BEFORE I go into the restaurant review, I want to thank everyone involved in the MHMRA Houston’s clothes drive. MHMRA Houston is one of the USA largest mental health, mental retardation service program. I met an employee of MHMRA at the True Colors Concert and was told by her that the service is in dire need of clothing and toiletry items for the many homeless patients they help. I visited only one of the facility and was shocked and saddened to see how little clothes there were in the closet. You can help anytime by dropping of your donation at the MHMRA Bristow Path Location 2627 Caroline Street, Houston, Texas 77004. Since this article was published before the end of the drive, I will write an update in the next artilce. Please visit its website for more information. http://www.mhmraharris.org/
The French Connection
The reason I love Louisiana food is that it reminds me of the lost cuisine of Indochine. My parents were from North Vietnam and immigrated to South Vietnam in 1954. Many of the dishes that Northern Vietnamese eat has French influence. I grew up eating dishes that I considered to be the first “Asian fusion” dishes.
The liberal use of butter in both Cajun/Creole and French Vietnamese are quite similar. Caramel water is used extensively in almost every Vietnamese simmered pork or fish dishes. I learned from talking to some of my older friends who were born in Louisiana that they or at least their parents used to make sauce out of burned sugar caramel in savory dishes.
Unfortunately, the French Vietnamese (Indochine) cuisine is slowly dissappearing with the older Vietnamese generation. I am grateful that my parents raised us on this type of food and that I have learned many wonderful dishes that are not being served at Vietnamese restaurants. However, the most famous of the Indochine cuisine is also the easiest to get and it is the addictive Vietnamese sandwich (banh mi). A crusty baguette with butter on one side and pate on the other is filled with Vietnamese boiled pork, headcheese, chili peppers, cilantro and shredded pickle carrots. The most popular style that most of my American friends eat is the “banh mi” with grilled pork. This sandwich is now considered the mainstream cuisine since one can get this at any US city ranging from metropolis city like Los Angeles to the small ethnic challenged city of St. Petersburg, Florida.
Also, prior to the arrival of Starbucks, the first group of American to drink ice coffee on a daily basis was the Vietnamese American. I recalled how my US born friends would scoffed at the idea of drinking a glass of ice cold coffee. Even Cafe Du Monde in New Orleans has ice coffee now.
How do you know if you are eating an Indochine dish? If your Vietnamese dish contains butter and or dill, tomatoes, asparagus, peas, carrots, pate, puff pastry, you are eating an Indochine dish.
Houston, Texas
Que Huong Restaurant 8200 Wilcrest Dr # 27, Houston, TX 77072, (281) 495-2814
Gary and I have eaten at almost every restaurant in Houston and Que Huong is one of our favorite restaurant.
Que Huong means “homeland” and it serves real Vietnamese food. It does not try to adjust things just to satisfy the non-Vietnamse diners. This means that there are no boneless chicken breast on the menu. If a dish called for a stinky fermented sauce, it comes with a stinky fermented sauce.
Our three favorite dishes here are the lime beef, Vietnamese hot & sour soup & catfish in clay pot. The lime beef is a plate filled with rare thin slices of tender sirloin on top of thinly sliced lime and topped with sliced onions, ngo om herb (an herb that has a pineapple fragrant flavor) and crispy french fried onion. It is served with crispy prawn crackers and a dipping sauce of mam nem, a very pungent & stinky sauce made of fermented fish with tidbits of pineapple and chili peppers. Gary loves this sauce and as for me, this is one out of two things (the other is papaya) in the world that I just cannot eat. I eat this dish with the popular nuoc cham vinegrette.
Phoenix, Arizona
My favorite Vietnamese restaurant in the United States is Da Vang Restaurant.
Da Vang Restaurant 4538 North 19th Avenue Phoenix, AZ 85015
This spacious restaurant has one of the worst parking lot in the world. The last time we went in 2006, there were at least 4 giant potholes in the parking lot.
