Chicken Vermicelli

Did you think those other delayed posts were old? Well, this one is from July 2012. Yes, 2012. I still have drafts about lunch from 2012. As you can see from the first paragraph, I was pretty uninspired when I went for this lunch and I remember not being very inspired after it, so I guess that's why it languished for so long. I am on a mission to either delete or post all of the remaining drafts (other than the ones that are waiting to be posted at the right point in a sequence of trip recaps or WorldEats or otherwise) before the new year. We'll see how that goes... In any event, this post is only slightly modified from what was written in July 2012. I really should have posted it earlier.

One day, I was feeling a bit uninspired by the usual lunch choices, so I looked on Seamless for some restaurants with lunch specials, figuring I could get something different from the routine. Most of the lunch specials were at Asian restaurants - sushi, Vietnamese, Thai places.  I decided on Cha Pa's Noodles & Grill in Hell's Kitchen, a place A and I have been to together a number of times.  For the lunch special, you got to pick a dish (from a limited menu), and it came with either salad or a spring roll.  The lunch menu included the banh mi that I've wanted to try (they only have it at lunch and we've only ever gone for dinner), but for some reason, my mind was set on getting a spring roll (which doesn't come with the banh mi) so I got one of the non-sandwich options.

The spring roll (cha gio) was rice paper wrapped around pork, shrimp, taro, wood ear mushrooms, and glass noodles.  It wasn't so crispy by the time I got back to the office with my lunch, but it was still tasty.  I think A and I have gotten them before, and they're pretty good crispy and wrapped in lettuce.

I've realized that, if I don't blog about something, I don't remember it as well.  That would be why this time I thought I was getting the chicken vermicelli noodle bowl (aka bun) for the first time, when in fact I ordered it only a few months earlier when we went there for dinner.  Oops.  According to the menu, the Cha Pa's version of bun consists of rice noodles topped with lettuce, cucumber and mint topped with chicken, and served with pickled daikon, carrots, peanuts and onion flakes.

Once I started eating the chicken bun, I realized that I was having the same thought that I did the last time I got it: it was an overwhelming amount of vermicelli noodles.  If you look at the picture above, what you see in terms of chicken, lettuce, carrots, daikon and cucumbers is what you get.  Underneath is a giant bed of vermicelli noodles.  They were really sticky and kind of dry to eat unless you poured on the entire container of nước chấm (the fish sauce-based sauce on the side with shredded carrots). Although the menu mentioned mint and onion flakes, I didn't get any of that while eating it. The overwhelming taste and texture were just the plain, dry, difficult noodles.

It was good for a hot summer day but a little out of balance between the noodles and everything else.  Some more crunchy vegetables (and better noodles) would have been preferable. Lunch was fine but sadly didn't do much to raise my inspiration level.