A new Vietnamese restaurant opened near me.

Everything. If you're not familiar with Vietnamese, start with summer rolls and vermicelli bowls with grilled meats.

If they have more than one kind of pho, ask which one is best.

Order the Cat Rolls with plum sauce.

They're delish!

If this is the your first having vietnamese food, then get the Pho.

It is basic, but it is the most famous item from Vietnamese food.

They have tons on their menu. I'm torn between BBQ chicken, spring roll Vermicelli and vegetable Pho.

How are Vietnamese subs different from regular subs?

Chicken with Lemongrass

If you like Chinese eggrolls, be sure to try the deep-fried Vietnamese version. They're smaller, but you wrap it in a lettuce leaf and dip it in a sauce. SOoooo much better than a Chinese version. I also really like the spring rolls, which are cold, wrapped in rice paper and usually have shrimp and pork (or sometimes you have order with just pork or other meats).

And Pho, and vermacelli bowls, and pork chops. All amazing. Don't be afraid to try their dessert drinks (like Boba teas). They look odd, but are yummy.

Don't get a sub. I don't even know what they mean by that.

I can never get enough mì xào giòn (crispy noodles)

Vietnamese subs are called Banh Mi, and are usually made with a fresh baguette, a shrimp spread, various other meats and fresh vegetables. Maybe the best sandwich ever.

Would those be salad rolls, R6?

I'm not, R7.

Ah, thanks, R9. They sound delicious.

All Vietnamese food is delicious. Just work your way down the menu.

Skip the dog meat.

[quote]Vietnamese subs are called Banh Mi, and are usually made with a fresh baguette, a shrimp spread, various other meats and fresh vegetables. Maybe the best sandwich ever.

They're delicious, filling but not heavy. Usually made with a small smear of paté to moisten the bread and a very light hand on the meat filling. The rest is cucumber, carrot, cilantro, a bit of jalapeño and various Vietnamese herbs.

Banh Mi delish!!!

Also try Bo Kho, it's the Vietnamese version of beef stew; American beef stew is nothing compared to this.

Cum of Sum Yun Gai.

Pho is full of salt. Don't live on the stuff.

If you don't know what to order, then you are NOT Vietnamese.

So don't go there.

Never mind that the owners want you there.

Never mind that sharing food is at the heart of the human experience.

Just do as I say.

Gỏi cuốn

Aka spring rolls, aka salad rolls, aka summer rolls. The ones served cold.

Dip them in either peanut sauce or hoisin sauce, or better yet, hoisin sauce with chopped peanuts in it.

Sometimes mistakenly called "gun gun" in the southeastern U.S.

Chả giò

Aka fried spring rolls, aka Imperial rolls. The fried ones, served hot.

Served with lettuce and mint. Wrap the mint and lettuce around one.

Unfortunately served with a diluted fish sauce, which smells of rancid fish. Forego that and just dip them in soy sauce or something else instead.

I really like Vietnamese food and have enjoyed most of the things mentioned here. Another of my favorites is Lemon Grass Chicken. It is a stir fry of chicken and onions flavored by lemon grass, hot peppers and other spices.

I also like an egg roll salad that many of the Vietnamese restaurants serve. It is a variant of the vermicelli salad (Noodles, lettuce, carrots, daikon, peanuts, bean sprouts and either mint, Thai basil or cilantro) It is topped with two egg rolls and served with fish sauce which I think is delicious and not gross at all.

Cà phê sữa đá

Vietnamese iced coffee with condensed milk

The traditional way to serve it is in a tiny drip coffee pot over a glass with sweetened condensed milk. When it has finished dripping, you stir the coffee and milk together, then pour that into a glass of ice. Really delicious and usually quite strong in caffeine.

Because the drip process takes so long, some places offer it ready-made so you can start drinking it right away.

France occupied Vietnam for 100 years, so during that time French bread and rolls became popular (thus the bánh mì sandwiches) and coffee became popular. But fresh milk was rare so condensed milk became the standard for coffee.

....

