Showing posts with label vietnamese. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vietnamese. Show all posts

Friday, August 26, 2016

Simbal is the Vietnamese Izakaya You Need to Try (Los Angeles, CA)

Simbal is a bit of a sleeper gem in Little Tokyo, which opened last summer and has since gotten plenty of critic accolades. The space is tucked away in Little Tokyo mall, but it's worth finding the place for Chef Shawn Pham's truly wonderful Southeast Asian food.

Simbal has been dubbed a "Vietnamese izakaya", so the small plates menu certainly has plenty of dishes that are meant to accompany drinks, like the Yin's wok fried seasoned nuts, anchovies, seaweed ($5)
Simbal
Chef Shawn Pham is doing some fun takes on Vietnamese classics, like he does with the Banh mi salad, with pickled daikon and carrots, Vietnamese sausage, head cheese, cucumber (banh mi, low-carb style?)
Simbal
Chef Pham has worked in some powerhouses such as the shuttered Sona, Craft, and The Bazaar, and Simbal's menu marries his fine dining experience with his four years in Vietnam. You'll see this in dishes like the beef tartare, larb seasoning, served with a puffy sesame bread.
Simbal

Thursday, June 26, 2014

New Secret Kitchen Item from Crustacean

by guest blogger Bryan Tsunoda @btsunoda


Crustacean in Beverly Hills has been around for quite some time. The roasted crab and their famous garlic noodles are crowd pleasers and what Crustacean is best known for. Despite its name, Crustacean is so much more than that and I recently had the opportunity to sample some of their new offerings.
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Crustacean is also known for its “Secret Kitchen.” A closed door kitchen within a kitchen, it’s where some of the restaurant’s most coveted dishes are prepared. Since their opening in 1997, only six dishes have been created in the Secret Kitchen. Now, there's a new Secret Kitchen item that we'll be tasting tonight.

As I entered Crustacean, a three piece jazz ensemble provided entertainment to the bar patrons. The walk on water entrance features a serpentine shaped aquarium that doubles as a floor. It was obvious that Crustacean is still a place to be seen as everyone seated at the bar had the required ‘look’.DSCF2018 Our group was led outside through the side door of the restaurant, entered an unmarked exterior door and walked up a flight of stairs. We learned that this is Crustacean’s new “Secret Room” - a new private place to dine. Celebrities enjoy the fact that they can be whisked in from valet parking through the separate side door.

Sunday, March 2, 2014

Red Medicine Revamps Formosa Cafe's Food Menu (Hollywood)

Formosa Cafe in Hollywood stores a long history of old Hollywood glamour. It was opened in 1925 and now preserved as a historical landmark. To keep Angelenos interested, though, they decided it was time to spice up the food menu and got the Red Medicine team to move in and take over the menu, resulting in Red Med at Formosa Cafe.

While Jordan Kahn is revamping Red Medicine itself to move away from Vietnamese dishes, the rest of the team brings old favorites and more of the Asian flavors to Formosa. Find dishes like Oyster mushrooms, oyster sauce, haricot vert (green beans), espelette ($12)

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You can't see the oyster mushrooms buried underneath, but trust when I say that the mushrooms with the crunchy bits are one of our favorite dishes here.

Shanghai rice cakes, bacon x.o., shishito, Thai basil ($15)
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While $15 seems a little expensive, it was so good we couldn't stop eating it! That bacon x.o. sauce was pretty amazing with the chewy rice cakes. Formosa Cafe's kitchen is also open until 2 am so I think when I am tipsy I would happily pay $15 for this ...

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Vietnamese Brunch Pops Up on Melrose with BEP Kitchen

Every other week starting this Sunday (April 21), you can get an awesome Vietnamese multi-course brunch on Melrose. Connie Tran's BEP Vietnamese Kitchen will be popping up at Franco on Melrose. There's only one seating at 11:30 am where you'll partake in an 8-course brunch, mostly served family style, for $37.

Boiled Peanuts
I attended a media preview last week, starting my morning with some spiced boiled peanuts. I remember as a kid I loved boiled peanuts and would buy them at the zoo (I think they were meant for the elephants). I just love the texture! Here, suck on the shells a bit to get the flavors!

Chef Connie Tran explained to us the philosophy behind a Vietnamese meal. She said there is always a "water" component, which in our meal was the chao sang: rice porridge, lardon crisps, poached egg, sage brown butter

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This one was not served family style but a small individual bowl for everyone. Egg lovers will rejoice over the high egg:porridge ratio here.

After that there will be 1-2 proteins but one of them will always have vegetables. More on that later, though, as she modernizes and expands things a bit with her own take.

