Little Saigon: Thanh My and Nuoc Mia
February 08, 2005

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Thanh My

The original plan for the day was to set out in search of culinary adventure.  By the end of the day, I wanted to try three or four things that I'd never had before -- that I'd never even considered eating.  I browsed online for menus, made inquries on Chowhound, called some friends for recommendations.  And I had some pretty good leads, too:  Elephant clam and sea cucumber in Westminster, grasshoppers in Fullerton, "crunchy sea worms" in Santa Monica.  But when one attendee couldn't make it, another couldn't join us for the whole day, and the only remaining stalwart said that he wasn't going to eat any "weird sea creatures" no matter what, I decided to examine some less exotic (but still interesting) alternatives.  I'll have to have my adventures some other day.

We settled on Vietnamese in Westminster, at Thanh My, a restaurant that I've read good things about on Chowhound and elsewhere.  This was somewhat of an unfortunate decision, because this was the weekend just before the beginning of the Chinese New Year, and apparently there was a parade or something, because we spent quite awhile in traffic like in the picture.  If there was a parade, we never encountered it; when we pulled into the restaurant parking lot, all we saw on the road ahead was more traffic, stretching off to infinity.

I should preface everything that follows with an admission:  I don't know a damn thing about Vietnamese food.  I'm quite ashamed of this.  I consider myself a bit of a foodie, a chowhound, you know, an Eater Of Things.  To have totally missed out on such a strong and noble food culture...let's say it undermines my credibility to say the least.  Worse yet, for a year and a half I've been living 20 minutes away from the massive Vietnamese cultural resource that is the Garden Grove/Westminster area and I have never eaten Vietnamese food there.  I've made the drive out for Dim Sum, and that is all.  Someone should come out and cut off my tongue, because I don't deserve to have it.

There is an upside to this condition, however.  It means that there's a whole cuisine out there for me to explore! Completely new things to experience! 

The Cha Gio (Imperial Rolls -- not pictured) were quite servicable.  Fortunately, I did know how to eat these, as one of the few times I have had Vietamese food I was roundly chastised by a waiter for grabbing the egg rolls and eschewing the lettuce, herbs, and other items.

Crispynoodle Next were the Crunchy Noodles.  (I didn't write down the Vietnamese name; maybe it was the Mi Xao Don?)  If I'd known anything about Vietnamese food, we'd never have ordered this.  It's pretty much the same as a Chinese crispy noodle dish (which, admittedly, I don't even like all that much).

Goatcurry Goat Curry was next on the agenda.  We ordered the appetizer, Cary Ga Hoac Cary De, which comes with a loaf of french bread.  I didn't even notice that there was a specialty goat curry dish, De Rung Xao Lan, as well. It's nearly twice as much; I wonder what the difference is?  Is it twice as good?  Twice as large?  Twice the spice? This dish was enjoyable, and though it was not stellar, I thought it was worth the $7.

Froglegs Deep Fried Frog's Legs.  When I was a kid, I thought of frog's legs as the height of fancy cuisine.  And here they are, prepared like bar food.  Seriously, the only interesting thing about frog's legs are the subtle differences that they have from chicken.  Those differences can hardly be appreciated after being breaded and deep fried.  Give this one a miss, especially at the price ($13).

Soup1 Here's another shameful admission.  One of the reason I've never pursued Vietnamese food is that so much of it seemed to me to center around soups.  And I've always thought of soups as a prelude to something.  The idea of ordering one as a main course...all that liquid, sloshing around in your stomach...no, it's not right. (Never mind that I love a good Beef Bourguignon or boullaibaisse and think nothing of eating them as a main dish.)

So I wasn't really expecting too much out of the Hu Tieu Tom Cua Xa Xiu (Rice Noodles with Crab, Shrimp, and BBQ Pork in a Pork Broth) that my friend ordered. Oh, what a fool I have been.  These soups -- I know, I'm the last person in the world to know this, but bear with me here -- are gorgeous, complex affairs. They leverage the interplay between opposites -- soft and crunchy, sweet and spicy, hot and cool, cooked and fresh -- to create sensory experience. And the broths...this is no crappy canned stock.  It isn't even a simple boiling of pork parts in water. Aromatic, full flavored, but completely balanced. It is obviously the product of a labor of love. This broth has soul.  It's hard to find soul for $5 any more.

So some hits and some misses in the meal.  I have no one to blame but myself for the misses, though.  Next time I'll know better.  And there will be a next time...soon.

Nuoc Mia

We weren't quite done with Little Saigon.  For dessert we hit Nuoc Mia, a Vietnamese candy store of sorts that also makes sugar cane drinks.  Apparently it's well known for those drinks, because when we arrived the line for drinks stretched from the back of the place three quarters of the way to the front door.  (By the time we left, the line extended out the door!)  Maybe they're a popular drink around New Year's.  I hadn't planned to buy one, but after seeing the line, I had to try it.  We kept looking for a drink menu, but there isn't one -- apparently there's only one flavor.

Nuoc_inside The drinks take some time to make.  For each drink, the sugar cane stalks must be run through a formidable-looking press two or three times, the resulting pulp strained, and various other ingredients (lychee?) combined with the juice in order to make the drink.  Still, I couldn't help but think that the place was ripe for some young, ambitious, soul-killing Operations Research drone.  They could probably double their throughput and revenue with some simple optimizations that would still leave the drinks tasting 83% as good as they do now.

The taste is difficult to pin down.  It's not nearly as sweet as you would imagine.  It somehow manages to be tasty without having a specific flavor.  I'm not beating down anyone's door to open a franchise or anything, but it was fun to drink.

We bought and subsequently split an uber-variety pack of various candies.  You'll have to wait on the details, though; I'm saving those for another post.

February 8, 2005 in restaurants | Permalink

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Comments

One of the only pleasures of going to grad school in San Jose was the late night trips to the Tung Kee noodle house, where all the pho you'd ever want was no more thatn 2.50 for the large bowl. Also, Pho 99 #71 in Fresno was quite good, although is was heavily Hmong influenced.

Posted by: desyl at Feb 24, 2005 8:20:02 AM

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