Flavor Boulevard

They never blink. They never wag their tails. They never mutter a sound. I can never tell what they are thinking or feeling when I look at them. I like them deep-fried, or pan-charred with salt, lemongrass, and pepper, but that’s mostly because of the seasoning mix they’re fried with. By themselves, they are cold-blooded creatures with a distinctive smell, tiny bones resembling oversized needles, very little fat, and worst of all, flaky meat. They’re quite abundant in Vietnam, both alive and cooked. I even like the dipping sauce made out of them. I just don’t like them. Something about their meat freaks me out, or perhaps it’s the childhood memory of having a bone of them stuck in my throat that damages my feeling for those footless fellas. I would have never done it, but my mom, craving for some motherland’s taste, ordered canh chua cá (fish sour-soup) when we went to Kim Son the other day. How could she… fish and soup? Well, it turned out to be the best dish on the table.

Canh is soup. Usually the vegetables in canh are leafy greens, and because canh came about before the French and potatoes arrived in Vietnam, there is no canh with potato. There are, however, canh with taro corm, cassava, sweet potato, and other kinds of starchy roots. A special kind of canh most suitable for summer weather is canh chua (sour), because the mix taste of sour, pepper-spicy and sweet is just cool. The sourness comes from tamarind (fruit and young leaves), starfruit, pineapple, tomato, or lá dang, a kind of sour leaf. Is there sour soup in Western cuisines?

Usually I am indifferent to canh chua at my best mood, because usually canh chua is inseparable from our footless flaky friend. The combination canh chua and fish is adored across the delta, in various menus, and has followed the southern Vietnamese immigrants overseas. It is so southern and so countryside that almost certainly the delta farmers would invite you a bowl of canh chua when you visit them during lunch time. There is also canh chua with shrimp and pineapple, and somewhere in her memory, my mom knows that there is canh chua with chicken, however rare. Fatty meat (pork, duck, beef, etc.) is not allowed. The broth must be clear. The fish must be from fresh water: catfish, snakeheads, climbing gouramis, “pangasius krempfi” (ca bong lau),… Canh chua can’t be cooked with seawater fish because they’re too fishy to be overpowered by the sour benefactors. Ok, what else is there for background check… a bowl of canh chua often has many kinds of vegetables beside the citric star of the act, these add-ons include bean sprout, the stems of night-scented lily (I learn so many new names blogging!), okra,… Native villagers use almost every edible plants they can find in gardens and ponds, so there is hardly any fixed recipe for canh chua. That’s the beauty of it, food is not supposed to be fixed.

The bowl of canh chua we had at Kim Son has every criterion of tasty canh chua, from the sweet-n-sour clear broth to the finishing touch of hot pepper paste. Pangasius krempfi is no longer fishy, just a tender, juicy piece of white flesh (sorry, I just can’t bring myself to saying any fish is good). If you look at the top corner of the picture, there it is, nuoc mam nguyen chat (pure fish sauce) in all splendor, no additional seasoning, a dapple or two into your canh chua to trigger the salty-crave taste buds. Frankly I am quite disappointed at the sight of jalapeno in that nuoc mam. Authentically it must be red pepper, cayenne, thai, etc. Jalapeno is Mexican, canh chua is Vietnamese, and this is not the time for cultural exchange.

What do I like the most in canh chua? The night-scented lily stems. In Vietnamese people call it a dangerously misleading name, “mint”. Minty? Not really. It’s crunchy, finely porous, similar to lotus stem, it stores the broth so well that each bite pours in your mouth a stream of warm, peppery, sweet and sour. Sensational!

