Viet World Kitchen

Try Beige Rice: The Middle Path between White and Brown

Raise your hand if you dislike brown rice and love white rice but know that white rice isn’t the healthiest thing to eat all the time. If you did, we are members of the same club. I’ve tried to like brown rice but it’s too heavy for most Asian foods and takes so long to cook.

Several years ago, I discovered Japanese short-grain rice that was partially milled. It was at Nijiya market, a small chain based in California that organically grows its own rice in California. And, you could buy it at 100, 75, 50, 25 and 0 percent. The 100 percent is white rice and 0 percent is brown. (The Nijiya online store doesn't carry a full selection.)

I bought the 50 percent Akitakomachi rice and found that it cooked up at the same rate as regular white rice. Amazing and with half of the bran intact, the rice retained some of the healthy aspects of brown rice. I wanted to call it brown rice but my husband coined the term “beige rice.” The rice was delicious – separate fluffy grains with a faint earthy sweetness. We found ourselves eating more rice than we normally did. It was better for us, no?

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.

Vietnamese Noodles 101: Banh Pho Flat Rice Noodles

For decades I thought that the flat rice noodles that went into pho noodle soup and stir-fries were only available in dried form. That’s how we bought them in the United States. About 15 years ago, those “banh pho” rice noodles (named such in Vietnamese because they go into pho noodle soup) started being sold fresh in Cryovac packages at Asian markets. My mom still bought the dried kind. Then one day, I asked her about fresh versus dried banh pho rice noodles and she responded, “They were always fresh in Vietnam. We had no dried banh pho when we lived there.”

Wait, had I been living a faux pho life all these years? No, child, the dried ones available here are good and convenient to keep on hand when you have a neighborhood noodle vendor around the corner.  Duh, like pho. Indeed, go to Vietnam today and you’ll find freshly made noodles sold at markets and used at noodle joints. In the U.S., fresh noodles aren’t as readily available, but there are dried noodles that cook up wonderfully.

Our conversation earlier this week on defining faux pho spurred me to continue my (occasional) series of posts of Vietnamese noodles. Also, a couple of days ago, I noticed a young woman struggle with trying to find banh pho noodles at an Asian market. She got flat noodles but they were made of mung bean starch. I hope this guide will help you buy and use this ubiquitous Vietnamese noodle.

Myths and Truths about Cooking Rice

I admit that I’m somewhat of a Luddite when it comes to cooking rice. I do it in a pot. All my friends look at me and laugh as if I’m a fool. Why bother with such an old-fashioned method when a fuzzy logic rice cooker will make perfect rice every time?

It’s simple. The rice cooker takes up too much space on my counter and cooking rice in a pot keeps me on my game. Each pot is a little different but the fun challenge is honing your intuition to get is right for each meal. Plus, the kitchen smells great when a pot of rice is cooking. But many people have dreadful fears about cooking rice. With just two ingredients, it’s the simplest thing to make but also the easiest thing to mess up. And, all the bizarre myths about the cooking process are enough to drive someone to a box of Uncle Ben’s converted rice!

Rice was the first thing I learned to cook, and over the decades, I have had a number of revelations. Here they are to help you shine: