All Entries Tagged With: "Vietnamese"

Pho Lan on No 3 Road and Granville, Richmond

Pho Lan is one of those rare places that we had been to many times before but had never written about it before. Weird as it may seem, I had always thought that I had written about Pho Lan and did not quite believe Suanne when she said I had not. So last week I checked Pho Lan on this site … and guess what, she’s right.

Pho Lan is located just across the street from the Richmond City Hall on No 3 Road. This is the restaurant known to have hosted the weekly Dot Com Pho sometime ago. I don’t know what happened but for sometime already, they have not had the weekly event in Pho Lan anymore.

It must have been good publicity for Pho Lan when the Dot Com Pho were held there. All bloggers would have known John Chow of johnchow.com (totally no relation to chowtimes.com obviously). If I am correct, his site must have the website with the biggest readership running out of Vancouver … and he makes tons of money blogging. He claims he makes $40-$50K a month but am not sure if it’s a big exaggeration but nevertheless I am sure he make serious money.

Sigh … if only I could make 10% of what he said he does.

Pho Lan is always busy at anytime of the day. Service is very fast and friendly. We had never had problems getting what we needed. They are almost always in a rush and hands with something whether they are going to the kitchen or coming out of it. I had this thing about observing how the waitresses work that tells me how efficiently run they are.

The insides of Pho Lan is really nothing fancy. As a matter of fact, I don’t think they even care about decor at all. At least it is tidy and organized.

The man who took our orders obviously knows how to handle food bloggers. It must have been from the days of the Dot Com Pho. As he was taking our orders, he observed that Suanne was writing our order onto the notebook. He excused himself mid-way and reappeared with a take-out menu. He told Suanne that the takeout menu is the same and that she can use the menu. Smart chap. All restaurants should learn from this guy to be blogger-friendly and not be suspicious of bloggers taking notes or pictures of the menu!

The menu in Pho Lan is nothing fancy. It is just like all pho places with the Beef Noodle Soup taking center-stage.

While most Pho places offer pho in two size, Pho Lan is one of the rare places which has pho in three sizes. The options are $5.50, $6.50 and $7.50.

The good thing about Pho Lan is that you can also order a good day as a side. And it’s cheap too $1.50 plus tax.

Arkensen is the one who will always order the “#1″ in Pho restaurants. We don’t even have to ask him and we already know. He is the least adventurous when it comes to food. So, we don’t count on him taking over chowtimes.com some day. LOL!

He got the large one ($7.50) which was really really large. It was so large that Arkensen said he felt like throwing up after the meal. He and Nanzaro are both like a gold fish when it comes to food they like. You know gold fish right? They will eat as much as you feed them until their belly turns over. They just don’t know when enough is enough. Like goldfish, my boys will eat and eat and eat until they get sick.

The pho is great and has a nice cloudy soup. Don’t you find that pinkish rare beef slices awesome? All pho places should learn to serve it this way.

Oh. Mine is good. Between Suanne and I, I am better at picking food. Ask her if you don’t believe me. She had long conceded that I pick great dishes and she often picks dishes that she ended up regretting … and then eye’ing mine.

The $7.50 Fried Tender Beef on Rice Vermicelli is a dry noodle dish. This one is very very … More on following page. Click here to continue reading

Spices Vietnamese Cuisine on Cambie and W 17th, Vancouver

This is the last post where we will say “we were there after dropping off/before picking up our boys from their secret Olympic rehearsals”. All the rehearsals actually gave us the chance to eat at a place where we normally do not go to.

Their last practice was the day before the closing ceremony where it stretches until past 10PM. The organizers provided them food (sandwiches and subs) and so Suanne and I decided to go eat before picking them up.

After cross checking our to-try list, we decided to go to Spices on Cambie. Ever since Thien Kim (where we tried 4 different soup noodles and none of them are phos) and Song Huong (7 courses of Beef), we had been trying to see what else Vietnamese offer in their cuisine other than Pho. We like pho, but we had so many of them it is less of an adventure eating them these days.

Spices fit the bill. While Spices also has the usual Vietnamese fare like noodle soups, sandwiches and brochettes, they also have a few specialties of their own.

Spices is a reasonably sized restaurant. Unlike the bright interiors of most Vietnamese restaurants, this place a bit dim. The red and wood paneled walls gave it that reddish hue. The walls were decorated with interesting black and white photos of life and architecture of Vietnam.

It was a pretty busy night at the restaurant. Even though you don’t see any of the tables above taken, I took that picture way past 9PM where most of their customers had just left.

