Banh Mi Place

Another day, another review of a banh mi spot. We visited Banh Mi Place in Prospect Heights in Brooklyn last year when signing up for memberships at the museum, but didn't get around to finishing the draft before the year was up. Jumping to a random spot in the drafts archive popped this up, so no better time than the present to finish it. Maybe I should see what other banh mi posts are languishing in the archives and just make it a week of banh mi.

Banh Mi Place was a really tiny shop, but they did have a few tables so we opted to stay. To start, we got some summer rolls which came with a peanut sauce. Each roll contained four pieces of shrimp with lettuce, vermicelli, and some chives. Overall they were pretty good but seemed to be missing herbs. (The chives didn't add much flavor at all.) We didn't taste any mint or cilantro or any other herbs, and for us, that seemed to be missing. We're big fans of adding herbs into summer rolls and that would have made these better in our opinion.

We ordered two banh mi to split and each chose a different one. A picked the classic sandwich, which came with pate, Vietnamese ham, and roasted ground pork. This was definitely the better of the two sandwiches. We're used to classic banh mi having pate and ham, but this one was different because of the warm, cooked ground pork. The ground pork had great flavor - slightly sweet, slightly salty - and was probably cooked in a sauce that included some hoisin. The pate wasn't that strong, but the combination of pork, pate, and ham worked really well together. Overall, the predominant flavor was that of the ground pork, but we were okay with that since it was very good.

Each sandwich was served on a French baguette with mayo, butter, cucumber, carrots, daikon, and cilantro. Pretty standard. The vegetables were all the usual toppings, but a little light in quantity. We definitely think the sandwiches could have used more vegetables, but especially cilantro as there wasn't much at all. The bread was nice, some good crunch but not too crumbly.

I picked the shredded chicken sandwich, described on the menu as "boiled white meat" chicken with all the same toppings as the other banh mi. That was pretty much what it was - boiled, shredded chicken put on a roll with little, if any, seasoning or sauce. The only sauce we could detect was some sriracha. We had ordered both sandwiches medium spicy which seemed to just mean the addition of some sriracha. The sandwich was okay, a bit boring, and it was not anywhere near as good as the classic sandwich.

Between the two sandwiches, the pork was definitely the better of the two, mostly because the meat was actually seasoned. Overall, our visit to Banh Mi Place was fine. We might return if we found ourselves in the area, but we wouldn't make a special trip there just for banh mi, especially not when we could head to one of the many spots in Chinatown (like Saigon) or a place like JoJu in Elmhurst. If we did go back, we would for sure stick to the classic sandwich.

Banh Mi Place is at 824 Washington Avenue in Prospect Heights, very close to the Brooklyn Museum.

Saigon Vietnamese Sandwich Deli

I had some errands to run in Chinatown today and it was amazingly 60 degrees outside, so my plan was to get a ton of exercise and steps by walking downtown, stopping for lunch halfway along the way. But when I finally left, it was after 2 and it was starting to sprinkle, so I ended up biking instead. I was going to keep to my original plan and just stop halfway and then walk, but then it occurred to me - I could just keep biking until I got to Chinatown and then get myself banh mi!

It's no secret that we both love banh mi. I think the majority of our Vietnamese posts on this blog have been posts about banh mi. While I do love Banh Mi Saigon, my choice this time was Saigon on Broome Street, another spot we like. (I don't think it's related to the Saigon Baguette A went to, but that place has sadly closed since his post.) It's a tiny place with a choice of about 10-12 sandwiches that does mostly takeaway. A and I had gone before back in the spring where we enjoyed the house special with grilled pork, thit nguoi, and cha lua. It was basically the standard banh mi with cold cuts that you can try at lots of places and it was among our favorites of this type. We thought it was so good and we definitely wanted to go back and try more.

Today I got the banh mi xieu mai. The meat on this banh mi was pork and water chestnut meatballs. I didn't really notice the water chestnuts, but the meatballs were so good. Unlike some of the other meatball sandwiches we've had before where the meat is more like a crumble or just dense meatballs, these meatballs were so soft and juicy. Combined with the spicy sauce they put on it (which adds a little heat, but is quite bearable, unlike the places that load on jalapenos to make it spicy), they were so tasty. As I bit into the sandwich and tasted my first bite, my primary thought was that it was totally worth putting off lunch until 3 pm to get a taste of that delicious sandwich.

