Flavor Boulevard

Category: savory snacks

  • Bánh dầy giò – sticky rice bun with sausage

      banh day 3
      It’s just a white bun made from sticky rice, loosely wrapped in banana leaf so that it doesn’t attach indefinitely to your fingers, ready to sandwich a thick cut of cha lua. The purpose of the bun is purely a textural enjoyment, it has neither taste nor smell. All flavors come from the sausage. Eating the bun alone would be like chewing an incredibly huge piece of gum, the only difference is you can swallow the bun. Come to think of it, we can make a bunch of bite size sticky rice “gum” for American school kids, they can chew until they’re bored, and swallow it, no unfortunate mess under the desks and your shoes. Cool, innit?

      Because of either its simplicity or its antiqueness, the bánh dầy is not quite a favorable snack among the young Vietnamese these days. Or perhaps because it is a treat from the North? Southerners have a sweet tooth and are attracted to fatty, rich, flavor-compact concoctions. Bánh dầy is none of that. When I was in Saigon I knew of bánh dầy through three sources: the extremely common tale of bánh chưng bánh dầy, the book “Hanoi 36 streets” by Thạch Lam, and the tiny buns filled with bean paste (bánh dầy đậu) Little Mother got for me from Ngọc Sáng bakery in District 1. Another case of cross cultural similarity: compare the banh day dau with the Japanese daifuku: the sticky rice coat is exactly like mochi, the mung bean filling is salty while daifuku’s filling is sweetened.

      banh day 4

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    • 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.

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      • Roasted quail at Thảo Tiên

          roasted_quail_chim-cut-roti
          It must have been at least 4 months since we last went to Thao Tien, and I’ve been telling myself to blog about this place ever since, but for some reason every record of our visit had mysteriously disappeared. Did I not take picture? What happened to the receipt? I have no idea. But the amazing taste of roasted quails haunts me in my sleep. We just had to go back to take pictures again, and it’s only appropriate to complete this last hour of the Ox year with the best of birdies.

          Thao Tien actually specializes in hủ tíu, a noodle soup with slightly sweet broth, chewy noodle, fried shallot, usually accompanied by pork and shrimp (I blogged about it before at Bún Bò Huế Cố Đô). With the southern Vietnamese theme, the house not only has their waiters dress in áo bà ba but also extends its menu to include the less commonly seen savories like chim cút rô-ti (roasted quail) and cá kèo kho tiêu (a kind of freshwater fish – the “elongate mudskipper“, if you absolutely must know – simmered in fish sauce and caramel sauce much like cá kho tộ, but with a lot of black pepper for kicks). Among the daily specials, Mudpie was excited about the ca keo kho tieu, but unfortunately it was only served for dinner that day. Still, the quails are up for grab anytime, and expensive as they were ($7.95 for 2 birds), we drove 50 miles here just for them.

          The birds, split and stretched, were just as long as my hand from nail to wrist. Their plump breasts and legs rival those of a frog, no fat, just honest meat and thin crispy skin. The marinade seeped through every strand of muscle in that  vibrant little body. Lemon and salt pepper mix came with them, but was unnecessary, the birds needed no aid to taste good. The moment we grabbed them, our fingers got busy tearing them apart, and our eyes focused on getting every scrap off the bones. Table manners we lost, vicious  beasts we became. And the aftermath:

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        • Anzu revisited

            Anzu_Berkeley_interiorAlthough we try to be objective, numerous factors always manage to skew our view in one way or another. Surely there are objective facts, like the restaurant is small or the fries are spicy, but generally the taste can be affected by the conversation of a nearby dining couple, the window seats looking out to a blazing sun, an unusual day at work, or sometimes just the unwillingness to compliment. The mood makes the food. My mood wasn’t particularly bad last time I was at Anzu, but it was particularly good this time I was there, as we were seated in this half-hidden corner. The bamboo curtain half obscured the view, the brown and green room was half sedative. The oksusu cha was half surprising, but fully pleasant.


            We didn’t expect to be seated in such nice seclusion, nor did we anticipate an appetizer. But now that it came, two small cubes of fried tofu with honey,we seemed to recall that last time they also gave us something small for taste opening – a couple of gyozas it was. The tofu beats the gyoza. A thin crunchy crust contrasts yet complements the soft-almost-to-creamy inside, same with the bean blandness and the honey sweetness. Tofu can really do wonders sometimes.


