Flavor Boulevard

Nothing in the Rosemary Garden compound quite fits the name “Bistro”, there’s a chapel, a few stores across the parking lot with signs too far for me to read, a bakery that only takes order for wedding cakes, birthday cakes and Christmas cakes, and a restaurant big enough to host a small wedding banquet. Little Mom saw its ad in the local Vietnamese newspapers, and grilled alligator sounds good enough to make a trip across town.

My vegan intention was quickly thwarted, as expected in any Vietnamese or Korean restaurant, the few non-meat things available are all related to stir-fried bokchoy or eggplant. Little Mom eyed a few courses in the 9-course fish ($29.95), but you can’t get one without getting all nine, and she’s against fish spring roll while I’m against fish congee, so we flipped to the next page. Since Rosemary Garden is a làng nướng (grill village), it’s only appropriate that we meat-out and ignore the rice/noodles altogether (they don’t grill tofu). Besides, rice comes with alligator. Lots of rice, which took me by surprise for a split second. Guess I’ve been in the Bay for too long…

My friends said alligator tastes like chicken, and the important-looking lady who came out to greet us said the same thing, but I’m not convinced. It has more chew than chicken. It’s more like pork. We asked for no pepper in our “stir-fried alligator with pepper and lemongrass” (cá sấu xào sả ớt, $18.95), the pieces came out nicely seasoned, not spicy and evenly browned.

Although a bit on a the scrawny side (like me :D), the eel stir-fried in a coconut curry sauce with woodear mushroom and thin cellophane noodle, topped with Limnophila aromatica (rice paddy herb) and crushed peanuts, is a winner. All conversations come to a happy halt as one breaks a piece of toasted rice cracker (bánh đa) to scoop up that sauce and the soggy noodle in it.

Opposing the airy rice cracker are the oil-streaming, deep-fried sticky rice patties that accompany the grilled rabbit topped with white sesame seeds. Instruction says dip the rabbit in the fermented tofu sauce (chao), and drizzle the sticky rice patties with a sticky sugared soy sauce, but the other way around made more sense to me: dried, charred rabbit needs something sweet, and oily patties need spice. Dad likes them either way.

Despite the original difficulty of choosing something interesting from a standard list, if we ignore the outdated plate styling with limp slices of red bellpepper laid around the meat like an ancient picture of the sun, and if we rank a restaurant solely on taste, Rosemary Garden deserves 7 out of 10. Then again I’m soft, and our hosts were nice (they also gave us three pieces of coffee cream cake, in which both of my parents claimed to detect some wine flavoring but I couldn’t sense anything bitter), so let’s say 8/10. We’d come here more often and order some cakes if it hadn’t been all the way across Highway 6. Do come here if you get married.

Address: Rosemary Garden Bistro
14639 Bellaire Blvd
Houston, TX 77083
(281) 568-9151

Dinner for three: $56.13 (I’ve got to comment on this because I’m still not used to it: this is way too reasonable in North Cali standard and perhaps a bit high in Houston standard, but with so much leftover it’s still reasonable.)

After a 5-course afternoon tea, the three of us felt our stomachs’ calling. The wind blew chilly moisture from the sea. A hearty dinner of noodle in hot broth would hit the spot, one that was saturated with oolong. Quite appropriately, we walked into O Chamé, meaning “eye of tea”(*) literally and “playful little one” colloquially. It’s Mother’s Day, no reservation, we couldn’t be any luckier that the guy found us three seats at the end of the bar.

Of course, who would skip the appetizers. And of course, we couldn’t decide on just one appetizer, so we ordered three. The potato and snow crab croquette ($8.50), buttery but mild, tastes ten times better after a dip in the plumier-than-usual-and-not-too-sour tonkatsu sauce. Usually I don’t dip my stuff, but the sauce is a must here.

The grilled, caramelized eel ($10.50), Kristen’s choice, is great. Little Mom loves eel, and she would love this. Happy Mother’s Day, Mom! 🙂 A bite into the crisp endive releases a burst of sharp, almost minty air to balance the eel’s fatty sweetness.

Another fatty, sweet thing is the braised pork ribs with ginger and lemon ($8.50), so sweet I could detect neither ginger nor lemon. The leaner pieces looked soft but not too thrilling. One must go for the pieces with lotsa fat and semi-charred ends, those are gold.

Then came the reason we decided on O Chamé: the noodle soups. The broth is light yet hearty. Actually, I’m still in tea mode so I can only think of the word “full-bodied” to describe it. Tender pork as the base, smooth spinach for texture, and thin strips of takuan (pickled daikon) to freshen it up. Both Tiana and Kristen settled on this pork shoulder udon ($14.50). My normal self would, too.

But I chose the tofu udon instead. Lately I’ve decided that I should gauge a restaurant based on their vegetarian/vegan numbers because it’s hard to make vegan stuff taste good (unless it’s a dessert). This shiitake-spinach-aburage (fried tofu skin) udon (13.50) passes the bar, but it would be nice had it been entirely vegan. The broth is a fish stock flavored by the earthy sweetness of mushroom. I prefer the vegan udon at Anzu, whose broth has the more refreshing note of chrysanthemum greens.

Our face bathed in the steam, our stomach getting packed. It was hot. We were dead full half way through the bowl. I did my best picking up all of my spinach and mushroom, but shamefully left half the broth and a third of the noodle. We thought we couldn’t eat anymore, but then we flipped the page and stared at the desserts, then looked among ourselves and grinned: “I don’t think we’re ever too full for ice cream”. 😀 Just one dessert is not gonna hurt. The agony was when we narrowed our choices to four (from nine): sherry custard, poached pear with berries, truffle torte, and what we ended up getting following the waitress’s suggestion: two scoops of caramel balsamic gelato ($5).

The first spoon was, well, interesting. But it grows on you. It has a bite to it. Kinda feisty, or in Kristen’s words, “like yogurt”, which makes sense because both balsamic vinegar and yogurt are products of fermentation, works of microbes, and sour. Definitely worth squeezing in at the last minute.

Address: O Chamé
1830 4th Street
Berkeley, CA 94710
(510) 841-8783

Dinner for three + tax: $81.56

(*) At first I pronounced it |oh-shah-mei|, like a French thing, you know. But seeing its meaning, I guess it must be |oh-jah-mei|, like “cha” (tea) in sencha.