Viet World Kitchen

Rapping about Pho Culture: Q&A with Alexei of Seattle’s Townfolk

 

If you haven’t already, click and watch the music video. It was made by Iranian-American music producer Alexei (@sabzi) and his collaborators for TOWNFOLK, their experimental art endeavor being funded through Kickstarter. I got wind of it via an email and then my niece Paulina, a college senior, wrote me about it on Facebook. 

The video is a smart and culturally spot-on survey of Vietnamese pho culture, particularly that of South Seattle when Alexei (a.k.a. Sabzi and Saba) lives. He's captured it all in a rap video, which has a certain Beck element of humor.

Aside from the music and video, Alexei and his pals went the extra step of getting the language right. Their Kickstarter page has Vietnamese and video is subtitled in Vietnamese! Either someone has amazing language skills or he/she got an older person to translate and type it up with all the diacritic marks in place. I was mightily impressed with the polished and thoughtful effort.

I passed TOWNFOLK’s Kickstarter link around via Twitter and Facebook but wanted to know the back story. How and why did Alexei do the video? That’s the reason for this email Q&A with Alexei: (Note: his are presented as is/as were received)

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.

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.

Best Banh Mi in America? Is Cheap Banh Mi Good?

 
I’m sure you have an answer for those questions! Yesterday, Jordan Michelman’s blog post on the New York Times magazine site, declared that the best banh mi sandwich was in Seattle at Saigon Deli in the very Asian ID (International District). Along with that one, he also gave shout outs to these banh mi hotspots in the nation:

• Seattle: Saigon Deli (1237 South Jackson Street), Sun Bakery & Cafe (658 South Jackson Street)
• Portland: Best Baguette (8303 SE Powell Boulevard)
• New York: Baoguette (61 Lexington Ave, multiple Manhattan locations), Momofuku Ssäm Bar (207 Second Ave, Manhattan), Ba Xuyen (4222 Eighth Avenue, Brooklyn), Tan Thanh (5818 Seventh Avenue, Brooklyn)
• New Orleans: Dong Phuong Oriental Bakery (14207 Chef Menteur Highway)
• Atlanta: Lee’s Bakery (4005 Buford Highway NE), Quoc Huong (5150 Buford Highway NE)
• San Jose: Lee’s Sandwiches (260 East Santa Clara Street)
• Los Angeles: Nom Nom Truck
• San Francisco: Saigon Sandwich (560 Larkin Street)

Do note that on HuffingtonPost.com, the drunken chicken banh mi from Seattle’s Baguette Box was given the #8 spot for the  top 10 best new sandwiches in the United States. We all have opinions like we all have belly buttons, right?

Does banh mi have to be cheap food?
There were many things that stood out to me in Michelman’s story, but one popped the most. It’s something that grates on me because I hear it so much when Asian and non-Asian people talk about Asian food: Good Asian food has to be cheap Asian food. Michelman echoed that sentiment in this sentence:

While these sandwiches, usually found in bakeries and delis in Vietnamese neighborhoods, are endlessly customizable, they should always be inexpensive — beware the banh mi over $6.