Lemongrass chicken

Cơm tay cầm is fried rice baked in a clay pot with spices and other ingredients such as chicken or shrimp, and it has the "five spice" flavor. Really good but not every Vietnamese restaurant has it, because it takes a long time to make. It might be called "clay pot rice" or "earthen pot rice."

I'd go for the Big Red Snapper.

My favorites at the Vietnamese place near me are:

BANH MI CHIEN TOM / Shrimp Toast. Two slices of bread with Shrimp paste and butter

GOI CUON / Fresh Spring Rolls, Shredded Lettuce, Carrots, fresh Mint and Rice Vermicelli, combined with a choice of Shredded Chicken, Sliced Pork, Shrimps or a traditional combination of Sliced Pork, and Shrimp, then wrapped into a softened Rice Paper. A low-fat favorite served with peanut dipping sauce.

GOI TOM THIT / Combination Salad. Poached Shrimp and Chicken with shredded Carrots, Cabbage, fresh Mint, roasted Peanuts, Onions and our home-made dressing

Their spring rolls.

[quote]Unfortunately served with a diluted fish sauce, which smells of rancid fish.

Oh, honey--I'm used to it by now.

Hi. Just got back from Vietnam a couple of weeks ago and all the food was amazing. One thing I loved that I have not seen in many Vietnamese restaurants in the U.S. is bánh xèo. It’s a delicious rice-flour crepe. If you don’t see it on the menu, you could still ask if they can make it.

I'm a vegetarian, and pretty much the only things I can order in a Vietnamese restaurant is pho and spring roll. I live in Nashville, and there are many Vietnamese restaurants, and what I can get is delicious. One thing I particularly love: their coffee!!! Here, it is usually Cafe du Monde with sweetened evaporated milk. It is sweet and delicious.! I don't knwo if that is a Nashville thing, or in Vietnamese restaurants everywhere, but it is pretty spectacular.

r31 Sweetened condensed milk, not evaporated (which is just milk with much of the water removed.)

Yes, of course, R32, that's right! And it is delicious!

The fresh spring rolls are disgusting. They could benefit from a bath in a hot pot of grease.

You just made me hungry, R34.

Is Jane Fonda on a tank making fun of captured torchered Americans?

She's only at the one I go to on the third Thursday of the month, R36.

Get the fried spring rolls. To die for.

Yes, but the fish sauce is to die from.

Pho

And one of the fruit milkshakes.

If you like fish - get the Cahn Chua. It's a tamarind broth soup with chunks of tomato, okra, pineapple, elephant ear stems and bean sprouts. You should get a bowl of rice to spoon into the sweet and sour broth and a smaller plate with chopped peppers to add to the broth or pour a little fish sauce on to make a spicy/salty dipping sauce for your meat/veggies.

[quote] torchered Americans

oh DEAR.

I only like food that has not been captured by the Vietnamese.

[quote] Forego that and just dip them in soy sauce

Ugh. Use the dipping sauce.

Order the snails.

r45 I agree. Soy sauce is not a Vietnamese thing at all. I don't get people who say they love Vietnamese food (or Thai or Filipino or Indonesian) but hate fish sauce. Authentic southeast Asian food uses fish sauce as a primary source of saltiness.

^ (Sorry, I hit enter too quickly.) It's very likely already in the food served to you, not just in the dipping sauces. Besides, with fish sauce you get umami, which you don't get with salt.

The only fish sauce that's potent is the fermented kind. The normal kind has a nice taste to it.

Bun Boe Hue is good.

All fish sauce is fermented; it's how you impart salt with the "fishy" flavour. But, yes, some fish sauce (perhaps what you refer to as the normal kind) is fermented only briefly.

Pho and Vietnamese sub are the best food in the world, period. 😋

I have to order them today

[quote]All fish sauce is fermented; it's how you impart salt with the "fishy" flavour. But, yes, some fish sauce (perhaps what you refer to as the normal kind) is fermented only briefly.

Really really old fish sauce, then. :)

r53 Absolutely. I think it ferments for as long as two years or something! The mild ones more like a few weeks.

From Cooks Illustrated:

What is Fish Sauce?

