Tuesday, 25 August 2009

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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Sunday, 16 August 2009

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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Thursday, 13 August 2009

Destination Hong Kong #2: Cafe de Coral


It looks like there may only be two Destination Hong Kong posts for now. I realized that my time spent in Hong Kong was spent eating at few memorable places, but the chains we frequented were worth mentioning. My dad had been telling me about HK style Chinese fast food for years, and I made sure I got my fill during my trip. Sure, we went to a Fairwood, but the crown of HK fast food is still Cafe de Coral.

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Badly translated as "everybody happy," Cafe de Coral has been a mainstay of Hong Kong for the last forty years. What started as a single restaurant has ballooned to over a hundred franchises within Hong Kong, 24 locations in Mainland China, and eleven other brands totaling more than 500 restaurants. While it might be near impossible to stay in Hong Kong and not see a Cafe de Coral, you might also encounter one of its subsidiaries such as Spaghetti House or Oliver's Super Sandwiches.


Although Hong Kong is now somewhat part of China once again, the local cuisine is much more an amalgam of global influence than purely Cantonese. In part, Victoria Harbor's influx of trade brought influences from Portuguese, Indian, Southeast Asian, and we can't forget the fast food component from America. Therefore, characterize the Cafe de Coral as Western-Chinese, rather than just Cantonese. For the same cost of a regrettable croissanwich and hashbrown at the airport Burger King, I could get a pork chop rice, black bean spare ribs, barbecue plate, or simply a delicious fried rice.



Despite the convenience, price, and general cleanliness of most of the modern stores, Cafe de Coral is still fast food. There is much better Chinese food around town at most local restaurants, but be on the lookout for this famous chain.

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Friday, 31 July 2009

Destination Hong Kong #1: Hui Lau Shan's Mango Pudding



Arriving in Hong Kong at six in the morning, of course my first meal was an early dim sum near my aunt's house in Ho Man Ting. However, as with most meals on my month-long trek, I would be sharing with too many people to impose my food photography on them. Therefore, I neglected to document my dim sum experience, which if you're in Hong Kong, is certainly a must. I'd say aim for the dishes that you don't see in America, but even the Occidental stand-bys are outstanding. I did however, capture my first Hui Lau Shan trip.

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Hui Lau Shan is a major dessert chain throughout Hong Kong. There's even a location in San Francisco stateside where it's named Creations Dessert House. But it's readily identifiable by the three golden words hanging over its door. In Hong Kong, you'll see them as commonly as Jamba Juices here. Enter any of them and you're greeted with a myriad of mango mixtures, but I wanted to try the pudding as original as it came.



My friend who spoke Cantonese actually ordered the pudding. We were a group of five people, but the cashier only suggested two orders. I figured with the diminutive sizes of Asian dishes, two may not be enough. After a ten minute wait, we realized that the gigantic saucers of golden agar would be more than enough. About 8 inches in diameter, 2 inches thick, and weighing a pound each, the mango pudding is certainly a meant to be shared. Though I suspect there is a smaller order for one.

Since we were in the Causeway Bay area of Hong Kong island, we walked to the Times Square Mall and sat in the food court. There, I poured on the condensed milk, a dessert ingredient we'd encounter many more times before this trip was over.



I was already expecting much before my first spoonful. Seeing the mango crates outside the store, I knew that they used fresh mangoes in their desserts. And looking at their menu, mangoes are what they do best. Most of the puddings, ice creams, drinks and other concoctions contain mango in some form, often fresh. A key element that I saw all over Asia, is that the mangoes they use are the yellow, slightly tapered mangoes. Avoid the large green and splotchy red ones, as those tend to have less flavor. I've heard the yellow ones have shorter shelf-lives, making them less marketable. You'll find them commonly in Asian or Hispanic market. I've bought a crate of them before off a Latino guy on the street. My experience is that American grocers tend to only stock the hardy green ones. Besides that little description, I can only point you to Wikipedia for a full list of mango cultivars.

Next time you're in Hong Kong, be sure to look for those three golden words. They'll guide you to dessert heaven.

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Monday, 27 July 2009

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

Wednesday, 22 July 2009

Index of Posts

Destination Eats

Los Angeles
New York

Scottsdale Reviews

Destination Peru Series


Destination Southeast Asia


Other Destinations
Slanted Door (San Francisco)
BC Deli (Oakland)
Chez Panisse (Berkeley)
Grand Canyon Eats (Williams, AZ)
Lotus of Siam (Los Vegas)
Plumed Horse (Saratoga, CA)


Eating Manifestos


Cooking and Recipes

Book Reviews
The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan
Fortune Cookie Chronicles by Jennifer 8 Lee


Food Events

Tuesday, 21 July 2009

Los Angeles Restaurant Reviews by Region