc. That makes up the sandwich at my all-time favorite bánh mì location in Oakland.

While in Vietnam, you'll commonly see carts on the streets with the Laughing Cow logo, indicating the use of Laughing Cow cheese spread in its sandwiches.

Besides Laughing Cow, I also saw bánh mì ladies (they are always women) use Camembert. Beyond the cheese spread, some sandwiches had sweet chili sauce, grilled chicken, pate, cucumbers, pickles, tomatoes, and other unidentifiable ingredients.


Our resident bánh mì lady

When we were in Hanoi, we actually frequented our bánh mì lady on the street quite often. Her sandwiches were simple, delicious, and satisfying. However, we were in a backpackers' touristy area and so she was selling them for about $1.75 USD. Around town though, they can be found for much less than that. Still, seeing her out on that corner day and night, even in torrential rains, shows just how hard it is to earn a living in that country. As for as sanitation, it's best a topic to try to keep out of your mind when eating on the street. The ingredients aren't refrigerated, she doesn't wash her hands, and you have no idea how old the food is. If this is all a major concern to you, get up early in the morning and buy a sandwich fresh to reduce chance of contamination. But as with all food in Vietnam, you'll miss out if you don't take chances.


Bánh mì from the bánh mì lady

If you're looking for a bánh mì location somewhat more trackable than "the woman on the corner," try Như Lan in District 1 of Saigon, near the river. I would hazard to guess that every taxi driver knows of this restaurant, but it wouldn't hurt to provide the name and address written down, given the difficulties of Vietnamese pronounciation. It's an open-air bakery, deli, and restaurant. There is a wide, relatively easily accessible menu. Given the layout, if you don't know what you'd like, you can always walk up and point to items in the display cases.


Nhu Lan
66 Ham Nghi, Ho Chi Minh City


Anyone know what's the deal with the Star of David?


Cucumbers, ham, tomato, onions, mayo, and spicy peppers

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Destination Vietnam #2: Pho 24

I learned much about myself on this trip to South East Asia. For one thing, I discovered that my personality is just not the backpacking type. On my travels, my friends and I continually encountered teachers, social workers, students, and other free spirits (read: unemployed), youth touring countries on one-way tickets. They showed a bravery of risk, roaming with no set plans, waking up at three in the afternoon. Nope, that kind of guideless meandering isn't for me. Just open my Lonely Planet and point me towards the nearest recommended restaurant.

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As far as I could tell, Pho 24 is the largest pho chain in Vietnam. With locations scattered throughout Hanoi and Saigon, it's difficult to explore either of the large cities without running into the green neon sign of glowing bowl and chopsticks. Due to my experience in the States, I was completely accustomed to eating my pho in numerically distinguishable restaurants.

I'll save a big lesson on what pho actually is. Suffice it to say, these noodles have become so common that even those with a cursory exposure to Vietnamese food is familiar with pho. I will make a note on pronounciation though. Pho is easiest pronounced as an approximation of "fuh" rather than "fo" as in "photo."


I tried the pho bo, the most common beef broth pictured above. Impressions? It really is reminiscent of the pho available in the US. I really couldn't distinguish any major differences in flavors. Even the plate of accoutrements consisted of familiar items. I've heard that the difference between Northern and Southern pho is in the purity of the broth in the North. What's purity to one palate, may be blandness to another. However, I couldn't tell any big differences between North and South to be honest.


On another occasion I also tried the pho ga, chicken broth pho. This was actually my first encounter with chicken noodles. I can easily say that my preference is bovine. Pho ga has a much lighter flavor, not really what I look for in pho.

Of course, as a chain, Pho 24 has all the benefits and all the drawbacks of a franchise. Each one I encountered were clean, had an English menu, and helpfully trained staff. There is certainly consistency bowl by bowl. In exchange, you pay a premium compared to the street. Is it worth the extra cost for some comfort and peace of mind? Depending on the circumstances, I'd say so. Just don't rely only on chains for your food experience.

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Destination Vietnam #1: Quán Ăn Ngon

My tres amigos and I finished up our four-day adventure in Hong Kong without any major hitches. We had a great time exploring the sites, but we spent more time visiting the tailor for custom-made suits than looking for food. I was determined to change that for Vietnam and Thailand.