I don't know how Saigon makes sandwiches that are so much better than some of the other places. The bread is fresh and has just the right amount of crispness (so perfect that I even enjoy eating the ends, which coming from me is saying something), the vegetables (cucumber, cilantro, carrots, daikon) are such good quality and add so much brightness, and so far both types of protein we've had have been great. I also love the way they package the sandwiches. Each half gets wrapped in a separate paper bag with a rubber band, which makes it so easy to eat on the go or to split like we did the first time. I wish we could transport Saigon up to our neighborhood so we could try every single sandwich variation, but I think we're just going to have to bike down there more for some great banh mi.

Kinh Do

We're still recovering from this weekend's blizzard here in NYC, which means we're daydreaming about escapes to warmer places, like our Vegas trip from exactly 2 years ago. When we last recapped this trip, we had finished off a tasty Mexican lunch and were on our way to Hoover Dam, where we ended up spending most of the late afternoon, and Lake Mead, where we watched the sun set. It was a pretty great afternoon. After we drove back to Vegas, we stopped by the Silverton Casino to see the aquarium and then started thinking about what to get for dinner. We were kind of in the mood for pho, so we headed over to Kinh Do on Spring Mountain Road (the Chinatown area).

We started off with the nem nuong cuon (2 rolls cut in 2 pieces each), which were described on the menu as "charbroiled pork patty rolls with noodle and vegetables." This intrigued us, as we had never had anything like it before, and it was awesome. The pork patty looked a bit like breakfast sausage when we first saw it, but it didn't taste anything like it. We couldn't identify the spices that were used to season the pork patty, but the flavor was so good. Inside the roll with the pork patty was some vermicelli and lettuce, and the entire roll tasted so fresh.

After we ordered, we noticed that if we checked in on Yelp, we would be able to get free spring rolls (egg rolls on their menu). A was a little hesitant since we had already ordered, but M loves cha gio and really wanted to try them, so we checked in and asked for the special (which they had no problem honoring even though we had already ordered). A normal order of cha gio came with 4 pieces, but we got 2 rolls for checking in. No complaints from us. We just wanted to try them and we were so glad we did.

The rolls came with a plate of lettuce, mint, cucumber, and carrot/radish pickled salad, and we were pretty happy to see that. We love eating cha gio with all those fresh vegetables. It's always sad when you order cha gio at a restaurant and you don't get all the accompaniments.

These spring rolls were so good, and the flavor put these among the best we've had. The outside of the rolls were crisp (without the flakiness of some Chinese egg rolls), and wrapped up with all the vegetables, they were so tasty. We were so glad we took the opportunity to get these.

We both decided on pho for our entree, so they brought out a big plate of bean sprouts, basil, and lime for us to share. It was about the same amount as we've gotten at other pho places and it all looked very fresh.

A got the beef combination pho which contained every cut of beef they offered: rare steak, flank steak, tendon, tripe, and beef balls. The broth was fragrant and rich, but not quite as flavorful or rich as the broth from Tank. The one really good thing about this pho was that it was loaded with meat and onions. It seemed like beef was pouring out of everywhere, and A kept discovering more and more tendon as he dug through. It was a treasure trove of tendon, and A was so happy to partake.

M got the pho ga (chicken pho). The broth here tasted the same as what A got in his beef pho, but she was okay with that since the broth was good. The chicken pieces were generally moist, but a few were a little bit dry. Overall, the flavor of the pho was generally good, not Tank level good, but very fresh and clean tasting.

We were pretty happy with our Kinh Do dinner and the fact that we were able to get a tasty and very affordable meal off the Strip. On our previous Vegas trip (which we were pretty bad at recapping, more on that soon), we ate almost all of our meals on the Strip, with the exception of one Thai dinner at Lotus of Siam. This time we rented a car, which gave us the ability to branch out and try new places like Kinh Do instead of sticking to all the restaurants at hotels on the Strip. That was great, but one bad part about thinking back on this dinner today is that we could really go for some pho right now after a long weekend of snow shoveling, and we can't get any!

