Flavor Boulevard

I’ve been lying low on the blogging front for the past couple of weeks, because the school front is under serious bombarding. Having classes is one thing; having to teach, applying for stuff, looking to join a research group on top of classes is a whole different level of war. Not that I lose my appetite, but when twenty deadlines are approaching like a flock of Luftwaffe‘s Bf 109, quick filling meals trump elaborate dishes. Loco moco is a winner, but even I know that I can rely solely on gravy, egg, and hamburger patty for so long before a heart attack. Hence the deli section in supermarkets gain appeals.

But if you’re gonna buy cheap store-made food, you gotta do it in style. Apple pies, rotisserie chicken, turkey sandwiches, or those mushy bean-and-pasta salads are so 2009 (I used to buy a rotisserie chicken every week last year :-P). This year we hit up the delis in Koreana Plaza and 99 Ranch Market.

Entree 1 – kimchi big dumpling ($3.99 for 4) from Koreana. Each is as big as my fist, the dough is springy and leathery with a sour hint, the innard is not kimchi but a mixture of glass noodle with some egg/shrimp/tofu-like paste. Overall it’s rather bland.

Entree 2 – kimbab ($3.99 for 2 rolls – 20 pieces) from Koreana. The kim (seaweed) always smells like the sea, but it adds an unparalleled savoriness to rice. Love it. 🙂

Dessert 1 – green tea cheesecake ($1.50/slice) from 99RM. The slice is only three fingers at its widest but solid as a butter stick. It’s really just like eating a wedge of gouda with some distant herbal call.

Dessert 2 – green tea red bean roll from 99RM. Sweet and chewy red bean paste, grassy plain and pillowy green tea dough, with a hair thin layer of milky cream. Petite and adorable. 🙂

Side comment, I was cheap so I was contented with drooling at the sight of the 99RM cakes. Don’t know about tastes, but the 99 Ranch’s bakery got some cake decorating skillz that make all American supermarket bakeries look like child plays.

Koreana Plaza (Oakland)
2370 Telegraph Ave (between 23rd St & 24th St)
Oakland, CA 94612
(510) 986-1234

99 Ranch Market (Richmond)
3288 Pierce St # 99
Richmond, CA 94804
(510) 558-2120

Previously on Down the Aisles: It’s It

Mini steam buns, as big as a clementine, stuffed with interesting fillings, sold like hotcakes at a mini store inside the Bellaire Hong Kong Mall. Well, they are essentially hot cakes after all.

TP Banh Bao have many kinds of banh bao, but most were sold out by midday when we got there. We were lucky enough to get 3 different kinds: seafood (đồ biển), taro and pork (khoai môn thịt), and original, i.e. pork and chinese sausage (thập cẩm). However, we couldn’t tell which was which. They put them in the same box, no marking, the bun skin and the innards looked the same for all three kinds. They also tasted the same. Good, but indistinguishable.

On the door is an exciting advertisement of their specials: deep fried banh bao and deboned chicken wings, but few seem to come here for those. I’d imagine even fewer would come here for bun bo Hue, mi Quang, chao long (offal porridge) and chao ca (fish porridge). It’d be just as funny if McDonald serves spaghetti.

A box of 9 banh bao sets back your bank anywhere between $7 -14. Although a little pricey, these bite-size buns make a reasonable, savory but not so fatty snack, maybe breakfast if you eat three or four.  I’m curious about the sweet kinds, with mung bean paste and either coconut or durian.

Address: T.P. Banh Bao (inside HongKong Mall, near Banh Cuon Tay Ho #18)
11209 Bellaire Blvd
Houston, TX 77072
(281) 988-7667

While you’re in the Hong Kong Mall area, check out the butter-fried soft shell crab at Tay Do restaurant.

I’ve been back to Texas heat and rain for a week, but my blog will still be on California for who knows how long. With my snail fast speed *maybe* we’ll finish talking about California when I graduate.
Anyway, 3 years after leaving Saigon guess where I had my first Vietnamese banh bao in America… Lee’s Sandwiches in Houston.

My first impression? Decent. That’s all I could say about Lee’s banh bao. But that was then. Now I can say something else: Huong’s banh bao is better. (I blogged about Huong’s Sandwiches here and here)

Both have half a boiled egg, seasoned ground pork, one piece of boiled Chinese sausage (lap xuong), and some kind of vegetable relatives, which is green pea in Huong’s version and some diced carrot in Lee’s. Both are coated with a thick layer of wheat dough, then steamed, hence banh bao can be called steamed bun. The piece of boiled Chinese sausage, remnant from the Chinese ancestor baozi, is a letdown in both Huong’s and Lee’s (the moral of the story is never eat your Chinese sausage boiled just because it tastes good when it’s fried). So what’s the difference? Well, the coat is one difference. Huong’s has it fluffy and light, it looks thick but it tastes lighter than the inner fluff of a biscuit, and the inner most side is wet with sauce from the stuffing. The stuffing is the other difference. Huong’s is slightly sweet, slightly salty, slightly peppered, and it was just down right savory. I savored it, every bite. That clump of meat couldn’t be any better seasoned, the egg also sipped some of the savory sauce and became seasoned itself. For only $1.50, it surely makes your tummy happy for a while.

We got one banh bao with 4 banh mi thit nuong and a tray of banh bot loc, all for $15.50, and the lady took only $15 (we believe she didn’t want to break our 5-dollar bill, since we didn’t have 50c in change). She doesn’t know a whole lot of English, but we could tell she was happy that Mudpie could speak some Vietnamese. 🙂 I don’t know when I will be in the area again, so I’m counting on Mudpie to do more exploration with the wide variety of labelless food items in that little shop.