dried bamboo shoots

[mrbigjas]

last night we were at a vietnamese restaurant here in philadelphia, and i ordered a soup that was listed as duck and bamboo shoots, with rice noodles. doing a little research i think it's called bun vit sao mang?

they brought out the plate of condiments, which involved bean sprouts and basil, as usual, but also red cabbage chopped up. and a very gingery, slightly thickened sauce that i haven't seen before.

when they brought the soup, it was really... let's say pungent. the condiments and the ginger sauce definitely lessened the effect, but the smell was there and not to be denied. i'm pretty adventurous and there aren't many things in the world that i don't like, but this smell made me sit up and take note, and not in a good way.

one thing i noticed was that i was expecting regular bamboo shoots, like fresh or canned, and these were definitely dried and reconstituted. i've never had dried bamboo shoots before--were they the source of the smell? or could it have been something else?

(p.s. we ate a lot of it anyway; i don't know if it's something that i'll get used to, but i'm certainly not going to reject something just because i ordered something new that i don't like all that much)

i'm hoping that this is a common enough recipe that you guys can answer this one...

[Philanthrophobe]

I've used dried bamboo shoots and there's nothing stinky about them, either dried or reconstituted...they smell a little sweet and slightly grassy.

Do you think it's possible that they just used a whole lot of fish sauce? Here's one recipe for a soup that matches your description, and at the bottom, a condiment called Nuoc Cham is listed, of which fish sauce is a substantial component. Could this be the smelly culprit?

[mrbigjas]

hmm... thanks for the answer about the shoots.

i don't think it was the nuoc mam, though. that was the gingery condiment that was served with the soup--i know what fish sauce smells like, and this wasn't it.

i'll keep trying to figure it out...

[Philanthrophobe]

Be sure to post when you figure out what it is! (I think I'd ask the staff, but of course this would remove any challenge from the process.)

[Seitch]

I've used dried bamboo shoots and there's nothing stinky about them, either dried or reconstituted...they smell a little sweet and slightly grassy.

Do you think it's possible that they just used a whole lot of fish sauce? Here's one recipe for a soup that matches your description, and at the bottom, a condiment called Nuoc Cham is listed, of which fish sauce is a substantial component. Could this be the smelly culprit?

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Maybe there's different kinds of dried bamboo shoots. The dried and reconstituted ones that I've had definitely had a pungent smell to them. Pungent to the point where if someone didn't know where the smell was coming from they'd be wary of the dish.

[mrbigjas]

I've used dried bamboo shoots and there's nothing stinky about them, either dried or reconstituted...they smell a little sweet and slightly grassy.

Do you think it's possible that they just used a whole lot of fish sauce? Here's one recipe for a soup that matches your description, and at the bottom, a condiment called Nuoc Cham is listed, of which fish sauce is a substantial component. Could this be the smelly culprit?

←

Maybe there's different kinds of dried bamboo shoots. The dried and reconstituted ones that I've had definitely had a pungent smell to them. Pungent to the point where if someone didn't know where the smell was coming from they'd be wary of the dish.

←

thanks seitch. it was definitely... uh... different.

but again, not like they had done something wrong; i trust this restaurant to make things correctly. it was just... i wasn't sure what that funkiness was.