Banh Cuon Hoa II in Bellaire
If I had to pick one Vietnamese dish made from rice flour and eat it everyday for the rest of my life (whole grain white rice doesn’t count), then bánh cuốn would be it. These rolls of thin rice sheet, filled with minced pork and woodear mushroom, gently dipped in nước mắm, make the perfect warm breakfast, light lunch, and quirky dinner. The question is where to find them. Bánh Cuốn Tây Hồ tops the chart everywhere from Texas to Cali, but does Bánh Cuốn Hoa II come close? Maybe rival? Miss by a long shot?
I cheated a bit at the beginning. The first picture isn’t bánh cuốn, but bánh bèo, a rice flour spinoff drafted in the shape and size of waterferns, hence its name. Flooded with nước mắm, they make great appetizers while we were waiting for bánh cuốn.
Bánh bèo comes with a few toppings: fried shallot, chopped green onions, and tôm chấy (dry fried shrimp). The tôm chấy I usually have are totally desiccant, ranging anywhere between flaky and powdery, but these (I’m guessing homemade) shrimps are still plump, and more sweet than salty. It’s not a bad twist from the usual though. The flour part is a bit tired, they broke easily into pieces the moment my chopsticks pinched them. Bánh Hỏi Châu Đốc does it better.
Because it is very hard to go wrong with grilled meat, it’s always safe to get bún thịt nướng on first try at a new restaurant, also a friendly choice for those who have not had Vietnamese cooking before, want to try, but are still cautious. There’s no weird stuff, just rice noodle, crushed peanuts, vegetable and honest grilled pork. Nước mắm seasoned with a tidbit chili paste, a lot of sugar, and a squeeze of lemon juice would spike the taste to infinite pleasure. Bánh Cuốn Hoa II nailed it with a supertender juicy marinated pork.
As much as my dad is a fan of grilled meat, my mom is loyal to noodle soups. She ordered bún măng vịt (vermicelli soup with duck and bamboo shoot), which actually comes in two parts: the duck salad (gỏi vịt) and the bamboo shoot soup (bún măng) with no duck. Dunk the duck into the soup and you get duck soup :-).
The broth is quite pure and slender, free of fatty bubbles floating on the surface, not as heavily seasoned as pho or hu tiu broth, simply refreshing. As for the bamboo shoots, there were both the fresh kind and the re-hydrated dried kind. The dried kind is a tad firmer and more squid-like than the fresh kind. A lovely texture. Boiled duck is also very tender and flavorful.
Bánh Cuốn Hoa II has a pretty clean look. Varnished wooden chairs and tables, high ceiling, humble paintings of Vietnamese countryside sceneries on the walls. I took a peek into their kitchen to capture the banh cuon production line.
Clockwise from bottom left: 1. stirring the liquid batter (rice flour with water); 2. spreading a laddle of batter on a hot flat surface; 3. making a roll; 4. 3 kinds of final products: normal bánh cuốn (with minced pork and mushroom), bánh cuốn tôm chấy (dry fried shrimp), and bánh cuốn thịt nướng (grilled pork).
The lady was just too fast for my camera, I missed capturing the crucial step where she gently used a long chopstick to take the thin rice veil off the cooking surface and whip it aside for the rolling chef.
So here it is, the restaurant’s signature plate: bánh cuốn topped with cha lua, bean sprouts, greens, and fried shallots. The filling is good. The sheet is thin and not oily. But the flour has a sour hint. Bánh Cuốn Tây Hồ is still the champion of bánh cuốn.
Price: a very reasonable lunch for 3:
1 bánh bèo + 1 bún thịt nướng + 1 bún măng vịt + 1 bánh cuốn = $24.57
Address: Banh cuon Hoa II
11169 Beechnut St. #K
Houston, TX 77072
Take a look at RavenousCouple’s recipe for bún măng vịt, it’s my new fav noodle soup.