Kinh Do is located at 4300 Spring Mountain Road, Las Vegas.

Pho Cafe

After eating our pie and mash we were still a little hungry. M was really starting to feel the jet lag since she didn't get to nap so I volunteered to find the next part of our meal. After walking around the entire food court, I decided on Pho Cafe. Both M and I felt like we needed something healthier, and this restaurant seemed like the best option. Pho Cafe is a chain in London advertising themselves as Vietnamese street food. We love the fresh, clean flavors of Vietnamese food so I figured that this would be exactly what we were looking for.

I ended up getting two dishes for us to share along with two drinks as well. The two dishes were both appetizers/salads so I made the guess that they wouldn't be too much food in our not 100% hungry, extremely exhausted state.

I had originally thought to get one of their homemade lemonades, but I saw a sign for a new special, spicy lemonade. It was their homemade lemonade with fresh ginger juice and mint. This was the perfect drink as M was starting to get to that point of pure exhaustion where the world starts to spin and rock a little, and her stomach was unsettled. The ginger not only gave the lemonade a mild sharp bite, but it was also a good stomach calming agent. The mint was a little less pronounced, but this was a very refreshing drink overall. Our other drink was a bottle of water, and it was just that.

The first dish we ate was the gỏi cuốn, or summer rolls with shrimp. Their menu describes it as "fresh rice paper summer rolls with herbs, vermicelli & pickle." The description is a bit of a misnomer as neither M or I remember any pickles in the roll, but there was definitely lettuce, mint, cilantro, and carrots going along with the shrimp. Overall they were pretty standard summer rolls and reminiscent of ones we could get back in NYC. The dipping sauce was a bit different, though, as it had much more kick than any sauces we'd had before. They added chili sauce to their fish sauce mixture which gave it a nice heat. I thought the rice wrapper was a little too sticky, and there seemed to be quite a bit of shredded lettuce in there used as a filler.

Our second dish was the gỏi bắp chuối, or fragrant banana blossom salad. The menu describes the dish as "fragrant banana blossom salad with tender beef, peanuts and star fruit." The "and star fruit" part made me laugh a bit as there were two very thin slices of star fruit, one of which you can see sadly fallen over to the side in the picture. There were a lot of other ingredients in there, though, so it ended up being okay. Along with the star fruit and beef there were carrots, onions, chilis, mint, peanuts, and a bunch of other ingredients. We have no clue what they all were, but they all tasted really fresh and clean. There was a bit of an odd funk to the salad, though, and neither of us had any clue what it was coming from. It wasn't a bad funk, just an odd one. The flavor of the beef was really nicely balanced, and the texture was perfect. The beef, plus the funk, made this salad taste really good. The only problem is that once you ran out of beef, the rest of the salad didn't hold its own. Thankfully, there was plenty of beef to go around.

On the whole, Pho Cafe was a clean, fresh, and tasty meal for us. While the flavors didn't blow us away because of past experiences with Vietnamese food in the US, it was the perfect set of dishes for a post-flight refresher. The spicy lemonade is something that we would definitely get again as is the banana blossom salad. The summer roll we'd consider, but it's not a definite. For a quick and healthy meal, we would certainly recommend stopping off at one of their several locations for a bite.

This location of Pho Cafe is located in the Westfield Mall in White City, London.

Ba Xuyen

We really wish we had a place like Ba Xuyen in our neighborhood. A no frills, hole in the wall, banh mi takeout place. It's something that's been severely lacking for the entire time we've lived in our area. We visited Ba Xuyen months ago and were supposed to post about it much earlier, but better late than never when it comes to reliving some really delicious banh mi.

A's review of his banh mi:

My go-to whenever I try a new banh mi joint is to get the classic pork and pate banh mi. I figure if you can't make the classic, standard sandwich, you probably can't make any good sandwich. Ba Xuyen, however, makes an excellent pork and pate banh mi.

It all starts with the bread. Their baguette had just the right amount of crisp/bite on the outside to go with a soft, chewy interior. The cold cuts weren't too salty or processed tasting, and the pate was balanced and full of good mineral flavor. The pickled vegetables were tart but also still crunchy. All of the flavors accented each other perfectly, and the whole sandwich was perfectly balanced.