            For the main course, Anzu offers some good deals with combinations, such as a bento-box meal – like what we ordered last time – or the sushi-udon pair which we got today. The sushi comes in a full roll (6 pieces), with thinly sliced ginger and wasabi for kicks. But really, you don’t need kicks with California rolls, the nori’s salty streaks and avocado’s buttery dollop suffice. I also believe that what we have here was real crab meat, not surimi, because it wasn’t rubbery. It was good.

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          • Little big hits

              It was 7 PM in Houston. Cold winds crept up the rustling trees. We were in the mood for kolaches. No kolache store was opened. (I would be surprised if I could even find some right after noon, it’s usually sold out by 9 AM at any local Shipley Donuts.) Desperate as we were for something small and meaty, we pulled into this backyard parking lot on a dark little street of Montrose. The name is cute, but… “Go Horns”?!*

              A few years ago I would have shy away from any place resembling a shady, fuming pub with TV screens blasting out a football game, hoards of muscles with beer in one hand, cigarette in the other, and a gigantic burger streaming cheese and lard in front of the mouth. That’s what Little Big’s looks like from the outside. But the patio was empty. And so were our tummies.

              Inside, it was a tamed ambience with three or four rows of long tables and high stools. It has a TV, and football was on, but no attentive enthusiasts screaming at the screen or banging mugs on the table. There was little room between the door and the counter to stand looking at the overhead menu, but luckily we had an expert of the area with us to quickly order and moved out of the way. Everyone walking in here seemed to know exactly what they were hungry for. Not that there are much to choose from on the card.

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            • Mid autumn and the moon cake


                That time of the year has come. Time for the first midterm exam of the undergraduates, and the first exam-grading party of the graduate students. Time for looking back and asking what have I been doing since school started, beside avoiding my advisor for fear of his question “how is the research going?”. Time for kids to buy lanterns, if you’re in Vietnam, and for adults to return home, if you’re in Korea. Time for Walmart, Michael’s, Kroger and the gang to pull out a full display of Halloween and Thanksgiving colors. Time for Asian expats to savour their mooncakes.


                It isn’t called “mooncake” for no reason. There’s a moon inside the cake. A bright deep yellow egg yolk, salted to perfection. I always eat this last, putting the whole ball in my mouth and slowly eroding it away. The background of the “moon” can be anything, from assorted nuts and lap cheong to sweetened bean paste. Kinh Do churned out the green tea version (nonexistent in Saigon when I was there 5 years ago). Talk about 2-in-1 convenience, now you don’t have to drink tea while eating mooncakes anymore.

                Some prefer the crust to the ubersugary filling. I’m one of them. So they make the dough into shapes of little piglets. My officemate and I laughed so hard the other day when we found out that both the Singaporeans and the Vietnamese do that, although in different ways. Vietnamese people have the baby pigs surrounding a mommy pig, herself a big mooncake with all the stuffing and egg yolks inside. The Singaporeans make it easy for kids to take their piggy around:

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              • Cha lua kimbap

                  3 cups of rice, 3/4 lbs cha lua, 1.25 cucumbers, 3 avocados. Made 10 fat rolls of kimbap. We used long grained rice because we didn’t want to bother buying short grains, giving the rice a little more water than what the cooker says, and it’s sticky, but gotta roll quickly or the rice would dry out, perhaps in hindsight short grain would do the job better? Seasoning the rice calls for sugar, salt, and vinegar, but ubercmuc detests the taste of vinegar, hence water substituted. Inadvertently, my rolls deviate from Maangchi’s by a great distance.

                  Cha lua (also labelled giò lụa) was bought at a local Vietnamese shop in Little Saigon, hot and fresh from the steamer. Don’t buy those frozen things at the Asian supermarkets, who knows how long they’ve been there. I cut up the cha lua and boiled the slices to lessen the nuoc-mam flavor (which is only a wisp to begin with). It is a much better meaty core than crab stick.

                  We weren’t sure if we got nori or kim, the sheets are green instead of black, salty, and have a noticable taste of the sea. A 27cm x 27cm sushi mat was well sufficient. We have yet to master the art of slicing a roll of rice, stuffing, and seaweed without breaking them apart, but I found that a cling-wrapped, refrigerated roll, microwaved for 2 minutes, then cut with a wet knife, turned out to be much more beautiful than those cut fresh or cold. Microwaved kimbap also tastes as good as new, at least to a foreign mouth.

                • On the subject of the skillet

                    1. This is real, homemade chả giò – fried rolls of ground pork, shrimp, carrots, and jicama wrapped in rice paper (not the stuff made with thick yellow sheets called “egg roll” in restaurants). These won’t make the cut for a roll beauty contest, the grease will probably fatten your blood clots, but to me they’re worth a few years of life. I like them freshly fried and crunchy, I like them microwaved and chewy, and I like them cold, too. My mom makes supersized cha gio, five little piglets and you’ll lie flat on your back rubbing your tummy.