Almost every Sunday we make a trip to Bellaire to get the usual supply of patechaud, cha lua, banh gio, and the like. Almost every Sunday the question’s asked: where will we eat today? Well, there are two choices: the all-too-familiar Kim Son, and the more adventurous find which can be anything Little Mother saw in the local Vietnamese newspaper ads. We’ve had our handfuls of adventurous finds, all are good, but as usual smaller places don’t have a big selection, the menus are either common banh mi and pho, or grandiose names we don’t particularly care for. Mother is also easily shy away by the appearance of a restaurant: if the setting doesn’t look good, the food won’t taste good. So back we headed to Kim Son today…

We opted for the popular choice of a lunch buffet. We got there early enough, meaning at 11, when it’s just opened and there was banh canh. 15 minutes later and it was all gone. Out of banh canh noodle they said. The soup is not left unattended like the rest of the food trays known and visited by many. No, that would have reduced the availability to 5 minutes. It’s hidden in the right corner of the diner, in something can appropriately be called a kitchen box, with fellow roasted ducks and another noodle soup of the day. You go over there, order, stand around watching the cook slap a bunch of noodle, shrimp and pork, and pour a couple ladles of steaming broth into your bowl, you go back to your seat and start slurping. It’s really slurping, even chopsticks have a hard time holding the noodles in place long enough, don’t even try spoon and fork. They’re quick, short, round, and annoyingly feeble. It’s too easy to break them, but it’s hard to put them in your mouth before you flick a drop of broth to somewhere it shouldn’t be. The taste is worth the sloppy embarrassment, though. Banh canh and hu tiu are somewhat similar, the final touch in each bowl is a dollop of mo hanh (chives stir fried in lard and fried shallots). It adds savoriness, enhances the mix of meaty and sweet. A very hearty soup. I even drank the broth. The small bowl is a perfect belly hit.

Not to be healthy I packed a few frog legs and fried shrimp-pasted toasts down my throat afterwards. Great baguette. Frog legs would have been great too if not for the irritatingly overloaded hot pepper. When something’s hot, it’s just hot. Hot overpowers everything. Can’t taste another daggum flavor, if there were any. Dunno about you but I find that boring. The meat is kinda dry (I would be too if I were covered in hot pepper) and sinewy. But they do look sporty, don’t they? 🙂

The other soup of the day was bun bo Hue, which we’ve had, and I’ve blogged, here. Looks good, eh? Spicy, too. It’d be good to have intermittent sips of water, given you have a full glass. Kim Son is usually crowded after 11:30, at which time there are too few waiters for too many tables, and it’s expected that you fend for yourself. Yes, that means no refill. Vietnamese scoffers are used to drinking only after the meal anyway. They believe that drinking during eating would result to feeling full immaturely, or making your belly bigger. Maybe that’s why my jeans feel tight…

We heard dapples of fireworks last night, other than that, everything was normal. TV had the usual shows, roads had the usual cars, the usual air, the feeling of a usual day. Isn’t that strange? New Year came quietly in this town, but with all the bombing and protesting around the world, I suppose a quiet peaceful New Year’s Eve is a nice New Year’s Eve. No champagne, no confetti, no wishes, no counting down. We slept.

But how about some black eyed pea? 🙂 Not only is it a traditional American New Year’s food, it always appears in a baby’s first (and most important) birthday in Vietnam (quite a connection, I know… but a good bean, isn’t it?). The word “đậu” for bean, or pea, has the same spelling with the word for passing (an examination), chè is a dessert, so chè đậu trắng is a sweet food of good luck for the beginning of something. Cooked until soft, washed with cold water, the hard “black eye” part of the testa taken off, then cooked again with sticky rice and preferably brown sugar, the beans melt in your mouth. In an average pot of che dau trang, you see the sticky rice makes a gluey protection of the beans, the seed coat is still just a tad chewy, your jaws and tongue will enjoy a mix of texture. This might be exclusively enjoyable for those with an eye on texture food, myself included. In a good pot of che dau trang, you can see each grain of sticky rice and each shapely pea, but each spoon will only give you a sweet, nutty, almost homogeneous mixture. Oh, can’t forget the slightly salty, thick and fat coconut milk, of course. Coconut milk makes everything aptly better.

Coconut milk sneaked in here too… A small cup of chè bột báng (tapioca chè) from Lee’s Sandwiches. The big pink and green balls have mung bean paste inside, the little ones are your usual tapioca marbles in bubble tea (only slightly bigger and not dark brown). There is no sticky rice, but there is a teaspoon of pan-dried sesame seeds atop. Chewy and sweet is the main theme che bot bang shoots for. It’s pretty light.

