Viet World Kitchen

Vietnamese Iced Coffee Tips (Ca-Phe Sua Da)

Earlier this  year I spent a couple of days making and tasting numerous rounds of Vietnamese iced coffee. It was for a Bon Appetit assignment that was published in the May 2012 travel issue. The magazine had a feature called “The Seven Wonders of the [Food] World” and asked me to contribute my idea of the quintessential Vietnamese iced coffee (ca-phe sua da). My goal was to recreate the coffee experiences that I’d had in Vietnam.

I’ve written about making Vietnamese coffee using an Aeropress and my mom used to brew her daily 2 cups in a stovetop espresso maker. We’d buy a dark French roast and like many other Viet-Americans, occasionally reached for a yellow can of Cafe du Monde with chicory. For the Bon Appetit story, I needed to reach a little further and try coffee from Vietnam and use one of the ubiquitous metal filters. I got myself hopped up on numerous rounds of ca-phe sua da and this is what I found out:

Hmong Cucumber Mint Cooler

If you are keen on Asian produce at the farmers’ markets, you’re likely buying from Hmong farmers.  They are amazing cultivators of the land and have transported their agricultural skills from Southeast Asia to America. In California, our Hmong farmers raise crops inland where it’s super hot and more suitable for Asian crops such as eggplant, long beans, and chiles.

I learn a lot from talking to the Hmong farmers who come to our Saturday morning farmers’ market at Cabrillo College. They are a young couple named Tra Her and Kou Moua who together make KT Farms. Tra is a school teacher who on the weekends works multiple markets with her husband Kou. Other family members show up at the Friday afternoon market in nearby Watsonville.

I’ve been buying from KT Farms since they first came to our market about 6 years ago. I want to support their business and selfishly insure a supply of super fresh Asian produce.

Hmong farmers grow all kinds of Asian vegetables and herbs. You may not know what to do with some of the stuff so ask questions!

Richard Molinar and Michael Yang at the UC Coop Extension office in Fresno put together a nice online guide to Asian vegetables. It’s super helpful to farmers and customers alike.

Last weekend at the market, I spied a big pill-shaped melon (it looked like a gigantic oblong lemon cucumber) that Tra had cut open to show customers. She is a school teacher and knows how important show-and-tell is.

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John Xiong, a Fresno Hmong farmer whom I wrote about for a 2007 Saveur magazine story, once gave me a refreshing drink made from a fruit that he called a cucumber. I’d forgotten what it looked like so I asked Tra if what she had was a Hmong cucumber for making the drink.

Skyscraper Brewing Boutique Beer in El Monte

East of Los Angeles is a town called El Monte. Many Angelenos think little of El Monte because it’s hot, working-class and a little down-market -- worlds away from luxe Beverly Hills, enlightened Santa Monica, and edgy Venice. El Monte is perennially unhip. I beg to differ. Within the past 12 months, thanks to a Jonathan Gold LA Weekly piece on pho in El Monte, I’ve made the drive from the Westside to the Eastside to power eat through LA's Pho Town. Now I know that El Monte is truly a treasure trove of interesting food adventures.

Last week during spring break, I made my husband Rory and our friend Alec trek out to El Monte. I was looking for Quon Yick, a Chinese American noodle maker. (More on Quon Yick soon.) It was a hot afternoon and Alec had to crank up the air-con as we traversed the 10 freeway eastward away from downtown LA. After Quon Yick, we had an hour to kill before picking up Alec’s wife from work so I suggested we get a drink. Rory said that there must be a beer pub nearby as El Monte seemed like a beer drinking kind of place.

Alec whipped out his iPhone and found a listing for Skyscraper Brewing Company. We imagined a brewery pub place with snacks and a happy hour. Though it was only about 3 miles away, it took us 20 minutes to find it. It wasn’t GoogleMaps but rather the fact that Skyscraper is a functioning brewery, with little signage. In fact, it’s located near some tire and auto-repair shops in a funky part of El Monte. Skyscraper Brewing Company is a real beer factory.