Viet World Kitchen

Book Review: Vietnamese Home Cooking by Charles Phan

For years now, I and other Bay Area food people have asked chef/restaurateur Charles Phan this question: When will you have a cookbook? If you don’t know Charles, he and  his family own and operate one of the most successful and high-profile Asian restaurant empires in the U.S. Their flagship establishment is San Francisco’s Slanted Door, an 8,000-square foot space located not in the city’s Little Saigon but rather the Ferry Building — the iconic epicenter of the Bay Area’s local and artisanal food movement. As one of San Francisco’s top culinary destinations, Slanted Door announces that modern Asian food has arrived.

On a nightly basis, Slanted Door is packed with foodies, tourists, and suits feasting family style and relishing Vietnamese dishes. What attracts diners are the tight, ingredient-driven menu, inviting ambiance, and professional service, not a kitschy, themed experience. In fact, the sleek design of stone, wood and glass echoes the panoramic view of the rugged bay. Other than the faint whiff of nuoc mam, the environment doesn’t give away Slanted Door’s Vietnamese identity. By transcending preconceived notions of race and ethnicity, the restaurant is refreshingly post-ethnic, as dynamic and organic as Asia itself.

So when Phan’s debut cookbook arrived, I had certain expectations. Never mind that he collaborated with Jessica Battilana on the book. That’s what many chefs do these days. Jessica is a very able writer tasked with recording and conveying his words and recipes.

Most restaurant chefs first release a book about their establishment. Phan’s first book is surprisingly broadly titled, Vietnamese Home Cooking.

A slew of shock-and-awe travel shots of him in Vietnam open the book. They then segue into images what appears to be Phan's home in the Bay Area. There are few obvious photos of the Slanted Door, despite the fact that a fair number of recipes come from the restaurant and/or reference cooks there. Chefs coats and latex-gloved hands signal a professional cooking environment, not a home kitchen.

At first glance, Vietnamese Home Cooking seems perplexing, perhaps because it aims to fill too many needs.

How Banh Cuon Rice Noodle Rolls are Made (+ video)

On my last day in Seattle, Eric Banh took me and my friend, vegetarian cookbook author Michael Natkin out to eat. We started at noon and I ended up eating 4 meals with Eric that day. (Then I flew to Portland and had a very late dinner with other friends.)

Eric is the chef and restaurateur behind the Monsoon restaurants and Ba Bar; he also owned Baguette Box up until a little while ago when he sold it. He and his sister, Sophie, operate modern Viet restaurants that are fun and sophisticated tributes to Vietnam’s food traditions. We met in 2005 when I dined at Monsoon after it had been favorably reviewed in Gourmet. Eric and I clicked while talking about elevating the status of Vietnamese food. We’ve been friends ever since. Every time one of my book releases, he and Sophie organize a special event at one of their restaurants to showcase my work.

We hang out and eat a lot when I’m in town. Right now, Eric is obsessed about freshly made bun round rice noodles and banh cuon steamed rice noodle rolls. For more info on bun check the bun primer post but what are banh cuon? They are thin rice sheets that can be stuffed with a meat and mushroom mixture (like bottom row in the photo above) or served unstuffed (top row in the photo) with slices of silky Viet sausage (goi or cha lua), nuoc cham dipping sauce, and sometimes bean sprouts and herbs (if you’re southern Vietnamese). If you've had fun noodles or think of banh pho noodles, banh cuon are thinner and not cut into noodles. 

Though the noodles are more expensive, Eric and Sophie offer it at Monsoon at a fair price to customers. On the weekends at Ba Bar, Mr. Chau mans a banh cuon station by the front door, chatting with customers as he steams and fills their orders.

Eric is advocating for stellar bun rice noodles and banh cuon steamed rice noodles rolls so that his customers can further appreciate Vietnamese cuisine.  He wanted to show me what Seattle had to offer.