Che is a vegan snack. Sticky rice, bean and coconut are about the main ingredients in any kind, some have fruits or roots, but eggs and milk stay out of this business. So how many variations of che do you think there are? Quite a few, actually. Chè bắp (corn), chè bột báng (tapioca), chè bột khoai, chè củ năng (water chesnut), chè củ mài (a kind of yam), chè chuối (banana), chè đậu xanh (mung bean), chè đậu đen (black bean), chè đậu đỏ (azuki bean), chè đậu trắng (black eyed pea), chè hạt sen (lotus seed), hạt mít (jack fruit seed), chè hạnh nhân (chesnut), chè nhãn (longan), chè khoai lang (sweet potato), khoai môn (taro), khoai mì (cassava root)…, and many others I haven’t tried. Are there similar desserts in other countries? I don’t know, but certainly not in the US, where people say ew to soy milk (and not to raw clams). Kim Son, quite to my disappointment, has stopped serving che dau trang for some while, but still has chè trôi nước, another familiar dessert of the Vietnamese, especially in the North, where some call it bánh trôi, as it’s a ball floating in sugar liquid. Such simple name is made simpler, pronunciatively, by the Southerner, when they turn it into chè xôi nước: xôi – sweet sticky rice (the coat of the ball is indeed made of sticky rice flour), in nước – (sugar) water. The stuffing is, surprise surprise, Mung Bean Paste. Sweet outside, mild and nutty inside. A beast to work your jaw. Doesn’t it remind you of banh it? Sprinkle some sesame seeds and spoon in coconut milk for a homey taste of the countryside.

Off to a well-seasoned new year, everyone! 🙂

One of my retirement plans is to translate these books into English. This one is about Southern Vietnamese food. Most of these dishes are still there, some hidden behind coconut trees and around small branches of the river net, some popularized in Saigon’s expensive menus, national tour, and exported oversea. Some have vanished as the species of the land died out or became unfavorable, as time is too short to make good treats, as the abundance of resource and imagination is replaced by the greedy fight over benefits, and as people simply forget.

I remember bắp nấu. It’s corn kernels without the peel, cooked like rice, white, soft, and gently sweet, eaten hot with a sprinkle of salt and sesame mix. Mmmmm… I remember thịt kho nước dừa. “Kho” is to simmer meat or fish with water and nước mắm, preferably in a clay pot, believe it or not, earthenware gives a flavor to the dish. My mom used to kho pork and eggs with fresh coconut water (according to Tran Van Chi, and many Southern ladies, kho with coconut milk – the juice from the dried shredded coconut meat, is untraditional, the flavor would be too thick). The result is extremely tender (rệu) pork soaked in a clear, coconut sweetened, savory, golden brown liquid, the egg whites hardened, somewhere between chewy and crunchy, the egg yolk turns into a deep orange ball like the low moon, tightly packed with flavors. It’s a must-have, a tradition, an indicator of Tet…

The tastes of these revive in my mind, as I read Tran Van Chi’s book. Tasting memories, that is. My mom said she misses the atmosphere of Tet in Vietnam, even if we had the food, the mai tree, the firecrackers now, which we don’t, we would only be on the sidewalk looking at the party, we can never be in the party again. Christmas and New Year don’t have the same atmosphere. Like Thế Lữ wrote for Nhất Linh’s Đoạn Tuyệt:

Rũ áo phong sương trên gác trọ
Lặng nhìn thiên hạ đón xuân sang

(Shaking off wind and dew, from a motel room,
Silently watch people celebrating the new spring)

DISCLAIMER: I received no free product or monetary gift in exchange for this review.

It was a warm, cloudy day. Few cars were on the road and every store was closed. So were restaurants, but not Vietnamese restaurants. We drove all the way down FM 1960 to Veteran Memorial, and pulled in the parking lot of Phở Danh (with the helpful hand signal of a Vietnamese gentleman, who just happened to stand there for no reason and apparently noticed my clumsy parking skill). But we went next door for Bún Bò Huế Cố Đô, since my mom spotted it out and we were in adventurous mood. There were as few people inside as cars on the road today. Everyone in the neighborhood seems to go to Phở Danh, cuz it’s bigger and more noticeable. We weren’t deterred. So how is Cố Đô?