Following a personal recommendation from Wandering Chopsticks and additionally reinforced by a encouragement from a local Vietnamese guide, we ate lunch at Quán Ăn Ngon in Saigon/Ho Chi Min City. It's easy to find for the tourists as well, just look across the street from this building:

The Reunification Palace

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According to the Gastonomer, the Quán Ăn Ngon restaurant's appeal is that the owner had "scoured the streets of Saigon and recruited the best cooks in town to prepare their own dishes." A collection of Vietnamese street food made accessible to tourists by English menus and friendly staff? This was the perfect place for my first official meal in the country (besides the instant ramen and chả giò fried spring rolls that we received in our hostel).


The interior of the restaurant is surrounded by grill pits

If the owner indeed had scouted out every street offering in the city, he sure was thorough. The menu was page after page of Vietnamese dishes that aren't really pronounced like you think they are. I learned that the hard way after repeatedly being mistaken as Vietnamese during the trip. A little overwhelmed, I chose a few familiar dishes such as the bánh xèo shrimp crepe, bún chả vermicelli with pork balls and fish sauce, and the gỏi cuốn salad rolls of shrimp and pork. Each of the initial dishes were much more flavorful than I was used to in the US, but they were still simple foods. Most of ingredients were familiar for Westminster or Garden Grove, but tasted fresher. Perhaps it was delusional on my part. Perhaps I just wanted to believe it was better. But it tasted pretty similarly to things I've had before.


bánh xèo shrimp crepe

gỏi cuốn salad rolls

I had constantly heard that having salads or other uncooked foods would be dangerous in Vietnam. But if I can't eat gỏi đu đủ tai heo papaya salad with fried pork ears in Quán Ăn Ngon, then I'd probably wouldn't be able to eat it anywhere else. Eventually, I did get sick eating at another restaurant in Hanoi, but that's a much more sinister story for later on...


bánh chuõi nướng banana "cake"

For dessert, I was much more adventurous in ordering the chè hạt sen lotus seed sweet soup which turned out to be more of a ice cold beverage in a tall glass than a soup. It was refreshing though, with a very subtle sweetness. In fact, the che chuoi banana soup turned out to be more like a soup than the chè hạt sen. It had the consistency of Chinese tapioca desserts.

For the convenience of collecting all these varieties of street food, you certainly pay a premium. But if you were like me, just starting out in an alien land and eager to try something a little more familiar, Quán Ăn Ngon is hard to beat.

Quán Ăn Ngon
138 Nam Ky Khoi Nghia Street
(across the street from the Reunification Palace)
District 1, Ho Chi Minh City

(By the way, it takes an excruciating amount of effort to type all the Vietnamese accents and grammar marks)

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Walking through the Slanted Door to Vietnam

Pending my trip to Southeast Asia, I thought it would be intriguing to compare high-end San Francisco Vietnamese food with the street food I'd enjoy on the street of Saigon and Hanoi. Now that I'm back from my trip, I can give a fair comparative review of The Slanted Door.

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The meal started with an offering from the raw bar. Although the oysters, kampachi, and Japanese Yellowtail with crispy shallots and Thai basil (pictured above), didn't seem like Vietnamese dishes. But I had accepted that prior to walking into this hip San Francisco joint. If anything, the menu tended to have fewer fusion items than I expected. The yellowtail were the best items of the night, though the appeal was still not Vietnamese.


Our more cuisine specific dish came in the form of a banh hoi wrap of sauteed shrimp, parilla leaf, cucumber and vermicelli. My meals and talks with Wandering Chopsticks had given me and introduction to Vietnamese food that doesn't come as rice noodles in a bowl of beef soup. Though messy to eat, each bite tended to spill shrimp all over my plate, the morsels would've been just as good playing center-stage as an entree rather than an appetizer. The five-spice quail with pickled cucumbers had good flavor, but led me to a conclusion about the tiny poultry. Quail in general doesn't have nearly enough meat to be worth the trouble. And in a nice, Western restaurant like this, I wouldn't stick the whole bird into my mouth and pull out the little bones. Confined to a knife and fork, there was too much meat to leave behind to warrant ordering quail again. Contrastingly, in Vietnam, I could pick at the little bird with my fingers and teeth and leave it glistening as though vultures had their way with the carcass.


Catfish claypot, cilantro, ginger, Thai chilies

Hodo Soy Beanery organic lemongrass tofu, shiitake mushrooms, onions, chili sauce
With the first round of courses finished, the entrees came family style. Besides the above two, I also ordered Niman Ranch filet mignon shaking beef with watercress and lime dipping sauce, grass-fed Anderson Ranch lamb sirloin, and cellophane noodles with Dungeness crab. I made sure to include all the adjectives for each dish since Slanted Door prides itself on its fresh and local ingredients. After taking a cooking course in Thailand, I really understood the difference that fresh, quality ingredients make. Though maybe it was too fresh, the catfish felt somewhat sandy. For the luc lac shaking beef, the cubes were too large to be properly marinated. The restaurant may have been trying to showcase their beef by presenting large enough pieces to feel the texture of the meat, but I think it overshot the concept of shaking beef altogether. Neither the noodles nor the lamb sirloin had any distinguishable flavors.


