2 hours ago, liuzhou said:I was sceptical but had to try.
As I’ve mentioned before, despite my living very close to Vietnam, very little of their cuisine makes its way here. So, I was surprised to find this on my food delivery app today. A restaurant apparently called Saigon. Or perhaps, not. I’ll get back to that.
So, I scrolled through the menu and was surprised to note that many of the dishes listed and beautifully illustrated appeared to me to be more Thai than Vietnamese. Tom Yum soup included.
Some dishes
Fish in Tom Yum Sauce (Viet-Thai?)
Lime Sour Fish Soup
Vietnamese Sausages
Mint Grilled Pork Ribs
They had their take on phở, but only phở gà, the chicken version, labelled in Chinese as 越南鸡肉米粉 (yuè nán jī ròu mǐ fěn, Vietnam chicken rice noodles). No phở bò, Vietnam’s national dish, the beef version. Hmm.
Phở Gà
I didn’t have much of an appetite, so decided just to have one of the the bánh mì they were offering, labelled in Chinese as 越南三明治 (yuè nán sān míng zhì, Vietnam sandwich). Their illustration looked reasonable.
What arrived with me was this.
Which, rather sensibly if I say so myself, I opened to reveal this.
So far so good. The bread was exceptionally good. Made with Vietnamese rice flour, according to their description. However, they had sliced the sandwich into four; I've eaten hundreds of bánh mì in Vietnam and never had one sliced like that. Or sliced at all.
The slices tipped over to show you the contents.
The contents were what looked like liver sausage but wasn't. It was bland and tasteless. I think it was MRM chicken formed into a sausage shape. I want my liver pâté in my bánh mì. Then there what I think was meant to be char siu. It was hard to tell what the dry meaty stuff was. This came with a load of salad (as it should) which had been smothered in Kewpie "mayonnaise". It wasn't rank but disappointing. Only the bread saved it. I'd stil try some of their other dishes though, even though it was kind of expensive for here..
I stil don't know what the restaurant is called. The app lsting said Saigon. The box containing the bánh mì said Charm of Honey Viet. The plastic bag everything came in said Le Charme de Saigon. I know where they live, so I'll visit once I regain my mobility and will check it out.
The first seven images are from the restaurant's listing on the delivery app.
Fascinating. Kind of like a Viet/Thai hybrid. Those sausages definitely look Vietnamese... like nem. I'm glad the bread for the banh mi was good - to me, that's what makes it. Although from my research, they don't use rice flour in Vietnam - it's wheat flour with some kind of "dough improver" built in - some say it's like Vitamin C powder. I think the pale meat like substance is not a liver or chicken but a product in Vietnam called Chả lụa which is some kind of emulsified pork sausage. It's a common component of banh mi in Saigon (along with a few other meats). It's also a common addition to banh cuon:
in the upper right.