M's review of her banh mi:

Just like A usually goes for the classic banh mi, I usually opt for the chicken the first time I try a new banh mi place (although sometimes I'm really drawn to the meatball option), so chicken was what I got at Ba Xuyen. The chicken here was different from most of the other banh mi I've had before since it was shredded chicken instead of grilled chicken like some others.

The flavors of the banh mi at Ba Xuyen were great. The chicken was good, and I really liked the refreshing cucumber, cilantro, carrot, and daikon. Just like A said, the bread here was just right, which really rounded out and improved the entire sandwich. Overall, this was just a really good banh mi.

Now that we've been thinking about Ba Xuyen, we could really go for some banh mi... It's too bad there isn't really anything around!

Saigon Baguette "Saigon Hero"

Sorry for not posting for a while, but M and I have been a little busy. For my first day back, I wanted something a little healthier. You'll understand why as we post more and more from our trip. I figured that I should avoid the salad places since everyone gets salad on Mondays to try and detox from whatever weekend activities. What I did want was vegetables so the pickled carrots, cucumbers, and radishes felt like the perfect thing to bridge me from vacation to real-life eating.

So today at Saigon Baguette I ordered their "Saigon Hero". From their website they note that it contains "Five spice braised pork belly, pate" along with the aforementioned vegetables and cilantro. The pork was soft and tender and had a nice, rich flavor to it. The bread was a touch too toasted, but it was still good. I didn't get any hints of the pate, though, and I wonder if that's due to the braised pork belly being so flavorful. Either way, this was a good sandwich that at least felt healthy in my bid to get back to eating better.

Saigon Baguette "The Classic"

I've been to a local Vietnamese quick service restaurant by my office a few times, but somehow I've never managed to write about it. Saigon Baguette has some really good banh mi sandwiches, and I'm glad that they're in the area. Today I decided to go back just so I could write about them. I opted for their "The Classic" banh mi. It's loaded with Vietnamese ham, BBQ ground pork, and pate along with the standard banh mi toppings of mayo, cilantro, and pickled crunchy vegetables.

First things first, with banh mi one of my biggest testing points is the bread. Every banh mi is served on a toasted baguette. Some places over-toast the bread to the point that it cuts up your mouth when you bite into it, and it leaves crusty crumbs all over your eating area. This bread wasn't perfect, but it was pretty good. There just a touch too much toasting on this, but it was still soft enough to not cut everything up.

The filling was tasty, but it was also a little different from "classic" banh mi that I'm used to. Most of the time it's some combination of cold cuts to go with the pate, but this BBQ ground pork added some nice sweetness to the sandwich. The pickled daikon and carrots also were paired with sliced cucumber to add a lot more freshness and crunch. The pate was barely noticeable, but every so often you got that nice rich, mineral flavor. Overall this was a very tasty sandwich. They didn't add any sliced jalapenos or Sriracha sauce, though, so luckily we had some Sriracha in the office. I like that Saigon Baguette is so close to my office. It's a fairly quick and delicious option that's not priced too horribly for the area.

Saiguette

We're always on the lookout for good banh mi spots, so when we were up by the north end of Central Park in the fall looking for a late afternoon snack, we decided to stop by Saiguette, a place we had heard good things about. 

Saiguette is a small Vietnamese spot with only a couple of seats, but they have a pretty extensive menu, including pho, bun, and banh mi. It was pretty crowded when we got there, so we just got a sandwich to share, figuring that would be easy to split at the counter.

There were a bunch of banh mi options but we decided to go with the grilled chicken tenderloin. The banh mi had the usual carrots, cucumber, cilantro, and jalapeño (don't remember any daikon), and a generous portion of chicken, which was so juicy and flavorful, and not the least bit dry. Although it wasn't our favorite chicken banh mi ever, it was certainly close and a very solid choice. We were actually surprised by how much we liked the chicken.

We really liked our lunch/snack at Saiguette and wish we lived closer so we could drop by more often for some Vietnamese food. But at least we know if we're in the neighborhood, there's a great place to stop by for banh mi!