The dessert offerings were impressive, perhaps reflecting a French trained pastry chef. Though there were several Pacific-leaning desserts, I fell for the tray of mignardises. Macarons are always my sweet spot, but the passionfruit gelee had a certain appeal too.

Satisfied with the classy Vietnamese offerings of the States, I ventured off to Asia for some low-end food. Something dirty and cheap. I walked out of the restaurant, full and eager for my adventure. I took a picture of San Francisco to take with me to Hong Kong, Vietnam, and Thailand.


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The Slanted Door
slanteddoor.com
1 Ferry Bldg
San Francisco, 94111
(415) 861-8032
$10-15 appetizers, $15-30 entrees

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De 7 Mon: Seven Courses of...Goat?

Westminster--ground zero for Little Saigon. Forget the filet mignon pho, when I'm here, I want the gritty cheap food. I want the restaurant that doesn't have English translations for its dishes. I want to be served a bucket of ice and frozen mugs when I bring in my own beer. What I want is Seven Courses of Goat at Binh Dan.

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After my clumsy introduction into Seven Courses of anything Vietnamese with my Bo 7 Mon dinner, I was enthusiastic when Wandering Chopsticks offered me a chance to eat with a Vietnamese professional. Most people have heard of the Seven Courses of Beef or the slightly rarer Seven Courses of Fish, but I've never encountered goat prepared so many ways. However, Binh Dan specializes in goat and mon nhau dishes, simple food meant to be eaten with alcohol. They also source their goat locally from a ranch (farm?) in Riverside.

1. Tiet Canh - Congealed goat blood with liver and peanuts

While the first course was certainly not shocking to me, I wasn't thrilled by it. Contrary to my barbarian instincts, I don't typically like the taste of blood. It generally has that overwhelming iron taste, similar to liver, that I can do without. This plate of blood, eaten with banh trang me, toasted sesame rice paper, had hardly any flavor at all. Given the lack of taste, I could do without the crimson Jell-O.

2-3. De Nuong/De Nuong la lot mo chai - Grilled goat/Goat wrapped in betel leaves and caul fat

These two courses served together were more familiar to me than some of the other dishes. The grilled goat had similar flavors to the common grilled pork chop found in most Vietnamese restaurants. The wrapped goat was similar to one of the Bo 7 Mon courses, though Binh Dan dried out the meat by overcooking it.

4. De ca ri - Goat curry

According to WC, Vietnam has only one type of curry. Go figure. Goat seems to go naturally with curry, probably so the sauce can cut into the gaminess of the animal. I've seen curried goat in a few West Indian cuisines too, notably Jamaican. We ate the curry with plain rice noodles, though I would've preferred rice instead. Picking at the tendons in the bones of the goat in the stew was particularly satisfying.

5. De nhua man - Goat stew

I swear this is not the same dish as the last one. It certainly took me awhile to deduce that I had not accidentally photographed one bowl twice. WC couldn't identify what was in this stew, but I certainly didn't taste the heavy curry of the last dish. The soup was thinner, meant to be drunk, unlike the curry.

6. De tiem thuoc bac - Goat with Chinese herbs

I can't remember this dish too clearly. I'm not a fan of Chinese medicines so I probably didn't have that much of this bowl. It certainly smelled like a Chinese herbal store.

7. De xao lan - Stir-fried goat

As I mentioned before, I think goat is commonly paired with curry to cut down the gaminess; however, the goat at Binh Dan didn't have any strong flavors that would need the curry pairing. This stir-fry preparation reminded me of the dog I ate in China years before I started blogging. Both goat and dog are similar in flavor to pork.

De luc lac - Shaking goat

Done with the seven courses, we nonetheless ordered two more supplemental goat dishes to get even more variety in our meal. I was actually surprised that so many of the 7 courses preparation were soup based. This is a common Vietnamese dish generally made with beef. It's termed "shaking beef" due to the agitation of the wok during the frying process. Served with a saucer of lemon juice, salt and pepper, this was simple and delicious.