Da Vang (pronounced za vang) means Yello Skin. You figure out the irony of this name. The restaurant opens early and serves almost everything Vietnamese from beef noodle soup (pho) to Vietnamse sandwiches and freshly made soy milk. The prices ranges from $5 to $9 per dish. When Gary and I do our road trip to the West Coast, we always stop in Phoenix and when we do, we eat at this wonderful, multicultured clientelles of a restaurant.
THE BIG EASY
Have you ever eaten so much and wondered what you really looked like after the meal? Yes, I am talking about the “miserable” look. Well, this is me after such a meal, standing in front of The Praline Connection on Frenchmen Street.
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The Praline Connection 542 Frenchmen St., New Orleans, LA 70116, (504) 943-3934
The food here is average, but the $7 fried chicken livers is a dream come true for all Southerners. It arrived on a white ceramic plate, piled high and come with a sweet dipping sauce (gravy available upon request). I cut the sweetness of the sauce by sprinkling the livers with hot sauce prior to dipping them into the sauce. There were enough of the delicious fried morsel to feed 4 or more. This dish along with the “Taste of Soul” which Gary and I shared left our bellies bulging past our stretchy pants’ safety zone. The “Taste of Soul” is $19.99 and it comes with a bowl of gumbo (needs more file powder), a piece of crispy fried chicken, two strips of fried catfish (the best of the plate), two BBQ ribs (I can do without), jambalaya (needed more spice), collard greens (delicious), red beans and rice (one of the best) and a crusty bread pudding. The bread pudding was a bit crusty, but the praline sauce is something else. Gary and I ate the thing in a few seconds. It was that good. I forgot to take a picture of the desert prior to us licking the bread pudding bowl clean.
[Gallery not found]ADOLFO’S 611 Frenchmen St., New Orleans, LA 70116, (504) 948-3800
The following is a copy of an email I sent to family and friends right after my trip to New Orleans during July 4 Downriver Weekend & Essence Festival.
I just came back from celebrating July 4 in New Orleans and ate at a wonderful restaurant named, Adolfo’s, in the Faubourg Marigny, a neighborhood next to the French Quarter downriver. In a period of three days, Gary, Lewis and I ate up New Orleans. If you visit New Orleans, please go to Adolfo’s on Frenchmen Street. The “fish with Oceana Sauce” (not on menu) is a choice of fish that is topped with a wine creamy sauce along with lump crab meat, shrimps and capers. This single extremely satisfying dish made me forgive and forget the slow service at this tiny 26 seats restaurant located on the second floor of a bar named The Apple Barrel. To pass time during your long wait, you can drink at the bar or cross the street and spend some time at a used bookstore that also has a huge collection on vintage porn. Please request extra French bread to sop up all the delightful cream sauce. The bill was $93.00 for three entrees (each comes with a choice of pasta or salad), an Oyster Pernod appetizer, a bottle of wine (Chianti) and a cheese cake desert that were shared by our hungry stomachs.
THE SALT & PEPPER RESTAURANT 400 Iberville St, New Orleans, LA 70130, 504-561-6070
This Indian/Pakistani restaurant is one of my favorite. Situated in the French Quarter; the tiny counter service restaurant with 18 seats serves one of the best naan bread. At only $1.50 a piece, the oversized, and delicious naan arrived sizzling hot and is a perfect device to sop up the spicy & addictive sauce of my favorite chicken masala dish. The chicken masala here is not as rich or creamy as other version, but this is the reason why I like it. It is extremely tasty and has a touch of spice to make you just want to lick the plate clean. A recent meal here for me, Gary G and Lewis G cost us a total of $33. We shared plates of chicken masala, goat biryani (rice dish with tender goat meat) and the special of the day, chicken & rice. Each one of us had our own naan bread which was really too much. Lewis also had a delicious cold mango lassi drink (similar to a smoothy). There is so much culture in the French Quarter!
[Gallery not found]I will write more restaurant reviews in future article. Thank you for reading my article.
Carl Han