Saiguette is located at 935 Columbus Avenue (at 106th Street/Duke Ellington Blvd).

Silk

Our first dinner on board the Quantum, and our first experience with their new "dynamic dining," was at Silk, the pan-Asian complimentary restaurant. Normally, we're not big fans of pan-Asian restaurants and prefer to go to restaurants for the cuisine the chefs actually specialize in, but we were hopeful about this one since the menu we saw online before the cruise sounded so good. We wanted to try everything.

It was the first night and the service from the start was not the best. It took a while to place our orders, since the waiter we got didn't seem to comprehend what having food allergies and intolerances meant. (For example, if someone says, "I can't eat x. What dishes should I avoid?" the answer is not to suggest to that person to eat one specific appetizer, unless that is the only dish on the entire menu that person can eat, which it was not. It took several tries to get an answer to that one.) Even though one significant feature of dynamic dining is that the menus don't change over the entire length of the cruise, and remain pretty much the same from cruise to cruise, the staff just seemed clueless about what their restaurant was serving, after a month of serving the same thing every day. It wasn't an auspicious beginning, but we were hoping that things would improve from there.

The first food we got to try at Silk was a basket of wonton chips that came with a sweet chili dipping sauce. These were good and a nice surprise since they weren't on the menu and we hadn't read about them before. They were deep fried, but a little different from some Chinese restaurants since they didn't have the big bubbles on them and were a bit less greasy. Normally, we would try to get multiple baskets of these (if we were at an a la carte restaurant on land), but we had tons of food coming and needed to save some space.

The appetizers at Silk are all served family style in the center of the table (other than the soups, which are more suited for a single person). We read about that before the cruise, so this was one restaurant where we definitely didn't want to share a table. In addition to any dietary restrictions, we knew we were going to order enough on the menu for our party of 4, and wanted to make sure everyone got to try everything. Who knows how sharing would go with complete strangers? Would there be enough for each person to have one? They didn't ask us to share a table during this dinner, so we never had to worry about that.

M's mom got the chicken egg drop soup, which came with scallions and crispy noodles. The "crispy noodles" were a little weird. They seemed like soggy wonton chips and didn't really add anything to the soup. M thinks they actually made the soup worse, since the texture seemed out of place in such a light and smooth soup, and they were completely flavorless after stewing for so long. Since the soups aren't really shared appetizers, we don't have much more to say on this one right now.

The other appetizers we got were:

Szechuan pork short ribs with tamarind glaze - A found these cooked to the point of being tough. There also wasn't much meat on the bones so it wasn't all that satisfying of a dish. The flavors were okay, but the poor cooking on the meat really ruined this. M wasn't really that interested in these, but tried a small bite of meat. She liked the sauce and the piece she got didn't seem too tough, but it was pretty small. There were also some scallions on the side here, which were nice.

Vietnamese tacos with steamed bun, pork belly, hoisin, and topped with fresh vegetables - We were excited for these. M loves tacos, so she figured this would be her no-brainer favorite appetizer. Wrong! The bun was sticky and hard to swallow, the pork belly was hard to bite and chew and had almost no meat to it, and the whole thing was relatively flavorless. If you're going to throw a big piece of fat in a taco with some garnishes, at least give it some flavor and make a bun that isn't going to stick to the roof of your mouth. We were so disappointed in these.

Thai fried chicken wings with sesame-peanut satay - A is a huge fan of wings, and he was looking forward to trying these. At the end of the day, they were just okay. The sauce came out nicely, but the wings were overly fried and ended up being more fried skin than meat. It was another disappointment in his eyes. M isn't a huge wings person, but picked the meat out of one of them. She liked the sauce, although it didn't taste too much like satay sauces that she'd had before.

Green papaya salad with pea shoots, coriander, peanuts - This was the most bizarre dish of the night for us. We've had plenty of green papaya salads at Thai restaurants and what arrived was most definitely not a green papaya salad. For starters, the papaya was orange and not green. We've never gotten a papaya salad in a Thai restaurant with orange papaya and we've been to plenty of authentic Thai restaurants around the country. They mentioned pea shoots but we thought we saw arugula, in addition to the cilantro, peanuts, red peppers, and grape tomatoes. It just seemed like a light Asian-style salad with (orange) papaya. Judged on that level, this was actually one of the better appetizers and M's favorite.