De vu nuong - Stir-fried goat udders

At this point I was slightly disappointed that the meat wasn't nearly flavorful enough to stand out as anything besides a half-step above lamb. I wanted something gamey as hell and hearty. Something that couldn't be interchanged with beef and be near indistinguishable. I got my wish with the goat udders. Intensely "goaty" and chewy, I enjoyed picking at this plate. The slightly charred edges gave a pleasant crispy texture while the meat was tough enough to promote proper mastication, but not so much to tire your jaw. Certainly the first time I had goat udders, but knowing how delicious it is, I might just have to search out other animal udders too.

Overall, a unique experience that I could only get in LA/OC. Well, that and Vietnam, where I'm actually planning to go in June. Hopefully, I'll get enough Vietnamese in me by then that I won't be gastronomically lost going from Saigon to Hanoi.

Thanks to WC for inviting me. Check out her experience here.
See what Kevin had to say here.

Binh Dan
10040 McFadden Ave
Westminster, 92683
(714)839-7050
They aren't too amiable to non-Vietnamese, so it might be hard to navigate without an interpreter.
$16.50 pp for 7 courses of goat

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Into the Darkness: Jungle Food Marathon

In the vein of Neil from Food Marathon and Joseph Conrad, nine hardy adventurers took to the concrete jungle of Los Angeles in search of victuals. One day, five stops, four meals, this isn't just a food marathon, it's the Jungle Food Marathon. Fitting with this blog's name, here are five jungle dining destinations along the coast of Los Angeles.

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At the Ford's Secret Pork dinner, Matt of Mattatouille let me in on the upcoming marathon he was planning. This would be my first, something I've been wanting to do for some time. Going with a large group to multiple restaurants in one day would be a great way to experience a multitude of cuisines. During the drive, there was quite a bit of driving, I found a real appreciation for Los Angeles' diversity of cuisines and cultures. As Neil pointed out, we were probably the first people in history to eat Nigerian, Peruvian, Cambodian and Vietnamese food in the same day. I picked up Fiona of Gourmet Pigs in the morning, met up with HC the LA OC Foodie, Javier the Teenage Glutster, Matt of Dig Lounge, Christine and my brother. We hopped in three cars and sped down the 405 for our first stop.


A minor detour took us to Nkechi African Cafe since Saaris was closed. Luckily, Nkechi also served Nigerian cuisine. Personally, I had to be sure that there were jungles in Nigeria before I could count this as a Jungle Marathon stop. Also, I'm sure it would offend someone to just categorize all African cuisine as jungle food. We strolled into the empty restaurant manned by one friendly waiter/cook/everything. We split a bottle of palm wine/juice between the nine of us, since none of us really wanted to drink too early in the day. Also, the beverage tasted somewhat nutty, sour and wheaty, not all that delicious. The first dish of the marathon was jollof rice topped with "mixed meat." It was a rice dish flavored with tomato paste, a few spices, and various fried meats. I may have had a piece of beef. Yes, I'm going to go with beef. The egusi soup was reminiscent of curry in color and slightly in texture. According to Wikipedia, egusi is made with ground melon seeds. On the side was a mound of sticky white yams with the consistency of glue. It made eating with my hands a mess. There were some odd flavors, but nothing too off-putting, unlike the last dish at Nkechi. Oh ogbono soup describable best by Conrad himself: "the horror!" I can easily say that ogbono soup, made from African mango nuts, was the worst thing I've ever put in my mouth, food or otherwise. The smell you get when you brake hard on the freeway, imagine eating those tires cooked with fish topped with a nauseating bleu cheese scent. I gave it a shot, I even tried it a second time. I tried it with and without the eba cassava paste still no luck. For our group of adventurous eaters, this dish will forever be off-limits.

Emu Palm Wine

Jollof Rice with Fried Plantains

Fish Ogbono Soup with Eba



We unanimously agreed that Nigerian food first was a wise choice. If that had been our last stop, we would've been in for a tough time. But since most of the food wasn't particularly palatable, we had plenty of room for the next place--El Rocoto in Gardena. Seeing as how I just returned from Peru a few months ago, refer to my Destination Peru series on the bottom left, I wasn't thrilled to include Peru in the marathon. But I knew firsthand that Peruvian cuisine was delicious, so I didn't mind making this stop at all. The ceviche mixto, while not as magnificent as the one I had in Lima, still had all the right components. The tart lime juice balanced out the brine of the whitefish, shrimp and squid. Raw red onions cut through the other flavors. The seco de cordero, lamb cilantro stew, had all the deep, hearty flavors of a mature animal. I love the flavor of lamb, and especially in a stew like this, the natural gaminess of the meat must come through. I'm always disappointed when the lamb tastes indistinguishable from beef, no matter how tender. I noticed that lamb and cilantro is also a common combination in Chinese cooking; I wonder if there was some Chinese influence for this dish or if those ingredients just naturally go so well together. I'm not a fan of tripe, so I didn't like the cau cau tripe casserole, though I know it is a common Peruvian dish. Our pollo enrollado and saltado de mariscos had similar flavors due to the liberal use of oyster sauce. Peru's got its share of decent Chinese food and these two were no exception. A special mention goes out to the aji rojo and aji verde made with jalepeños and the green sauce with mayonnaise. Both were amazing on top of bread, on top of everything really.