My dad got the house specialty: bún bò Huế (Hue beef noodle). Rice noodle, beef, beef broth, (sounds like phở so far, isn’t it?), congealed blood, cha lua, a thick side cut of pig leg (not foot), and some good spicy hot pepper. I suppose it wasn’t spicy enough for my dad, so he put in some satay, which makes the broth colorfully pretty. And the whole side of greens (that has more than green):

Bean sprouts, a slice of lemon, plants whose English names I have no idea, and a purplish bundle of thinly sliced young banana flower. The meat was tender and generous, but I’m not so sure if this bowl has everything an authentic Hue beef noodle soup would have. For some reason I had never gotten the crave for it, I must have had it at some point and just can’t remember. It certainly looks good, perhaps a little busy. The noodle is thicker and rounder than the noodle in pho, so bún bò is more filling. The pig leg meat is just all too common pork with a bit of thick skin, pig foot is better and more interesting for the teeth. According to my dad, the soup didn’t quite live up to his expectation, except for being tenderly meaty. But the rest of the crew was actually quite pleased with the other dishes we got:

Hủ tíu mì

Hủ tíu Nam Vang.

Address: Bún Bò Huế Cố Đô
13480 Veterans Memorial Suite P3
Houston, TX
(281) 537-6760

Today it snows…
… in Texas. Yep, College Station… It was 70°F yesterday, and this morning I went outside at 10:30, seeing shrubs, lawns, cars, and the roof of the All Faiths Chapel covered in white. But I didn’t have my camera with me then. And it is snowing outside my window right now, for hours, but little Kodak can’t capture this momentous event through 2mm thick and dirty glass, so that I have no hope of disproving people who laugh at Texas for not having snow. Not that it will be long. AccuWeather says Sunday may reach record high of 82°F set in 1921. Aw… you mean I can wear my gloves only one day a year?

That’s what you get for living in the South your whole life (so far). Have some snow white food instead. (Presented to you by Eistube with limited commercials, production of Gio Cha Duc Huong, Houston, TX.) I have faith in sausages. I’ll try haggis when I find a place in America that has it. Meaty, seasoned, high in calorie, compact, preservable, easy for cooking, efficient, what more can you expect from a food? It is tofu for meat-eaters. I’ve never come across a type of sausage that makes me cringe and run away. But if you think about it, it comes from the black sheep of the meat production line, it’s bits and scraps stuffed in an intestine. Is there any kind of sausage with a cleaner background? Yes. There is. At least one that I know of. This is the purest form of sausage in my list, and possibly in the world.

Just lean pork (no fatty allowed, sorry) and a little fish extract (nuoc mam).

“…The pork has to be pounded until it becomes pasty; it cannot be chopped or ground as the meat would still be fibrous, dry, and crumbly…” (Wikipedia – Cha lua)

No intestine. No skin. No liver or kidney. No congealed blood. Usually people eat it right after they got it out of the banana leaf wrap. But my mom, having her own way of doing things, boils it. That lessens the flavor of nuoc mam and keeps the cha lua 1-2 weeks longer.

Did you know sausage is lighter than water? It floats.
And it’s still snowing outside…

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?

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.

Eaten fresh, it’s crunchy. (Yes, the layer of flour must be thin, the shrimp and whatnot do not have to be covered). If the batter was just flour and water, it’s crunchy. Otherwise, it’s soft and fulfilling. I’m not a fan of crumbs, so I’m happy with microwaved banh xeo.

The Hong Kong Market IV complex in Bellaire is always busy. At least during the days I go there. And I’ve been there an awful lot of times. No matter what time it is, the closest parking spot we could get was about 20 rows away from the door. Makes me wonder whose cars those 20 rows are, cannot be just the market’s employees’, can it? On the other hand, across from the artificial minipond and fountain, Tay Do restaurant looks so quiet we didn’t know if it was opened.

This is lunch hour, guys. The place is clearly so packed we had to wait to be seated. The only visible person in charge was talking on the phone and to a waitress behind the kitchen counter, and only spotted our unexpected visit after 10 minutes. Feeling welcome?