Shrimp shumai with lemon ponzu - These reminded us of the shu mai you can buy at an Asian grocery store in the frozen section and then steam at home. They had thin skins and a kind of mushy inside (in the best way) like a shrimp paste. We liked these and they had nice flavor. It's just sad that one of the better appetizers was something we could find in our local grocery store freezers.

For the entrees, M's dad got the Asian style duck, which came with wok-seared vegetables, scallion pancakes, and hoisin sauce. We didn't try the duck or the vegetables, but M's dad offered M some of the scallion pancake. She didn't know this was supposed to be a scallion pancake (until re-reading the menu for this post) and had assumed it was some sort of greasy roti. It was really thin and floppy and full of oil and grease. It also had no flavor. M isn't sure how this could be considered a scallion pancake in anyone's book. Were there even any scallions in it?

A got the chicken tikka masala, which was accompanied by coconut jasmine rice with mango chutney. A was really excited about this dish when he saw it on the menu online as he figured that, since the ship came from England, the Indian cuisine might actually be pretty solid. This definitely didn't disappoint. The chicken was a touch on the salty side, but the overall flavor was really nice. It had a subtle heat to the sauce, and the chicken wasn't too dry. The mango chutney was really sweet, but when paired with the chicken in small doses it all mellowed out nicely. The rice was really the star of the show. It had a really nice and soft coconut flavor to it, and the mild sweetness made it really tasty. M really liked this dish too and had a bit of buyer's (orderer's?) remorse, since this was so much better than hers.

M and her mom both got the sake-glazed salmon which came with bok choy and tamari-marinated shiitake. After trying the salmon and the vegetables, M thought it was pretty good, but that there was something missing. She tried some of A's coconut rice (since we share and try everything), and that was it - rice! She immediately flagged down the waiter to get a bowl of the coconut rice, which definitely rounded out the salmon dish a bit more. The rice was also the best thing she ate all night. As for the parts of the dish actually on the menu, the salmon was pretty good and not too dry (except a few spots). The pieces of bok choy were a little big, but fine. The mushrooms were marinated in tamari, but tasted a little more sour than we had expected from that. The rice definitely improved all of this, so if Royal Caribbean is reading this, I'd suggest adding some rice to this dish to balance it out better.

There were 5 desserts on the menu, but between all of us, we only tried 2 (and M's mom got a dairy-free sorbet). A got the Indian pudding which had pistachio and rose infusions. A knew he wanted to get this as soon as he read the menu. Rose and pistachio are two really wonderful flavors, and it really seemed like they would go well together. The weird fried wonton shaving things really confused A when he first saw it come out, and when he tried one on its own, he only tasted fried/oil. He took them off, and opted to eat the pudding on its own. Yet again A found himself disappointed. The whole pudding tasted heavily of chemicals and had none of the aromatic or perfume-like flavor of rose. There were some pistachio bits that added some texture but not much flavor. M tried a bit of this but did not like it at all. To her, it tasted artificial as well. M was also confused by the fried wonton slivers on top. They didn't add much except an odd texture, and she thought the pudding could have been much better if they were replaced with some shredded coconut or something like that.

M and her dad both got the strawberry matcha pound cake which came with yuzu sorbet (the one M's mom also got). The presentation of this was really nice with cubes of green and red and small scoop of sorbet on the side. (As a side note, M really liked the design of the non-white dishes at Silk, even though that matters not at all to the experience.)

For whatever reason, M thought this dessert was going to be strawberry and matcha mixed together in a pound cake with sorbet on the side. It wasn't. It was matcha pound cake with similarly sized cubes of strawberry mousse. The matcha cake was fine, but the strawberry mousse was too heavy and there was so much of it. M couldn't finish it, since it was too rich. Thank goodness for the light and tasty yuzu sorbet. Once M finished as much of the dessert as she was going to, she was pretty sure that she was going to pass out in a food coma before the show that night (and she did). Although she was glad she tried this to satisfy her curiosity, she had no interest in getting it again.