Ceviche Mixto

Seco de Cordero and Cau Cau

Pollo Enrollado



Rolling off Peruvian, we headed to Long Beach where apparently a sizable Cambodian population lives. Our destination was Siem Reap, a self-proclaimed "world famous" restaurant. I don't know if it's just a coincidence, but the old Cambodian restaurant in my hometown also had a dance floor and karaoke like this place. It seems as if many Cambodian restaurants double as banquet halls for your Cambodian wedding or drunken Dhoom Dhoom sing-along. The fish salad with bitter sadao leaves tasted exactly as named, fishy and bitter. The leaves were crumbled and impossible to remove, so I assume they are critical for the salad's integrity. Our lok lak came in beef, not the deer we had hoped to try. Although it was served with lemon juice, salt and pepper, the beef cubes had enough flavor themselves without the sauce. The hot and sour fish soup had familiar Chinese and Filipino flavors. It tasted like a cross between some of the Chinese vegetable soups I've had at home and Filipino sinigang. The French style tender beef and anchovy salad displayed some French influences, similar to Vietnamese cuisine and had Cambodian olives. The fish paste wasn't thick enough; it smelled like feet, and didn't taste much better. I liked the ground pork curry the most. Though it appeared thin, it had an amazing amount of depth in flavor similar to Thai curries. As a group, we had a minor mix-up with a durian and jackfruit shake the included a moment when everyone thought they overcame durian's rancidity and became spiky, smelly, fruit lovers.

Fish salad with bitter sadao leaves

Ground Pork Curry

Fish Paste



By now, the sun was setting over our last meal stop, Quan Hop, an upscale Vietnamese restaurant in Little Saigon. Usually, my Vietnamese food is pho and banh mi, nothing more than $6-7. Quan Hop is a different experience--clean, comfortable and relatively expensive. In a market like Westminster and Garden Grove, they occupy a sweet niche of "high-end" dining. Matt and Christine had been here before, so they offered their recommendations, including the banh beo rice cakes and banh it ram potstickers. Though the banh it ram was listed as potstickers on the menu, they were much odder, consisting of a fried ball and topped with rice paste. They were delicious none the less. The banh beo reminded me of Chinese rice noodles served at dim sum with slightly sweet soy sauce. Encouraged by the jackfruit shake at Siem Reap, we ordered a jackfruit salad. This was my first experience with banh hoi thit nuong, thinly sliced sheets of vermicelli noodles with grilled pork. The flavors were familiar Vietnamese, but I've never seen this presentation. We finished with goi cuon nem lui shrimp paste spring rolls.

Banh beo

Banh it ram

Jackfruit Salad

Shrimp Paste Spring Rolls


Filled with food, we needed something refreshing and sweet. It wasn't the quantity of food that bothered me; we had just been eating for six hours. When your stomach's been digesting for so long, your entire body get exhausted. We drove a few blocks down to Nuoc Mia Vien Tay market for freshly squeezed sugarcane juice with kumquats. It tasted too sweet for me, but had a pleasant tangerine flavor.

Driving back from such a long day of eating, I was more spiritually satisfied than bodily. Some of the food had been above par, but many others weren't too appetizing. That didn't deter me though, the adventure had been well worth it. I came back out of the jungle a little more worldly, and a lot more full.

Nkechi African Cafe
2717 W Manchester Blvd
Inglewood, 90305
(323) 541-1265
$7 per person

El Rocoto
1356 W Artesia Blvd
Gardena, 90248
(310) 768-8768
$8 per person

Siem Reap
1810 E Anaheim St
Long Beach, 90813
(562) 591-7414
$11 per person plus $4 drink

Quan Hop
15640 Brookhurst St
Westminster, CA 92683
(714) 689-0555
$7 per person

Nuoc Mia Vien Tay
14370 Brookhurst St
Garden Grove, CA 92842
(714) 531-9801
$2.75 small drink

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