We observed that we were the only Asian customers here which we initially thought that perhaps Spices will westernize their food to suit non-Asian customers. And then we heard the workers speaking to each other in Cantonese too. We were so wrong.

So we first ask the waitress if this is authentic Vietnamese cuisine they have here, pointing to some of the items which I had never come across before. She vehemently said that their cook is Vietnamese. We took that at face value.

Their menu is diverse. Pho represents only a small section. What caught my attention was a few dishes that has the word “Imperial” and “Royal” in the name (see the 1st and 2nd images of the menu above). Anything “Imperial” and “Royal” has to be good right?

Look at the last page of the menu above where there is a page on combos ($12-$17) you can order if you want to try a few of their dishes. We wanted to order from it but it is too “limiting”. It is also too little if we order one combo to share but too much if we order two.

So we ordered Prawn Imperial as an appetizer. We had just one piece to try which is $3.50. The appetizer size option is two pieces for $6.25.

It deserves the Imperial name. It has a large prawn wrapped with ground pork and vegetables and then re-wrapped with Vietnamese egg roll wrapper. It is deep fried and served with what they call the Imperial sauce. We can’t really pick out why this seemingly normal fish sauce tasted good and different.

It was quite a meaty spring roll and the wrapper was crunchy as expected. Wished we had ordered two instead.

Suanne wanted to order a lighter baguette but was told that it was only for lunch. Not wanted to scour the menu again, we asked the waitress what is their most popular dish. She rattled off four dishes but the first one caught our attention … the Royal Prawn Citron.

This, to us, is the OMG dish of the night. It is pricey ($15) but worth it. The dish is filled with jumbo prawns which are marinated in a “special sauce” and then sauteed with fresh garlic dill sauce.

When it was brought to the table, it was sizzling hot which drew a lot of attention from our neighboring table. It just smell heavenly and we were quite pleased with the choice.

The prawns were fat succulent ones with brittle shells. A little more crunchier would have been 100% perfect. I just like to eat the prawns with the shells.

The dills too were great with rice. It is not often (if at all) I see dill done this way before. Now … the best part is the … More on following page. Click here to continue reading

Ba Le Deli and Bakery on Kingsway and Fraser, Vancouver

It was Day 17th of the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. Arkensen and Nanzaro was getting all excited about this big day when they will perform in the Closing Ceremony. The Closing Ceremony does not start until 5:30PM but they need to report at their station at 11:30AM.

For Suanne and I, the plan of the day is centered around watching the Canada-USA gold medal hockey game and the Closing Ceremony on TV at home. After dropping the boys off and wishing them to break a leg, we thought we quickly grab a sandwich from Ba Le and go back for the game with time to spare.

We went to the location on Kingsway and Fraser. Their other location is in Chinatown. BTW, is the name Ba Le mean Paris in Vietnamese?

Ba Le is well known f0r the Vietnamese baguette. Between the Chinatown location and this location, you MUST come to this location. This is because …

… Ba Le had just started operation of their new expensive oven just a few weeks ago. As reported on Chowhound, the owners had this industrial sized oven imported from France and had the baker sent to France to learn to use the oven too.

Just as we were to place our order, we saw them taking out a freshly baked batch of baguette from the oven. It smell so good that we told ourselves we are going stay and eat in Ba Le … on one of the three small tables just next to the oven.

We counted that batch that just came out. It was 200 baguettes in those trays. It seems like they make a lot … more than a thousand for sure. Looking at the operation here, I am sure they make this and sell it to other restaurants. We were wondering if they do sell just the freshly baked baguette to walk-in customers.

The picture above was deceptively quiet. It was all about angle and timing! There were a lot of customers lining up for their orders. A lot of them obviously taking out for the hockey gold medal game because they were wearing Team Canada jerseys. I had never seen such lines for Banh Mi before. The assembly station was extremely busy and somewhat chaotic. I can see that all four people were working heads down trying to keep up with all the orders.

Suanne observed that the man who was taking the orders (and handling the money) uses his hands to pick up the food too.

They have ten different types of sandwiches on the board. They are all about $3 to $4. Besides the baguettes, they also sell a lot of other Vietnamese delicacies. People come here for the baguettes.

We got two sandwiches to share. Selecting one of them is easy … it was the one that is simply called the Special sandwich (right). The other one was the meatier Grilled Pork sandwich.

The baguette has the nice golden look to it. The slashes is shallow and the crust thin. Light and airy, it crumples easily when pressed.

So, I was complaining to Suanne that she does not know how to eat sandwiches. You see, she just has to press the sandwich each time she takes a bite. It was reflexes I know but this makes her sandwich all flat like sliced bread by the time it was half-finished. Ohhh … I can’t stand that. LOL!