Our second course was a beautiful salad of starfruit, fennel, burrata, bibb lettuce with lemon balm dressing
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Sunday, July 10, 2011

Central Vietnamese Cuisine at Quan Vy Da (Little Saigon, Westminster)

Not too long ago I blogged about the northern Vietnamese food during a Little Saigon North to South tour with Wandering Chopsticks. This was our second food stop, Central Vietnamese cuisine at Quan Vy Da (well, she said it was more South Central). I had been looking forward to this stop all day, because they have banh beo and banh it ram. I'm biased and I declare central my favorite food region of Vietnam, because I love chewy rice cakes!

Yes, my favorite: banh beo chen Vy Da - steamed rice cakes topped with dried shrimp, served with fish sauce ($5.95)

Banh Beo
While it may seem a simple dish, it's easy to screw it up by having the rice cake too thick or too dense. The ones at Quan Vy Da were just right for me. You can top it off with pork rinds if you want extra flavor and crunch (and yes, you do).
Banh Beo close up

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Whole Baked Catfish at Vietnam House (San Gabriel, CA)

A quick pho trip turned into a lavish meal of whole baked catfish. We just couldn't help ourselves once we saw it on the menu. The whole catfish (around $30-35 depending on the size) came topped with garlic and scallions, the aroma carries to the edge of the table. This is perhaps the tour de force of Vietnam House's menu.

Baked Whole Catfish
The catfish is served with the usual condiments. Vermicelli noodles, herbs and lettuce and pickled carrots, rice paper to wrap it all in, and fish sauce for dipping. (I keep noticing how in much of Vietnamese food, you don't really eat rice but rice paper, rice noodles, and rice cakes).
Catfish and Condiments

Friday, June 17, 2011

Northern Vietnamese Cuisine at Vien Dong (Garden Grove, CA)

To raise money for the earthquake relief efforts in Japan, Wandering Chopsticks led a North to South Vietnamese tour in Little Saigon. I joined her and her readers who had each donated $50 to specific charities for the first parts of the tour. We started at Vien Dong in Garden Grove for Northern Vietnamese food.

While waiting for WC's other readers to arrive, we ordered some Cha Gio (Vietnamese Spring/Egg Rolls). The cha gio here is made with rice paper, which is both crispy yet maintains some chewiness when fried. This is the traditional wrapper used in Vietnam.

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PhotobucketBeing a long and late day, I had to get some Ca Phe Sua Da. They brought it out in a mini coffee press laying on top of a cup of condensed milk. It wasn't until then that I realize just how much condensed milk is in this drink! No wonder it's so tasty...

We shared an order of Banh Tom which are Vietnamese Shrimp and Yam Fritters with a turmeric batter.
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Most of the dishes we tried here were new to me, and among my favorites was the Cha Ca Thang Long (Vietnamese Hanoi-Style Turmeric Fish with Dill)
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The best part with going to eat Vietnamese food with WC is of course the knowledge you gain from her. She said that dill is mostly not used in Vietnamese food other than in the Northern part, and this dish originated from a restaurant in Hanoi which became so popular that the street is now named after the restaurant (Cha Ca). Apparently non-Northerners consider using dill strange, but I certainly liked it!

Thursday, March 10, 2011

LA's "Haute" Asian Cuisine? Lukshon vs WP24 vs Red Medicine, Part 3: Red Medicine

When I started doing this series of posts, i debated a while whether or not I will go to Red Medicine. I had gone to their stint at Test Kitchen, but ideally I should try the "final product". However, I just couldn't bring myself to go after their whole drama with the LA Times' reviewer SIV, where they not only kicked her out of the restaurant but also posted her photo online, threatening her position as an anonymous critic. I haven't agreed with many of her reviews lately but that is really beside the point. I found their "revenge" unprofessional and juvenile.

Finally, I decided not to go. I had very little desire to.

The tasting menu at Test Kitchen and their current menu both seemed reasonable at first glance, $40 for the Test Kitchen menu and $21 or less for the protein entrees. It turned out, however, that the portions were quite small.

Many of the dishes we tried were excellent. We all loved the cured amberjack served on french melons, and the pork belly "banh mi".

Pork Belly Banh Mi
Fatty and crunchy texture and lovely pickled carrot. I definitely could've used more than one piece of this.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Pho Filet in El Monte

Pho with filet mignon. At first it sounds a bit strange. Pho = cheap. Filet mignon = pricey. But at these Vietnamese restaurants from San Gabriel to East LA, the result is still a cheap bowl of pho, kicked up a notch by the high quality of meat!

This was my first time meeting Wandering Chopsticks, who took Pleasure Palate and I to Pho Filet in El Monte.

Wanting to be adventurous and all, I ordered some pennywort shake (on the right). Wandering Chopsticks ordered the pennywort juice (on the left).
The pennywort shake also had mung beans in it, making it sweeter and less 'grassy'/'herby' than just the pennywort juice. WC said I should probably get that one, me being a pennywort-noob :P

This time we forgot to ask for the filet mignon on the side. Why would you want to do that? Because otherwise the filet mignon would get overcooked by the end of your meal, but if you order it on the side, then you can put it in one by one and you'll get a medium rare piece of filet mignon everytime!
The broth here tasted of more spice than most, which I really liked. And yes, you can definitely tell the upgrade on the meat!
Delicious, filling, and cheap. A bowl of pho here ranges from $5.50-$6 (depending on the type and number of different meats you get). For filet mignon? That's cheap! You can step up to a large bowl for $0.50 more.