Update: the amazing pictures and recipe for homemade banh cuon, also from RavenousCouple.
Some truly interesting information, well written and generally user genial.
1Your place is valueble for me. Thanks!…
2I really like your blog.. very nice colors & theme. Did you make this website yourself or did you hire someone to do it for you? Plz respond as I’m looking to construct my own blog and would like to find out where u got this from. many thanks
3Howdy! This is my 1st comment here so I just wanted to give a quick shout out and tell you I genuinely enjoy reading your articles. Can you suggest any other blogs/websites/forums that cover the same topics? Thanks for your time!
4Do you mind if I quote a few of your posts as long as I provide credit and sources back to your blog? My website is in the very same area of interest as yours and my users would genuinely benefit from a lot of the information you present here. Please let me know if this okay with you. Regards!
5Greetings! Very helpful advice on this article! It is the little changes that make the biggest changes. Thanks a lot for sharing!
6Respect to post author, some good selective information.
7Does your blog have a contact page? I’m having a tough time locating it but, I’d like to shoot you an email. I’ve got some recommendations for your blog you might be interested in hearing. Either way, great website and I look forward to seeing it improve over time.
8great post, very informative. I wonder why the opposite experts of this sector don’t notice this. You must continue your writing. I am confident, you’ve a great readers’ base already!
9This really answered my problem, thank you!
10I will right away clutch your rss as I can’t find your email subscription link or newsletter service. Do you have any? Kindly permit me realize so that I could subscribe. Thanks.
11Hello There. I discovered your weblog the usage of msn. This is a really smartly written article. I will make sure to bookmark it and come back to learn more of your useful information. Thank you for the post. I will definitely return.
12Aw, this was a really nice post. In concept I want to put in writing like this additionally – taking time and actual effort to make a very good article… however what can I say… I procrastinate alot and by no means appear to get one thing done.
13You are my aspiration, I have few web logs and infrequently run out from to brand : (.
14Do you mind if I quote a few of your posts as long as I provide credit and sources back to your weblog? My blog site is in the exact same niche as yours and my users would definitely benefit from a lot of the information you provide here. Please let me know if this ok with you. Cheers!
15The next time I read a blog, I hope that it doesnt disappoint me as much as this one. I mean, I know it was my choice to read, but I actually thought youd have something interesting to say. All I hear is a bunch of whining about something that you could fix if you werent too busy looking for attention.
16Hey very cool website!! Man .. Beautiful .. Amazing .. I’ll bookmark your website and take the feeds also…I’m happy to find a lot of useful info here in the post, we need work out more strategies in this regard, thanks for sharing. . . . . .
17The following time I read a blog, I hope that it doesnt disappoint me as much as this one. I mean, I know it was my option to read, however I actually thought youd have something fascinating to say. All I hear is a bunch of whining about one thing that you can repair in the event you werent too busy searching for attention.
18Exactly what I was looking for, regards for putting up.
19F*ckin’ amazing issues here. I’m very glad to look your article. Thanks so much and i am having a look forward to touch you. Will you kindly drop me a mail?
20Utterly written content, regards for entropy. “Life is God’s novel. Let him write it.” by Isaac Bashevis Singer.
21The subsequent time I read a weblog, I hope that it doesnt disappoint me as much as this one. I imply, I do know it was my option to read, however I actually thought youd have something fascinating to say. All I hear is a bunch of whining about one thing that you could fix in the event you werent too busy on the lookout for attention.
22Do you mind if I quote a couple of your articles as long as I provide credit and sources back to your webpage? My blog is in the exact same niche as yours and my visitors would truly benefit from some of the information you present here. Please let me know if this okay with you. Thank you!
23Way cool, some valid points! I appreciate you making this article available, the rest of the site is also high quality. Have a fun.
