A second tour through Vietnam

I should be a politician with my awesome skills of keeping promises, maybe the mayor of food.  So back in one of my first posts I wrote about the bomb diggity sandwich found at Vietnamese joints, and now I am returning to titillate your senses with my other favorite meal bún.

I tried to make an honest effort of going to a different restaurant than the one that I visited in that previous post, if nothing else to get away from the stellar background music, but it was not in the cards.  I left work and headed north up Fry Road to visit Phở 88 located just north of Morton Road, but evidently they are closed on Mondays so I was dejected and forced to scramble.  Alas, I ended up back at Phở Mai on Westgreen at I-10. 

I did however spice it up this time and roll with a completely new dish that had nothing in common with the sandwich minus a healthy portion of pork.

First, a little background information on bún thịt nướng giò, from hence forth it shall be known as #65 since that is what it is on the menu and I am a lazy writer so deal with it.  The name is basically a description of what is in the dish, bún being the term for the vermicelli rice noodles, thịt referring to the pork, nướng means it comes with fish sauce, and giò means it has an egg roll.  Now that does not include all of the other fresh veggies piled in the bowl but you will just have to wait until later to see those.

As I mentioned before fish sauce is one of the greatest condiments ever invented, this fermented sauce derived from fish kicks everything up a notch or two.  It is basically a salty sauce similar to Worcestershire sauce that isn’t quite so pungent.

The other rock star condiment that I had to use on this dish (as well as most other dishes when it is an option) was the famous Sriracha or as I commonly hear it referred to, “the rooster sauce”.  This chili hot sauce is awesome, and it belongs on most Asian dishes, if not many other cuisines that can use a kick in the pants.

The bowl that shows up is quite frankly gigantic, and as you can see filled to the brim.  The flavor components on the surface are obvious, chopped pork, egg roll, along with piles of green onions, peanuts, carrots, and a sprig of cilantro.  Basically, this bowl is a colorful party begging you to shovel it into your mouth.  The Vietnamese egg roll is a different creature than the Chinese egg rolls that many of you are used to, it has a meat mix with some pork and prawns, along with your usual leafy veggie filling, but the twist in it is mushrooms, giving it a much darker filling than you usually find in other cuisines.  For those of you who hate mushrooms do not wince and vomit on me, it is not an overpowering flavor and just blends nicely with the rest of the mix.

Upon receiving the bowl one of my first tasks is to get my mix on, doing this brings up the veggies hiding on the bottom of the bowl, and mixes the rest in the fish sauce that has settled in on the bottom.  Doing this mix causes the lettuce and sprouts at the bottom to get more evenly spread out throughout the dish.

This dish is a large serving, but you don’t lose a single piece of flavor to size, and at under $7 it is a good price for a full on flavor bên (according to Google translate that means party but I am too lazy to research more beyond that).

Enjoy.

Where's The Muzak?

Today’s adventure took us to the ancient Southeast Asian land of Vietnam, a place with a rich history and even more delicious food.  My foodventure on the other hand took me all the way to Katy, Texas to Phở Mai on Wintergreen and I-10.  This place is good, but I don’t think they are expecting any awards for service in the near future.  At times they remind me of the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld, you sit down and immediately they ask if you are ready to order and if you are not, so help you God you better be snappy about your decision.

Now for many people the first thought that comes to mind when you start talking Vietnamese food is phở, the piping hot bowl of soup that seems to come in every variety under the sun, and always with a big plate of roughage.  However, in my mind there is a time and place for that 100,000 degree bowl of liquid and it certainly is not July in Houston. 

Nothing like a rotating condiment station to know you are in good hands.

My personal favorite in the Vietnamese noodle house is a scrumptious bowl of heaven known as bún, specifically one that I am not even going to bother trying to write out but it has char grilled pork and an eggroll on vermicelli noodles and veggies.  With of course the Vietnamese staple sauce known as fish sauce, we will not go into details of what it is or how it is made (saw it once on the Travel Channel), no need to cost you your appetite

. 

Alas, today was not the day for that either.  Today my friend was a day for the most glorious sandwich of them all…  A sandwich that makes Subway’s famed $5 foot long look like child’s play.  Yes my friend we are talking about the famed Bánh mì, a fantastic combo of baguette, grilled meat, some variation of veggies, and more cilantro sprigs than you can shake a stick at.  You may ask yourself “Why on earth would there be French baguette running around in the jungles of Vietnam?”, excellent question, for those of you unaware of the history the French once colonized this land and slapped the moniker of French Indochina.  As is often the case when French people show up they leave something behind (usually their guns if in the case of war), and this time it just so happened to include their delicious white bread.

I love this sandwich because of its simplicity, there is no heavy sauce covering up the flavor, just some cucumbers, carrots, nicely flavored grilled pork, and of course a butt load of cilantro which can easily be removed if that isn’t your groove.  The other amazing benefit is that this thing is $3.95, of course the price which leaves room in the budget for another great little item.

Gỏi cuốn, or the summer roll as I have seen it called other places, is always a good side choice.  A nice cool combo of shrimp, pork, and vermicelli all rolled up in some rice paper.  Basically this is an all around cool meal for a nice sweltering day here in Houston. 

Now about that interesting title, normally when I have eaten here in the past I have been serenaded through my noodles or sandwich to the smooth sounds of Kenny G or a nice instrumental version of some Celine Dion song.  It was always comforting to be reminded of being in an elevator, or maybe doctor’s waiting room surrounded by plague victims while I scarf down my meal.  Today Sarah McLachlan was singing to me while I ate, and all I could think of was those SPCA commercials where they show the abused animals.  Kind of a bad feeling when the running joke of Asian food is cat and images of the animal shelter rolling through my mind while I eat some meat, but have no fear, as usual none of it went to waste.