For reviews of more dishes, and more food porn, filet mignon-style, check out Wandering Chopsticks' blogpost.

Pho Filet
9463 E Garvey Ave #A
South El Monte, CA 91733
(626) 453-8911

Pho Filet on Urbanspoon

Monday, February 16, 2009

Jungle Food Marathon Part 2: Cambodia and Vietnam

Continuing on my report of the Jungle Food Marathon with FoodMarathon, LA&OC Foodie, FoodDestination, DigLounge, Teenage Glutster, Mattatouille, and Choisauce (who in between this and the first post, has started her own blog!!).

After our nice Peruvian meal, we went further south to Long Beach to Siem Reap, a Cambodian restaurant with Cambodian music videos playing on the background. I know DigLounge in particular *really* enjoyed this song Dhoom Dhoom ...

We ordered quite a variety of dishes including the Beef and anchovy saladSome Beef lok lak (they didn't have venison) - marinated square chunks of meat cooked with some peppery sauce.
These are pretty basic, but delicious and particularly tender. I can see how they can be a staple food.

Another "typical" Cambodian dish is the fish and sadao leaves salad
Definitely different/interesting. The sadao leaves were, yes, bitter.

We also got some pork curry (pictured below) and fish paste that you eat with various raw veggies
I actually enjoyed this pork curry quite a bit - a tad spicy but not too much so even for me.

The Fish Paste stunk of rotten meat to me and I really could not eat it (I can't believe you guys ate this but can't handle durian! :P )

Siem Reap
1810 E Anaheim St
Long Beach, CA 90813
(562) 591-7414
Siem Reap on Urbanspoon

Next we ventured down to the Westminster area, to a Vietnamese bistro called Quan Hop. Prices here are slightly higher than usual for VNese food, but it is a bistro with a nice ambiance and probably caters to the younger crowd.

We started off with these small appetizers called Banh Beos, which are steamed rice pancakes with dried shrimps, scallions etc in the middle, served with fish sauce.
Really enjoyed this - the toppings were delicious and savory. The rice pancake itself is pretty light and nicely chewy.

We also got a vegetarian version of these, but they tasted and looked pretty similar, so no extra photo/description.

Next we had some banhitram: fried glutinous rice flour filled with shrimp, pork and mushrooms
This is the dish that really stood out in my mind from this particular stop - different and delicious. Chewy mochi-like rice cakes - these were bordering on 'dessert-y' for me (even with the shrimp/pork inside), but they are delicious little things and I definitely recommend you guys try them!

The other dishes we tried that night were all good, although the ones I remembered well were the ones noted above. The others include a jackfruit salad:
and tu tiu hop dai, a vermicelli dish with pork and shrimp
Quan Hop definitely has some interesting selections I don't normally see elsewhere and has a nice bistro ambiance.

Quan Hop
15640 Brookhurst St
Westminster, CA 92683
(714) 689-0555
Quan Hop on Urbanspoon

We ended our day(night) on a sweeter note: sugar cane juice from Nuoc Mia Vien Tay (just down the street from Quan Hop)! The sugar cane juice here is freshly squeezed (is that the write verb here?) and enhanced by kumquats, as you can see below:
Nice, cold, refreshing, and cheap! The kumquats definitely add a nice citrusy note and helps get rid of the aftertaste that tends to bother people about sugar cane juice (although i never minded it).
It was 7 pm, we ended our journey and started heading home, satisfied. I think we paced ourselves well and thus did not completely stuff ourselves (Mattatouille apparently could still handle two Double-Doubles).


Nuoc Mia Vien Tay
14370 Brookhurst St
Garden Grove, CA 92843
(714) 531-9801
Nuoc Mia Vien Tay on Urbanspoon

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Good Eats Under $5: Golden Deli

I'm starting a series of posts of cheap eats in LA. These will be good meals for under $5 (not including tax and tips - hey this is LA!).

First post is the Golden Deli Vietnamese restaurant in San Gabriel! I come here a lot since Caltech is pretty close. The standard dish I get is the 'bun thit nuong':Rice noodles with bbq pork, served with fish paste in the small bowl (just dump it all into your noodle bowl!). $4.75
****UPDATE! The current price is now $5.25 :( ****

They are really generous with their portions and also how much meat they give, especially considering the price! I guess it is not that uncommon being in the San Gabriel area :)
There usually is always a line, but if you're only a party of two you get seated pretty quickly.

I also got a cherimoya drink, which was $1.75. If you get a drink your meal won't be under $5 anymore though :P
AGolden Deli

815 W. Las Tunas Dr.
San Gabriel, CA

Golden Deli on Urbanspoon

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