A didn't try much of this dessert, but thought the matcha pound cake wasn't that bad. It had a very light matcha flavor to it, but overall it was okay. The mousse, as M mentioned, was really rich and heavy. M ate most of the yuzu sorbet already (as it was the one part she actually liked), but A was able to at least get a small spoon of it.

When we left Silk to get ready for our show that night (Mamma Mia!), we saw large crowds of people gathered around the check-in desks, like we did most of the first few nights (and some others). Some were making reservations, some were trying to go in with reservations, and some had no reservations and wanted to walk in for dinner. There weren't any separate lines, and honestly it was a bit of a mess. We've heard that they've since changed this and tried to make lines for each function on later sailings, which would be an improvement on the chaos.

We weren't that thrilled by our dinner at Silk and weren't that excited that we had another Silk dinner in our future (since we had booked all the restaurants twice). There were all the issues with ordering because of food allergies and dietary restrictions, on top of the fact that our waiter seemed completely clueless. (We'll be writing up our overall assessments of dynamic dining and our cruise experience once we finish the restaurants, and we're sure we'll be expanding on some of this then. Hopefully that will be before Quantum leaves Cape Liberty for China!) We weren't expecting perfection, but we were expecting better than what we got. 

On top of the service issues, the food was overall less than mediocre. The only dishes that we would consider good and worthy of another order were probably the papaya salad, shu mai, chicken tikka masala (especially the rice), the wonton chips (for M), and maybe the salmon (but only with the coconut rice). Considering our group tried 6/8 appetizers, 3/7 entrees, and 2/5 desserts in a single meal (60% of the savory menu!) and we didn't come up with much more than that, that's a bit sad. It was another reason we weren't looking forward to our second dinner very much, although we hoped maybe these were just first night issues (sounds a lot like our previous Windjammer review) and that it would be better in the future. Either way, we were excited to get out of there and head over to the Royal Theater for a great show!

Back to Tank

On the first full day of our long weekend in Chicago, we made a beeline straight for Argyle where a lot of the Vietnamese restaurants are. When we first booked the trip, our original plan for lunch that day had been to go to Hot Doug's before they closed, but as the lines got longer and longer the closer it got to the closing date, we just couldn't deal with the long wait. It had been 2 years since we were last able to visit Tank Noodle and we were really in the mood for some of their awesome pho, so we were pretty happy to "settle" for a visit there.

We started out with cha gio, the spring rolls stuffed with ground pork, carrots, taro, and wood ear mushrooms. Each order comes with 2 long rolls (we got the shrimp spring rolls last time since it came with 3), lettuce leaves, and a side of dipping sauce.

These rolls were wonderful and exactly what we're looking for in a spring roll. The outside wrapper was crispy, and the insides were so tasty. You could definitely taste the ground meat and the vegetables, and it wasn't just packed with lots of filler. We love cha gio and these were really great. We could eat these all the time.

After our spring roll treat, it was, of course, time for pho. I got the pho ga (chicken with beef broth), just like last time and just like every other time I get pho at Tank. It was just as great as always. I don't really have anything different to say about the pho from last time, so if you want to read more about it, the last write-up is here.

A also got the same pho that he usually does, the pho xe tang combination with sliced beef, brisket, flank, soft tendon, tripe, and meat ball. Just like with my pho ga, it was just as good as he remembered, so probably best to read the old post about Tank, since it still held true 2 years later. Last time, he jumped into his bowl of pho before we got a picture of his artistic design, so here's what it looks like when he's done adding everything to his bowl. Isn't it pretty?

We were really happy with our visit to Tank (as always). Afterwards, we visited a nearby Asian grocery store that we never went to before (which was in a spot that used to house a different pho joint, actually the first one that A and I ever went to together in the city of Chicago) and then spent some time walking around near the lake on a truly gorgeous afternoon. We're not sure when we'll be able to make it back to Tank, but we would definitely go back. We still haven't found any pho that we've liked better than Tank.

Tank Noodle, 4953 N. Broadway (corner of Argyle).