                    2. Fried wonton: here’s where the yellow flour sheet comes on stage to be a wrapper. Same stuffing as the cha gio, different shape, different texture. They make great bite-sized snack, both by themselves and wrapped in lettuce. Yay for more fat. But remember, Asians are skinny, so what to be afraid?

                  • Sizzling crepe


                      It’s been a while, I know. One time I asked my advisor about his hobby, his reply was “I used to read a lot when I was an undergrad, but now I just don’t have time anymore, all hobbies are gone.” He went on warning that I should devote some time to my hobbies now while I still can, because graduate school and later business (such as postdoctoral positions, if I can get some) will devour all of my time (and probably my soul, but he didn’t say that). Well, guess what, I don’t even have time now. On the positive side, you don’t get to sleep much, so it’s unlikely that you would have insomnia.

                      But sometimes you would wish you had insomnia. Now that the tests have receded and won’t come back for some time, I can (and must) stay up late for homework. So I just had a refill of energy, which at the time seemed light and even not enough, but is now weighing down on me with such concentration, unfortunately in the stomach and not in my head. It would make a great weightwatcher meal. Guess, anyone? It’s a Vietnamese pancake, i.e. banh xeo.

                      Recall that we’ve had several posts of banh before, it is no surprise that this one is also made of flour (rice, in this case). Here’s a quick list of ingredients my mom uses:
                      – prepackaged flour to make banh xeo (sold at Asian markets),
                      – soy milk (to dissolve the flour),
                      – ground pork (to be browned)
                      – celery
                      – shrimp
                      – sugar, salt
                      A great and experienced cook herself, she follows no recipe and provides none. The measuring cup doesn’t exist in her kitchen. She seasons the flour-soy milk mix, so that one doesn’t need to eat her banh xeo with any form of sauce. You won’t find this sauce-free business in any banh xeo shack you ever drop by, simply because traditionally people wrap their banh xeo in a huge lettuce leaf, roll it up, dip into nuoc mam pha, and somehow manage to put the busy bunch into their mouth. (A regular banh xeo is about 20cm (7 inches) in diameter.) They do it utensil-free. If soy milk makes one shudder, reason of which is a mystery to me, then one can use cow milk (whatever percent), coconut milk, or water. Likewise celery can be replaced by bean sprout or some form of long crunchy veggie (or no veggie?). Do away with the shrimp and pork if you’re a vegetarian, and go tofu. Basically, do what you like. As long as you throw the stuff into a hot skillet, pour a ladle of batter, and hear a sizzling sound (a “xeo!“, hence the name), you’ve got a pancake. A liberal, easy going pancake.

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                    • Eat banh it


                        It’s a very simple name: banh it (it literally means “few” or “a little”, banh in Vietnamese is a term used for anything made of any kind of flour, in any shape and size, cooked in any way imaginable, so “cake,” “pastry”, “pie,” “bread,” and similar terms are not equivalent translations, in fact I’m still looking for a correct corresponding term). I digress. This banh it we got from Gio Cha Duc Huong (Bellaire Blvd, Houston) has a pyramid shape, similar to the ones I’d had in Saigon. Once again I don’t know how the banh maker can shape these things up in banana leaves, and an American bonus, cling wrap.


                        They’re certainly not ancient world’s wonder, but they’re quite resilient, at least against my attempt to dissect and take a picture of the interior.


                        It is as simple as a child’s treat can be. A clump of mung bean paste concealed by a layer of sticky rice flour. I believe brown sugar is added to the dough to make the color. (Update: indeed there is sugar, but I’m pretty sure there is no la gai in this little one.) The mung bean paste is also a little sweetened, but dry and scrumptious to the extent of powdery (so yeah, not really a “paste”). The dough coat is, you guess it, sticky. And a little plain if, at all possible, eaten without the bean paste. I enjoyed the mixing of texture in my mouth, mostly because of the filling’s nuttiness. The pyramid is only about 4 inch high and at most 9 square inch at the base, but it hits you hard and sound in the tummy. It is powerful. It makes me wonder about Vietnamese children. If these are their snacks, how come they’re so skinny? I suppose because it’s just sticky rice, bean, and very it sugar. Last note: if you want to savour food with your hand like a good traditional Indian, be prepared for some meticulous finger rubbing with soap and water, it sticks with you.