The Grilled Pork Sandwich ($3.50) had that moist pork pieces which was slightly … More on following page. Click here to continue reading

Pho Hong on Kingsway Near Intersection with Imperial, Burnaby

Once upon a time … almost 10 years ago … when Arkensen and Nanzaro were just toddlers, Pho Hong was the family favourite restaurant. We used to eat there once a week, without fail. Always on a Sunday.

That was when we were attending the church nearby. So after service, we always go there for lunch … and always got the same thing. The #1 Special.

We were also quite poor then. We rarely spent more than $20 for eating out … a week!! So Pho Hong fits the bill.

Pho Hong is cheap. Pho Hong is delicious. Most importantly Pho Hong serves very big bowls of pho. Between the four of us, we just need to order two pho specials and we would find it hard to finish. And all that for just $15. Those were the days when Pho Hong was the #1 restaurant to Suanne and I. Those were the days before chowtimes when it was OK to eat at the same restaurant week after week, ordering the same item over and over again. Those were the good days!

It must have been at least 5 years already since we last went to Pho Hong. Last week we drove all the way to Kingsway and Imperial in Burnaby for old time sake. The place looked the same as we remembered them … but showing a bit more age … rundown even.

The interior still has that ghastly maroon wall paper. The booths at the center of the restaurant is still there. We like those booths which has overhanging plastic vines of grapes. I was told that Pho Hong used to be an Italian restaurant eons ago.

We were such regulars that the owners knew us. That was then. After all these years, we are just another customer to them. They don’t remember us anymore. Arkensen and Nanzaro is no longer the cute toddlers they once knew.

The one great thing about Pho Hong was the smell. Every time we go there, we end up having our clothes smelling of the beef noodle soup for the entire day. We had never come across another pho restaurant which does that even today.

The #1 Special was what we order all the time. It used to be just $7.50 for a big bowl and it even came with a deep fried spring roll. Today it is $8.50. Inflation, I guess.

The #1 Special was always MY order and I always shared this with Nanzaro, being the younger one. Nanzaro would hate that I squirt Sriracha chili sauce into the bowl making it all red. I like it that way. So I always separated Nanzaro’s portion into a separate bowl before I do that.

This time Arkensen said he wants the #1 and it goes without saying that he is not going to share this with anyone anymore.

The #1 Special tasted just as good as it was back then. They serve the beef pinkish raw but with the soup close to a boil, it needed just second to cook the meat. The soup was flavourful but we felt the bowls were smaller … or maybe our appetite are now bigger. I am not sure.

The reason why we ordered the #1 was because it had everything … beef slices, beef ball, tendon & tripe.

The spring roll which came with the “special” was good. It was served hot like they had just made it to order. We prefer the coarse kind of wrapper … I think the rice paper kind. But no complains because we like this too.

The bean sprouts were OK — just OK. We had super fresh ones before.

I ordered salted plum with Soda ($2.95). I like this because it is a very good thirst quencher and the glass was bigger than normal.

I had never thought of this until now … Suanne does not order drinks at all. She does not like flavoured drinks; opting for water or tea if she can help it. The thing is our boys did not order drinks too. They always asked for iced water and I did not think much about it.

So when I was sitting here writing this blog post, I asked them why. Gosh … now I know why but am not at liberty to tell you the reason. This because you-know-who said she will knock my head if I tell anyone. LOL! You ask you-kn0w-who if you want to know.

For a person who used to stop me from squirting Sriracha Chili sauce into the pho, Nanzaro had graduated to eating spicy food.

His order was the … More on following page. Click here to continue reading

Kim Penh Xe Lua on West Broadway and Cambie

It looks like we are going to have dinners or lunches around in downtown for the next little while. This is the first of many over the next month or so.

The reason is Arkensen and Nanzaro is having top secret practices for the Closing Ceremony of the Vancouver 2010 Olympics and we had to drive them to the practice venue a couple of times a week.

Going into the city I am beginning to see the Olympic feel coming to life. I can’t believe it is just four more weeks to go. Being a PM, I can’t help but to say that the organization is top notch and just can’t imagine the sheer size and complexity the project is.

So our boys had been attending practices a few weeks now. The thing is that the Olympics people had brain washed them into not telling us a single thing about the practices at all — a total clamp down. We used to be able to pry info from them easy. Not this time. Even simple questions like … how many people were in the practice, what is your role, do you like the costume, was the practices tiring … all questions are met with “I am not commenting” response. LOL!

Oh … I simply had to share this simple and stunning video from the BC Tourism people. You gotta be here … in 2010!