Except for the wait, we got more attention from the waiters the rest of our visit. Of course, the service here is about as indifferent as many other Vietnamese eateries, but at least we got our water, our food, and our bill in a timely manner. After all, we came to eat, not to chat and find companionship. And eat we did. A lot. Starting with appetizer: cua lột chiên bơ (butter-fried soft shell crab), eaten with fresh xà lách xoong (watercress). This is simply a must-have. I don’t like crabs because it’s too much work for too little meat, but when the crustaceans are caught shedding their exoskeleton to grow, the shell is soft enough to be edible, and among various possible recipes one of the best is you deep fried ’em. My taste buds like it, but thinking of the weak unprotected crab being thrown into a vat of boiling oil is, you know, unnerving. I wouldn’t be able to do it myself.

As we stuffed the last crab legs down our throat, the array of main course was brought out. From top to bottom: vịt chiên khoai môn (fried duck with taro), bò xào sate (stir fried beef in sate), and bánh hỏi tôm thịt nướng (banh hoi with grilled pork and shrimp).

The taro is the purplish layer underneath the duck meat. I like duck, and I like taro. But somehow the combination wasn’t spectacular. The taro was too sweet and the duck was too dry. Overall score: 2.0/10.0 for innovative idea.

The beef is a tongue trigger. It might have been a tad salty, but was great with steamed rice. I know it’s not spicy because my mom could eat it. 6.5/10 for taste and oldschoolness.

When I wrote this wikipedia article about bánh hỏi I couldn’t find any picture of just banh hoi by itself, without the oodles of meat and condiments atop. Why, you may wonder. Because banh hoi is simply fine thin rice noodle. It’s simply white. It doesn’t look appetizing on pictures by itself. And it doesn’t taste amazing by itself either. Much less because this is downtown Houston and the best banh hoi we can get is the dried prepackaged type imported from Vietnam. Things change after a long voyage. Was it an enjoyable dish with the company of grilled pork and shrimp, though? Oh yes. Don’t forget spoonfuls of nuoc mam either. The best thing is this dish is so light. I was not miserable after finishing it. 6.5/10 for satisfaction.

The whole bill came out $57.26. There were a few other customers coming in as we were leaving. The manager/main waiter informed us that this place has been mentioned in several American reviews (didn’t say which ones), and since they’ve been here since I first went to Bellaire in 11th grade, I suppose their business is decent. The red lanterns hanging at the front door enhance the Chinese look, the menu is littered with kung pao chicken and chow mein, the restaurant is named Tay Do (West Capital) after the common name for Cần Thơ, Vietnam. But that’s ok. How should I sum this up? Shania Twain’s song comes to mind.

Address: Tay Do Restaurant (next to Hong Kong Mall)
11201 Bellaire Blvd
Houston, TX 77072
(281) 988-8939

Lee’s sandwiches has different kinds of banh mi on their menu, and although I’m a stingy about chances to try out varieties (after finding out my favorite, of course), my mom often surprises me by how open-minded she is on a few things. For example, despite my usual fondness of banh mi thit nuong, this time she got me an extra: banh mi ba chi pate, the new and only item on Lee’s menu that has pate in it. I’m not sure if I would even have seen that on the menu myself. “Ba chỉ” literally means “three threads,” which I loosely understand as three layers, because there’s one really thin layer of skin, then there’s fat and meat. That’s right, sometimes words reflect great imagination of whoever made up the word originally. Just to confuse you, this type of meat is also called “ba rọi” in the south, and I have no clue what a “rọi” is, maybe a mispronunciation of “loại” – “type”? I digress. The meat is so thinly sliced that skin and fat can almost go unnoticed in your mouth. My gut instinct (well… not quite, just something I feel like I know but can’t remember from where or how I knew) tells me that the fatty pork is smoked Update: the pork is cured, but I don’t know if that explains the almost-too-attractive-to-be-natural red colour, which reddened the edge of the baguette as well. What is a banh mi with lipstick? Should you vote for it? Anyhow, I could taste little pate in there, and it would take a lot more pate to overpower the sour bickering of the shiny red slices. My loyalty with good ol’ grilled pork banh mi remains.