Ngu Vien, Ho Chi Minh

We have tried quite a lot of Vietnamese cuisine thanks to you Jeffrey, we were thanking our good food guide..

Oh, no worries, you ladies have only tried about 60% of viet food..more to try..

Really? Gosh..Guess our 9 days in Vietnam is not sufficient after all..sigh..

And what are we having tonight? I liked the anticipation to some new food..hehe

Central cuisine, Jeffrey patiently replied, I figured he was used to me asking about food questions by now :p

The restaurant was rather quiet, plus the fact that we were quite late. I start to wonder if the food is good. Again, we passed the heavy responsibility of ordering food to Jeff..:)

We had some local drinks first..Ca phe sua da and beer to quench our thirst..

First up was Banh Beo (rice pancakes with grounded shrimp). This is a great starter, light and smooth rice pancakes, goes well with the salty, crunchy crushed shrimps..Pour a spoonful of sauce...Lovely

Banh La Cha Tom(Boiled rice paste with grounded shrimp served with shrimp paste) is a mixed platter of local fishcake and chee cheong fun..By now, I realised that central cuisine had lotsa steamed riceflour products. The fish cake was springy and flavourful; the chee cheong fun tasted good too; i felt healthy eating this..hehe

We had further wraps with Banh Uot Thit Nuong (Grilled pork wrapped with steam rice cakes) The grilled pork was warm when served; just heavenly; the pork was tender, but charred to the right bit, very well marinated..and the cool 'chee cheong fun' with the fresh vegs complements the meat beautifully. Dip in the thick sauce if you find it too bland.

Ram Hue or Imperial of Hue as named in the menu is lip smacking.. The sesame rice cake was filled with fish paste ; some what like the YTF foo chuk roll. The sesame rice cake was very crunchy and fragrant..while the filling was yummy with the meaty, juicy stuffing..

Mit Tron Tom Thit was a very delicious and interesting dish.. We get warm jackfruit cooked with meat, herbs, vegs and chopped prawns. Very addictive stuff, you can eat it on it's own..Else, heap it on the fried sesame cakes, which makes it equally scrumptious. Gosh, I'm drooling while thinking about it..

The Bun Thit Nuong served in HCM was different compared to those we had in hanoi..this was served with just grilled meat. The grilled pork was very well marinated, but some was a tad dry. The sauce served was similar to those served in Hanoi. Dunk it into the noodles, mix well and tuck in. Pretty yummy, but not as good as the rest.

Com Hen (Baby clams rice) was Dragongirl and my fave..Mix of baby clams, meat, veg, zhu yau zha (fried lard) and rice goes so well together. The texture, the flavours..so good..we were so sad that the bowl was so small :(

Total bill was about RM60 which we thought was very reasonable..

Ngu Vien is located at 40 Ky Dong, Quan 3, TP. HCM. DT:8437670.

NOTE: I was told that the shop has relocated/ close for good. Anyone knows what happened? (end 2008)

Quan An Ngon, Hanoi..Part 1

This will be a very lengthy post as we ate so much at this restaurant. In fact, we enjoyed it so much that we had it 2 times, once in it’s branch in Hanoi and another was at the main branch at Ho Chi Minh (will write about that in another post). I first heard about this restaurant from my brother when his Vietnamese friend brought him to the HCM Branch.

We ate so much and it was dirt cheap! That was all I could remember from my brother other than the fact that I recalled the restaurant had very warm colours used for it’s walls and interiors.

Jeffrey brought us to sample to fare at Hanoi first. Not too far, but you’d still need to take a cab, Quan An Ngon is very popular amongst the locals as it serves cuisine from north, south and central Vietnam, the food’s tasty, and prices are very reasonable. Also a good place to bring touristy friends as it’s clean and pretty nice ambiance.

We left the ordering to Jeffrey, who repeated asked us, I hope you guys are hungry!
First dish was grilled squids served with lemon juice, pepper and salt.This was absolutely scrumptious; the squid were very fresh, the meat was springy, sweet and thick (somewhat like calamari). The slightly charred exterior gives a hint of crispiness and the smoky flavour was just subtle; matched the marination beautifully.

The grilled prawns was as good, they were just enhancing on the freshness of the prawns; little/ no marination was use, all we got was the sweetness from the fresh prawns and the smoky grill flavour enveloping it.

Nice.

The warm lotus root salad with shrimps and beef (goi ngo sen)was served next.

Very interesting dish, the light flavour from the lotus root was so mild, you need to really clear your palate before trying this. Eaten with prawns crackers, I like this dish a lot..The soft yet lovely texture of the lotus, the crunch from the crackers, the chewiness from the meat and the springy texture from the prawns. Lovely.

Next served was the rather sinful looking roasted pork with steam rice noodles and sliced unripe bananas. The dish was still luke warm, just take a piece of the rice paper and wrap the pork, rice noodles, sliced bananas, some greens and dip in the sweet tangy sauce. The combination was amazing; the burst of flavours and temperatures..sweet, salty, tart, sour..and the warmth from the steamed rice noodles, coolness from the sauce and rice paper..This is really good. Make sure you order this dish.

The vegetable egg pancake/ omelette was simple, yet tasty. A huge omelette, inside was spilling with vegetables and shrimps. Fuss free, yet delectable.

Jeffrey also ordered stir fried glass noodles with unagi (eel)

The local unagi used was tinier..so it was rather tough and chewy. I though this was an interesting dish, but paled in comparison to the previous dishes.

We also had the prawn fritters, somewhat like malaysia’s har peng (for the chinese) or cucur udang (for the malays). I was rather surprise,Why did Jeffrey order this dish when we have lots of this in Malaysia? I took a bite and I take my word back. This is by far, the best cucur udang/ har peng that I have ever tasted. Crunchy on the outside, the dough was soft and melting..dip generously into the sweet tangy sauce.OMG!..The prawns, though it looks rather hard (the shells) and menacing; was so lovely to eat..the taste of the crunchy shells was so, so fragrant. If I could, I would love to gorge myself with this. Hahaha

Jeffrey saw some customers ordering fried pork buns, which he ordered for us to sample too. Not sure if it’s because we were too stuffed by then, I find the buns too porky and a tad oily for my liking.

Lastly, we had the dessert, which was very rich and creamy as all was served with coconut cream/ milk. I am a firm believer of some things it’s better in moderation, and in this case, the dessert was it. It was so rich that it was just too ‘heavy’ for me.. we had mung bean, peanut and coconut milk; sticky sweetened corn with coconut cream; and steam banana and coconut milk. I didn’t find it too impressive. Maybe I was too full to really savour these desserts..

And guess how much we paid for this meal (drinks of beers and fruit shakes included). About RM50!

We left with very full belly and very big smiles..hahaha

Quan An Ngon is located at 18, Phan Boi Chau, Quan Hoan Kiem, Hanoi. DT: (04) 9428162, 9428163.