The Closing Ceremony practice venue is [censored]. There are a lot of restaurants nearby, particularly around the intersection of West Broadway and Cambie. Don’t you love what the Vancouver City Hall did to this intersection? It is so beautiful and is teeming with more people than I could remember. What I like best is the absence of those ugly trolley bus wires.

Anyway, Kim Penh Xe Lua is one restaurant we had always wanted to try for a long time. We had a couple of recommendations from our readers about this place. Kim Penh Xe Lua is opened 24 hours and located just at about the intersection of Broadway and Cambie.

Oh, the gall of them. They installed colorful Olympic-like rings for lightings in the restaurant. Anyone knows if this had always been there? Shhh … don’t let VANOC (the Vancouuver 2010 Organizing Committee) know or they will come after them (just joking).

But I hate the lights because they make it impossible for me to color correct the pictures of the food below.

Kim Penh Xe Lua,, I think is supposed to be a Cambodian restaurant which ended up being more of a Vietnamese restaurant. The signage outside the restaurant said that it is Vietnamese slash Cambodian restaurant. The take out menu had no mention of the word Combodia but it does have the image of the Angkor Wat on it.

To me Kim Penh Xe Lua reminds of the Phnom Penh restaurant in Chinatown which is also very much a Cambodian slash Vietnamese restaurant.

Look at the menu above (click to enlarge) … it is very much Vietnamese right? For one, Pho is not a Cambodian dish.

We like the bean sprouts. It is entirely fresh and crunchy. The boys were thirsty after the practices and remarked that they like munching this. I’ve never thought of this as a thirst quencher.

I shared the Hue Special in Spicy Noodle Soup (Bun Bo Hue) with Suanne. The prices here are cheap and this is just $7.

The soup had a very pronounced lemon grass flavour that we can even smell it from where we sit.

The beef slices is thick, like 1 mm thick (no, not the picture above). It is not like in … More on following page. Click here to continue reading

Lam Hoa Quan on Victoria Drive at East 34th Ave, Vancouver

Alright. Pho purist unite!

There are lots ramen purists in Vancouver. It is about time that Pho purists unite and help identify the places with the most authentic Pho in Metro Vancouver.

When we wrote about our visit to Thien Kim (where we had FOUR different types of Vietnamese noodles soups, none of which are Pho), there was a comment from Kiki claimed that Lam Hoa Quan is the most authentic that she ever had. So we did some research on Lam Hoa Quan on the internet and we found only ONE mention of this little know gem of a place.

What intrigued me most was the rumour that they serve HORSE MEAT here. Just in case you are itching to click on the comment link and accuse me for being a horse-eating barbarian, please note that we did NOT have horse meat pho here. OK? LOL!

Lam Hoa Quan is located on Victoria Drive between East 34th and 35th In Vancouver. The sign outside the restaurant had the important diacritical mark that says that they serve Ph?, not Pho.

There are surprisingly ample parking at the back of the restaurant. So if you can’t find street parking, just drive to the back and you will find about 6 or 7 lots.

Lam Hoa Quan does look very authentic. Most of their customers speaks in the unmistakable Vietnamese here.

We were served by someone who seems to be the owner or the wife of the owner. Well, she was too well-dressed to be an employee and had make-up put on too. She was also very bossy and “rush-y” especially when we wanted to take more time checking their menu. She was so bossy that I was intimated to ask her if they serve horse meat. I was afraid that she will scold us in front of every customer for even thinking they do that. So, I resigned myself to the fact that I will never ever in my life hear it from the horse’s mouth (pun intended).

Lam Hoa Quan is about a mid-sized restaurant. However, the tables are all jam packed into every available square inch save for some wiggle room for you to get to the other end of the restaurant. I am sure you had been to such restaurants before. You know, one where you brush your buttocks against the tables and chairs of eating customers, apologizing profusely as you do that.

We like Lam Hoa Quan already. We really do. Even before we started ordering we have a good sense that this is indeed a gem of a place as Kiki said it is.

Besides the usual bean sprouts and basil leaves, they also provided something that we had come to identify as signs of authentic Vietnamese Pho.

The chopped shallots does wonder to the flavour of each spoonful of noodles. The red chili (what is the proper name for this type of chili anyway?) adds that ultra extra kick for those who yearns for heat and pain. The small dish of salt and pepper is something I had just learned to use with Vietnamese noodles.

Arkensen ordered their #1. He always order the #1 in every Vietnamese restaurant we went to … always.

This is called Pho Dat Biet (simply House Special Beef Noodle Soup) and costs $7.

