Flavor Boulevard

Pub foods for Vietnamese are pretty diverse (**). The menu at Danh’s Garden in San Jose is basically a book, plus some handwritten ones on the wall. I single-handedly narrowed down our choices by a page when I refused anything goat or lamb (I often wonder why my friends can be so kind and still go to eat with this oddball).

We picked 5 dishes at first, thinking it should be enough for a party of 5 – Vietnamese pub foods are no tapas or izakaya, things are not served in dainty palm-sized saucers, they’re entree-portion. With them come a plethora of dipping sauces and salt-and-pepper mix for who knows what. Honestly I don’t think we even used all of those sauces. The food were plenty seasoned already.

Mực dồn chạo tôm – squid stuffed with shrimp paste. Light on the seasoning. Rating: 8/10. (It’s tasty and I can’t think of any flaw, but will I crave it? Probably not.)

A dish of freshwater snails that I can’t for the life of me remember the ingredients. I’m so embarrassed. And I didn’t even have a drop of beer for an excuse of braincell loss. It’s sweet and savory, lemongrassy, a tidbit spicy, the snails are crunchy-chewy, small, addicting. Rating: 7/10. (Again, no apparent flaw, but snails are something I can live without. Also, for some time now I just feel bad eating little creatures, shrimp included…)

Ếch chiên bơ – butter-fried frog leg. Bland. Too dry. 2/10.

Giò heo giả cầy – braised pig trotters with galangal. The meat is doused in a tad curry-like sauce, some steamy white rice would be perfect. 9/10.

Bò lá lốt – grilled beef sausage wrapped in piper lolot. Served with rice paper with bún (rice noodles) and fresh herbs to make into little rolls that are dipped into a pineapple-anchovy dipping sauce (mắm nêm). My mouth is watering. 9/10. (We ordered this beef midway through the meal because we felt the previous four were just appetizers and I was dying for some starch.)

The greens to go with the bò lá lốt. Most of us were thrilled to see slices of green bananas and good old homey herbs of the motherland that I can’t name… I was thrilled too, but my general enthusiasm for herbs is about the amount of homework a normal student is eager to do everyday.

Lẩu lươn bắp chuối – hot pot with eel and banana flower. Also served with rice noodle. I only started to like eel because of Japanese food (unagi don… I might want it for my last meal…). I used to hate eel after the first time I ever had eel: I eagerly bit into a plump round of meat and nearly broke the roof of my mouth with the hidden eel bone. Well. This eel hot pot is perfectly seasoned, the julienned banana flower has a nice crunch, the eel is fine but kinda… unnecessary? 7/10.

Desserts. Chè thập cẩm đậu – mixed bean chè (left) and chè long nhãn hạt sen – longan and lotus seed chè (right). The mixed bean one has coconut milk topped with peanuts, looks pretty filling and interesting. Mine (longan and lotus) is more of a sweet drink with longan and lotus seeds, which I like, but it was too loaded with ice to do anything. :-/ 5/10.

Most online reviews complain about the rudeness of the waitressed at Danh’s Garden. To be honest, they weren’t the friendliest people I’ve met, but they weren’t rude. They were just cold. Their responses were terse and they didn’t refill my water because they were busy tending the full house. Now, they were laughing and joking with some of the regulars, but that’s just a perk of being regulars. Who goes to a pub and expects bistro service? Yelp dummies who classified this place under “Chinese”, that’s who.

Address: Danh’s Garden
2635 Senter Rd
San Jose, CA 95111
(408) 293-3990
(No reservation)
Dinner for 5: roughly $150. Average score: 6.7/10 (the frog legs’ fault).

** FOODNOTE: I used the word “pub” to loosely describe the type of food here – food to eat while downing alcohol – but Danh’s Garden and all Vietnamese pub food establishments are not pubs, they’re just restaurants that make that kind of food and cater to middle-aged men going out for drinks.