Week 34 - Opposite Side of the World

The theme for Week 34 was "opposite side of the world." Using the Antipodes Map, I figured out that the exact opposite side of the world from us was in the ocean off the coast of western Australia. We've already had Australian week, so I didn't want to do that again. Instead I looked along the entire meridian that lined up with the opposite side of the world, which led me to Southeast Asia. My original plan was to do something Indonesian but rather than go ingredient hunting, I switched it up and decided to do Vietnamese summer rolls. I've had spring roll wrappers and vermicelli in the pantry for ages so it would let me use some of that up.

The last time I made summer rolls was in college. The Vietnamese students association had some sort of party (I don't remember the details) and they had ingredients laid out for you to assemble summer rolls on your own. It was the first time I had ever done it, and while it was really fun, I was pretty bad at it. I watched some Vietnamese friends quickly and nimbly roll them up, and thought with practice maybe I could get there. I bought the materials a while ago, but of course, never got around to making them. Cooking from the opposite side of the world was the perfect opportunity to try again.

I looked at a bunch of different recipes for summer/spring rolls and thought about all the rolls we've eaten over the years (many, many rolls since we love eating them so much), and then put all that together to come up with a plan for our rolls.

The rolls required:

- 10 rice roll wrappers

- 2-3 oz of rice vermicelli

- 1 hothouse cucumber

- 1 lb of carrots

- 1/2 bunch of mint

- 1/3 bunch of cilantro

- 32 small/medium cooked shrimp (only enough shrimp for 8 rolls)

- 1/2 bag of romaine lettuce

I honestly have no idea how much this cost. I bought the wrappers and vermicelli so long ago that any estimation is probably completely wrong. The ingredients above that I do know the prices of cost about $12, but that also doesn't include the sauce. This wasn't a cheap dinner, that's for sure, but it did make a lot of food.

I was planning a sauce of 2 parts of hoisin sauce to 1 part peanut butter with some water whisked in to thin it out. Unfortunately the bottle in the fridge that I thought was hoisin sauce was actually oyster sauce and we had no hoisin sauce. This is what it looks like when you have to make your own. Luckily A was able to make the sauce while I prepped all the other stuff, since the prep for this recipe is somewhat labor intensive.

We followed this recipe for hoisin sauce, mixing up soy sauce, peanut butter, molasses (finally a use for molasses after Jamaican week!), rice vinegar, a finely minced garlic clove, sesame oil, sriracha, and black pepper, and then adding another 1/3 cup of peanut butter, to get closer to the 2:1 sauce ratio I was going to do originally. A combined all of that together on the stove, let it warm, added some water, and it smelled really good. I don't know exactly how much all of this came out to, but probably $1, $2 at the most. It made more than enough sauce and we had leftovers, so we probably didn't need to make this entire pot of sauce.

Other than the sauce, there isn't really any "cooking" involved in summer rolls. Just a lot of prep and assembly. For the prep, we needed to thaw out our cooked shrimp, peel and grate the carrots, thinly slice the cucumber, roughly chop the mint, pull apart the cilantro leaves, chop the lettuce, and prepare the noodles. I guess there's cooking involved in preparing the vermicelli, but it's really just boiling a pot of water and then letting the noodles sit in the water until they're al dente (or the desired texture).

To assemble, quickly soak the spring roll wrapper in warm (or room temperature) water (no more than a few seconds), pile everything inside, and then roll it up. It sounds easy but it's not really that simple. You have to make sure you don't over (or under) soak the wrapper, don't add too much inside, and figure out how to roll it tightly without ripping the wrapper.

I was clearly out of practice with rolling the summer rolls, but by the fourth roll, it was actually looking much better. I felt proud that my roll wrapping was actually getting better over the course of the night!

The rolls themselves were quite good. The sauce was a little on the salty side, but that could also be because I used way too much of it. What we like most about summer rolls is how fresh and light they taste, and even piling all the ingredients into ours, they still retained that lightness. The shrimp were good, the vegetables made it feel really healthy, and the herbs added great flavoring. I love summer rolls, so I would definitely be interested in having more summer roll nights, but the prep did take a while. We do have a lot more roll wrappers left. Maybe I'll figure out a variation that doesn't require as much prep time!