Kiki said that Lam Hoa Quan is authentic and they make it with all the traditional ingredients as they do in Vietnam. Did you know that Pho originates from North Vietnam and that they did not become popular in the South until about 50 years ago? It is southern, and less authentic, version of the Pho that is prevalent in North America. So, I guess knowing if it is Northern Vietnamese Pho is one way to gauge authenticity.

What we like about Lam Hoa Quan’s pho is that they add chopped ginger (picture above, the white-yellowish thingy at the top) to all the beef soup. The clear soup is really tasty and flavourful. We finished every drop of the soups we had. Oh yeah, we ended up with really clean bowls after the meal.

Other than the horse meat rumour, their claim to fame is this one above. If you crave for something other than Pho, this is a worthy replacement. It is called the Pho Ga Dac Biet which in English is … More on following page. Click here to continue reading

Thien Kim Vietnamese Restaurant on Nanaimo and East Broadway, Vancouver

This is one restaurant that truly excites me and I have a feeling it will make you sit up and take note too.

I know. You might think what is the big deal about yet another Vietnamese restaurant. Well, besides that this is an authentic Vietnamese restaurant, they serve something we had never tried before and are very good. Something better than Pho!

The window has a neon light that says “Got Pho?” but that was not what we were excited over.

We went to the Thien Kim Vietnamese Restaurant (translated as Golden Heaven) last weekend. What we had was Vietnamese Noodle Soups … FOUR different types of noodle soup … and none of it is Pho. For those of you who are bored with pho, wanted a variety but crave Vietnamese style noodle soup, this is it.

Thien Kim is located on Nanaimo just south of Broadway in Vancouver. Their address is 2523 Nanaimo Street (Google Map).

Thien Kim is just a mid sized Vietnamese restaurant. There is nothing remarkable about it. Judging from the outside, I would never have chosen to eat here.

Inside, it is clean and a bit too spacious if you ask me. It seems like they just got some tables and just arranged it to fit the space they have. The reason I say this is because while the walkway is spacious, the tables were too small for pho. You know how much space a decent bowl of noodle soup takes up.

I tried looking for reviews on the internet of Thien Kim. I found none. Nothing on dinehere.ca. None too on Urbanspoon.

The waitress came very fast with the menu and a pot of tea. She was sweet and friendly. She also spoke in a strong Vietnamese accent. Which is a good thing because it tells us that they are authentic.

We just spent a couple of minutes looking over the menu and then put it aside. The menu was of no use to us. We already know what we wanted to order.

We came armed with a list of recommendations!

Steven wrote to us for the first time last week. Suanne and I do get lots of recommendations from our readers. There are always a few every week.

But Steven’s recommendation is different. His email is FOUR pages long and that is just a note to us about his three favourite places with very detailed description on his favourite dishes. His email was written like a true foodie. [Thanks a lot, Steven!]

Our waitress was amused that we ordered our dishes with the printout of the email. She was a bit stumped over some of the Vietnamese spellings that Steven wrote but we finally sorted it out with the detailed description on the email.

So here we go. Between the four of us (Nanzaro, Arkensen, Suanne and I), we ordered two appetizers and four bowls of noodle soup … and one more time … none of them are phos.

Steven recommended the Fried Shrimp Crackers. They call this Banh Tom in Vietnamese. This is not on the menu. They usually have this served as a side with the seafood or pork noodles but since we wanted to try this alone, she made a plate of four for us and charged us $5.

This is really good. The crackers are the hard crunchy type if you know what I mean. It takes a bit of a bite to break it. The prawns were so deep fried that you eat the prawns whole … shells and all.

This one is new to us. It is called Banh Cong (Fried Shrimp Cake) and is also $5. We love this a lot.

It is shaped like a muffin. Suanne thinks that they make it with muffin pans, bake it and then deep fried it.

It is best eaten with hands. Serious. There is nothing compared to breaking the muffin and dipping it in the fish sauce with hands, just like the way it is meant to be eaten. Even though this is deep fried, it is not greasy or oily. I think a pork version would be great too.

Nothing to see here. Move along now. This is just bean sprouts and basils.

Whoa, stop!

They also gave us another plate. Something different. Our waitress said that this is banana flower and mint.

The banana flower and mint is for the anchovies soup as we were told. We were told (albeit too late) that we must dunk the banana flower as soon as it is served with the broth is still piping hot.

Have you ever had anchovies soup before? I had never seen this before but I can tell you the soup is absolutely delicious. We love it.

On the menu, this is called Seafood Vermicelli with Pickle Fish Broth ($7.50).

In the noodle, there are slices of mouth watering fatty pork belly …

… and fish fillets besides prawns. Not only is the soup great, they … More on following page. Click here to continue reading