Diep Tran & Good Girl Dinette: Viet Food in the 'Hood

You can measure the mainstreaming of Vietnamese food by where it pops up. A fine example is Good Girl Dinette, a little café devoted to classic and modern Vietnamese comfort food. It’s run by Diep Tran, whose family owns the Los Angeles-based chain of Pho 79. (I’ve been to nearly all of them.) After working at non-profits for nearly 10 years, Diep wanted a career change. She was on the verge of burning out and decided to return to her family’s trade by opening hip Viet eateries in non-Viet neighborhoods in Los Angeles.

Her first venture was Blue Hen in Eagle Rock and her current restaurant, opened in 2009,  is Good Girl Dinette in Highland Park. (Diep is no longer affiliated with Blue Hen.) Eagle Rock and Highland Park are not sexy areas of Los Angeles. They’re working class communities with diverse immigrant populations. They’re a tad edgy and out of the way. Tourists rarely go there.  

Los Angeles is a place of urban and suburban opportunities to mesh cultures and create something new. Diep, whose family came to the United States in the 1970s, embodies that spirit of thoughtful reinvention. She’s not the typical Vietnamese woman and does things a little different. Here’s a glimpse of Good Girl Dinette.

Ippudo Ramen in NYC

My friend and food stylist Karen Stylist never fails to surprise me. On set, her nickname is “Ninja.” She’s quiet and stealthy, coming up with thoughtful nuances that make a shot. We’ve worked together on about six projects. For our New York City trip, she had a little hit list or restaurants, and Ippudo Ramen was on it.

Karen is singular in her resolve so I rarely mess with her. Plus she does her homework. Ippudo Ramen is a carefully styled Japan-export with only one outlet in the States – in New York’s East Village. We had to go.

All week long, we planned our meals around our business appointments. However, for Ippudo Ramen, I ditched my conference so we could easily snag two seats for lunch. That Sunday afternoon, the wait was 30 minutes for the two of us. Larger parties had to wait at least an hour.

We only had room for two bowls of ramen and opted for the “special” of kasana black ramen made with a rich pork and chicken broth. (The “black” refers to black fermented garlic.) The other was shiromaru hakata ramen. “Hakata is where tonkotsu [milky rich pork broth that’s so popular these days] came from. If they say Hakata, it’s a promise of purity. I have to try it,” Karen said. And so we did.

Before getting into nitty gritty, a sense of the place. Ippudo Ramen is carefully styled and ultra cool. Note the pants on the guy in the photo above. (It was dark and Karen had to shoot quick, hence the quality.) Fooling around with my iPhone, I made this little movie from our ramen lunch:

Good Asian Eats in NYC

It’s taken me nearly a week to fully recover from the week spent in New York City. I was there for a packed schedule of conference sessions, meetings, and good food. New York over-stimulates your senses the moment you set foot outside. 

Food stylist Karen Shinto and I rented an apartment in the Gramercy Park area, located a couple of blocks away from the Flatiron building. (That's us above, famished enough to eat the Flatiron. Just kidding.) While we did graze at nearby Eataly, the Italian food emporium endorsed by Mario Batali, most of our meals were at Asian restaurants and snack shops. It was fabulously fun, inexpensive and overall very tasty. Here’s a recap: 

Rhong Tiam Express – Our apartment was right next to this popular spot on East 21st. Karen and I had flown red eye flights so we somewhat discombobulated on our first day in the city. After settling into the apartment and going to Trader Joe’s for provisions, we needed lunch. Something spicy and jarring to jolt us from jet lag. We scanned the Rhong Tiam menu and ordered so much food that we couldn’t finish most of it.

The outstanding dish was fried yucca. The relatively light, wonderfully crisp pieces were accompanied by a Sriracha-like spicy mayonnaise. The khao soi noodle soup was gentrified with chicken breast but there was enough complex heat to satisfy. I still think about those yucca sticks, wondering how they got the starchy tuber so light...

Banh Mi Saigon – A couple of years ago, this favorite banh mi shop in Chinatown, NYC, relocated to Grand Street. Their lease  had run out, the man behind the counter told me. I recognized the name of the joint but wasn’t sure because of the new location. The clue was the jewelry case, which they had at the original spot on Mott.