24Great wordpress blog here.. It’s hard to find quality writing like yours these days. I really appreciate people like you! take care
25It’s exhausting to seek out knowledgeable individuals on this subject, however you sound like you know what you’re speaking about! Thanks
26of course like your web-site however you have to take a look at the spelling on quite a few of your posts. A number of them are rife with spelling problems and I in finding it very bothersome to inform the reality on the other hand I will certainly come back again.
27Great write-up, I’m normal visitor of one’s site, maintain up the nice operate, and It is going to be a regular visitor for a long time.
28I do agree with all the ideas you have presented in your post. They are very convincing and will certainly work. Still, the posts are very short for starters. Could you please extend them a little from next time? Thanks for the post.
29Usually I don’t read post on blogs, but I would like to say that this write-up very forced me to try and do so! Your writing style has been amazed me. Thanks, very nice post.
30F*ckin’ remarkable things here. I am very glad to see your article. Thanks a lot and i am looking forward to contact you. Will you kindly drop me a e-mail?
31Howdy! This is my first visit to your blog! We are a team of volunteers and starting a new project in a community in the same niche. Your blog provided us beneficial information to work on. You have done a outstanding job!
32I got what you mean , thanks for posting.Woh I am delighted to find this website through google.
33great issues altogether, you simply gained a logo new reader. What may you suggest about your put up that you just made some days in the past? Any positive?
34Thanks for another great post. The place else may anyone get that kind of info in such a perfect approach of writing? I’ve a presentation next week, and I’m on the search for such information.
35I am pleased that I noticed this site, precisely the right information that I was looking for! .
36Super-Duper website! I am loving it!! Will be back later to read some more. I am bookmarking your feeds also
37In this great pattern of things you get an A+ with regard to effort and hard work. Where you lost me personally ended up being on your particulars. As they say, details make or break the argument.. And that could not be more correct in this article. Having said that, allow me say to you what did deliver the results. The writing can be incredibly persuasive and that is possibly why I am making the effort to comment. I do not really make it a regular habit of doing that. Second, despite the fact that I can easily see the jumps in reason you come up with, I am definitely not confident of exactly how you appear to unite your points that make the actual final result. For the moment I shall subscribe to your point but hope in the near future you actually link your dots much better.
38I enjoy you because of all of the work on this web site. My niece really loves going through investigations and it’s really easy to understand why. A number of us notice all about the lively form you create worthwhile solutions by means of your web site and recommend response from other people on that theme plus my princess is really becoming educated a whole lot. Take advantage of the rest of the year. You’re doing a useful job.
39Write more, thats all I have to say. Literally, it seems as though you relied on the video to make your point. You obviously know what youre talking about, why waste your intelligence on just posting videos to your weblog when you could be giving us something enlightening to read?
40Some genuinely wonderful info , Glad I detected this.
41Valuable information. Lucky me I found your web site by accident, and I am shocked why this accident did not happened earlier! I bookmarked it.
42I just couldn’t depart your site prior to suggesting that I extremely enjoyed the standard information a person provide for your visitors? Is gonna be back often in order to check up on new posts
43I got what you intend, thanks for putting up.Woh I am happy to find this website through google. “I would rather be a coward than brave because people hurt you when you are brave.” by E. M. Forster.
44Very interesting subject, thanks for putting up. “He who seizes the right moment is the right man.” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
45We are a group of volunteers and starting a new scheme in our community. Your web site provided us with valuable information to work on. You have done an impressive job and our entire community will be thankful to you.
46Nice read, I just passed this onto a colleague who was doing some research on that. And he just bought me lunch as I found it for him smile Thus let me rephrase that: Thanks for lunch! “By nature, men are nearly alike by practice, they get to be wide apart.” by Confucius.
47Very interesting topic, regards for putting up.
48I’m curious to find out what blog system you’re working with? I’m experiencing some small security issues with my latest website and I would like to find something more risk-free. Do you have any suggestions?
49I like what you guys are up too. Such intelligent work and reporting! Carry on the excellent works guys I have incorporated you guys to my blogroll. I think it’ll improve the value of my web site 🙂
50