Flavor Boulevard

*Guest post in Vietnamese by my Mom, translated by me*

Back in the day, I seldom ate from street stalls or vendors’ baskets, my conscience imprinted with my mother’s unmovable doubt on the street food’s cleanliness. Nonetheless, I scurry with no hesitation to make it to Kim Son for lunch today, just because the TV news last night showed that Kim Son has a 9-day New Year food festival where the goodies are sold in baskets, mimicking the vendor stalls in Vietnam.

Like usual, the display is a buffet style, but this week the dining hall is decorated with flowers, fruits, and Tet greetings, the food selection is also larger and more interesting than normal days. I notice thịt kho and dưa giá (slow braised pork and pickled bean sprout, two traditional Tet savory dishes), bánh xèo (sizzling crepe), bánh bèo (water fern banh), bánh bột lọc (translucent banh) bánh cống (mung bean fried muffin).

In the baskets lie a few types of xôi, bánh tét, and mứt. A tightening mix of homesickness and joy rushes through me as I see woven baskets, bamboo shoulder poles, and the waxy green banana leaves holding and covering morsels of Tet.

We load our first plate with seven-course beef, though the kitchen churns out only four: grilled beef (bò nướng vỉ), beef loaf (bò chả đùm), lolot beef (bò nướng lá lốt), and beef sausage in omental fat casing (bò mỡ chài). The little pinky-length fat beef sausages are extraordinarily tender, grilled on medium fire and so well seasoned they have the sweet smell of talents.

Meanwhile, my husband chooses the restaurant’s recommended special of the day: grilled snail sausage in banana leaves. I don’t like snails but have a taste anyway just out of curiosity. It is slightly spicy, but I get blown away. There is no hint of the wet and grassy snail scent that used to give me goosebumps when I was little. The banana leaf wrapping protects the velvety sausages from the burnt smell of open fire grilling, and gives it a sweet green aroma of summer breeze. As much as I like fish, I must admit these are better than the Indonesian fish sausages I’ve had a few months ago.

Another special is bánh canh cua Nam Phổ. I only learned about Nam Phổ, a village in central Vietnam, and its famous udon-like noodle soup from books, so I am overjoyed to see the real thing on the menu today. Bits of crab meat amidst chubby slick chunks of banh canh in a scarlet broth rich of crab sauce is the loveliest sight of all noodle soups. Banh canh Nam Pho, unlike banh canh of the South, doesn’t have loads of shrimp or pork, the broth isn’t starkly clear, yet its thickness delivers just a mellow natural sweetness. The first bite reveals little taste, but the second, the third, and a few sips of the broth in between start to sweep in waves of riverbank wind and meadow fragrance.

The country lunch sets us back $35.75 and 90 minutes. As we get ready to leave at 12:30, the parking lot gets ready for a massive lion dance and firecracker show. The sight of sixteen gaudy lions and hundred-meter long red squib strings and their boisterous sounds follow me all the way home, as I think of how we, the Asian expats, try to bring with us our lunar new year and our motherlands wherever we go.

Address: Kim Son Restaurant
10603 Bellaire Blvd
Houston, TX 77072
(281) 598-1777

This post is included in the February 2011 edition of Delicious Vietnam, a blogging event organized by Anh from A Food Lover’s Journey and Hong and Kim from Ravenous Couple.

Vietnamese places usually don’t appear on the web, why? Because they already paid for ads on Vietnamese newspapers and radio station. Of course the ads are in Vietnamese. There are a little over 30,000 Vietnamese in Houston. It’s amazing how such a small community can sustain its numerous restaurants, with customers primarily themselves. I think I’ve said the word “Vietnamese” enough times for the month. But let me say it one more. Vietnamese must really like to eat out.

So we found a new address in one of the newspapers. We arrived past lunch time, so it felt as if we rented out the whole place. The hostesses seem to be enjoying their leisurely afternoon snack as well, they sat at a nearby table watching TV with us. A flat screen on the wall with documentary films about Vietnam.

Anyway, let’s start with an appetizer.

This is for 3 people to share. Each bánh bèo (water fern bánh) is like a really thin mini rice-pancake, steamed instead of fried, topped with dried shrimp powder, scallions, and guess what, mung bean paste (once again, Mr. Mung Bean won the competition and became Paste of Choice). The final and most important touch is the nước mắm (fish extract sauce). Bánh bèo, like other Central Vietnamese dishes, cannot go without nước mắm. I’m not exactly sure what the coconut milk is doing there. The thinner the pancake is, the harder it is to eat with chopsticks, or any kind of utensils you can think of, because it’s slippery and fragile like jello. But only the thinnest kind is the best kind. Too thick, and all there is is a block of utmost boring rice pudding. So, I’d say these were above average. Onto the main course.

Bánh tầm bì thịt nướng (bánh tầm with shredded pork skin (bì) and grilled pork). I’m confused by the Vietnamese naming system sometimes, there’s not much “bánh”-ness about this cold udon-like noodle. Authentically it should be shorter and fatter. They really gave us a behemoth bowl here, filled with noodle, peanuts, sliced pork skin (bì), and veggie, but only one skewer of pork! A little blackened. Good pork though. Can crispy-edge grilled pork ever not taste good?

Bánh canh cua (bánh canh with crab). Yet another rice noodle variation, strangely named “bánh”. I think this restaurant uses the same type of noodle for the soup and the grilled pork dish above. The orange color is from gạch cua (something under the crab shell whose English name I know not). The mysterious substance supposedly is stirred in frying pan until gooey and gives the broth a natural sweetness. I’m not big on sea crawlers. My mom likes it.

Bánh hỏi thịt nem nướng (bánh hỏi with grilled pork and grilled nem – a kind of pork sausage). It’s among the more expensive dishes in Saigon and the abroad, but cheap in the provinces where it was first made. The intricate nets of rice vermicelli gives the tongue a fun texture. Chopped scallions swiftly stir-fried with olive oil and a tad salt gives the sleek taste. Generous sum of sliced cucumber, bean sprout, pickled carrots and the backyard herbs counterbalances the carcinogenic charred and brined meat. Nước mắm is also a must. This plate rightfully makes the restaurant’s name.

Bánh hỏi Châu Đốc

Lunch for three: Bánh bèo tôm cháy: 4.95, bánh canh thịt cua: 6.95, bánh hỏi thịt nem nướng: 9.95, bánh tầm bì thịt nướng: 7.95. Total: $29.80.
Address: 10800 Bellaire Blvd, Houston, TX 77072.

If I recall correctly, the menu does have brief English descriptions, and the young waiter seemed more comfortable speaking English than Vietnamese.