To the uninitiated, fish sauce might seem like an odd concept. Like soy sauce, it’s both a condiment and an ingredient, and it’s full of glutamates that enhance flavor in food. But while soy sauce is made from comparatively mild-tasting fermented soybeans and grains, fish sauce gets its signature flavor from something far more potent: fermented anchovies. Manufacturing methods vary among producers, but the basic process is the same: Fresh, whole anchovies are layered with sea salt and left to ferment in vats for at least 12 months. Over time, the fish breaks down and the salty liquid that forms is collected and filtered before bottling. It’s strong stuff with an intense aroma. But there’s a reason that this pungent sauce is a critical component of many Asian cuisines and is becoming increasingly commonplace in American kitchens. It boasts a rich, savory taste and a brininess that brings out depth and flavor in everything from dipping sauces and soups to stir-fries and marinades. How We Tasted Fish Sauce

When we last tasted fish sauce, we deemed all six brands in our lineup acceptable. But recently, when we developed a recipe for chicken braised in a fish sauce–spiked caramel sauce, we noticed significant variations in saltiness and quality among brands. An update was in order. We gathered five products from grocery stores and Asian markets and sampled them over white rice, mixed into a simple Thai dipping sauce, and in our Cook's Illustrated recipe for Vietnamese Caramel Chicken. Look For Higher Protein Content

Every brand was intensely flavored, but the best of these balanced saltiness with a complex, savory taste. Less successful brands were either overwhelmingly salty or unpleasantly “fishy.” Two brands listed “anchovy extract” instead of “anchovy” on their ingredient lists, but one was near the top of our rankings and one at the bottom, so we discounted it as a significant factor. What did turn out to be key was protein content. An independent lab confirmed that our winner contained nearly double or even triple the protein of the other products in our lineup: 20.58 percent protein by weight, compared with 11.44 percent for our runner-up and 7.44 to 8.92 percent for the remaining products. Though this sauce also had the highest sodium level, its abundance of protein kept it from tasting overly salty. Moreover, the other products tended to taste saltier, even though they actually had less sodium than our winner. This sauce was also the only one that didn’t contain sugar.

Our new favorite is the second most expensive option in the lineup, but we think its “rich, meaty depth” and complex flavor are worth a few more pennies per ounce.

------

Their winner was Red Boat Fish Sauce.

I agree. Red Boat is the best fish sauce.

Bún bò Huế - I've only had it without the dried pig's blood, but everyone says it's good.

You’ll need to keep all your pets safely indoors now.

Why, are there Irish people outside waiting to make stew out of them, R58?

It's the stupid American food trend du jour.

Just like all other ethnic cuisines were, that preceded them.

It'll fade away eventually. Just like all the others.

Peking Duck, and some Saki to wash it down.

Peking duck = Chinese, sake = Japanese. Or do you generalize everything as "Oriental"? Go away.

Triggered humorless SJW alert coming from the basement of R62!

Keep KaPhopectate on hand.

R59=30 Stockton Yellow Bag Lady

And then?

And then leave a modest tip.

Aaaaaaaand then?

R60, Vietnamese cuisine is more than just a food trend. Look at it's history.

Fish sauce for dipping is usually mixed in with ginger, scallions, pepper, and sugar so that there's very little if any fishy taste. It's a very dense source of glutamates, which gives food that great umami savoryness. It adds the same richness to the broths in Pho and other Vietnamese soups and sauces. Don't sell yourself short by avoiding it.

Do NOT touch that fish sauce. It is disgusting. And the way it's made is disgusting. Use some other sauce.

Stay way from the cat.

Mi xao toi- a garlic noodle dish that I have dreams about if I go to long without having a bowl.

The fish sauce is fine. Please don't dump soy sauce on everything like a fucking mangia cake

[quote]Stay way from the cat.

Stay away from R72 and his low rent mother's M&M based repertoire.

HAHAHAHA

Eating cat jokes so velly funny! Pwease do more of them!

Joke never get old.

Obviously DL old crones were raised in beef Wellington households. Nevertheless, they type as having foodstamp backgrounds.

Banh mi!

Vietnamese BION, are cleaner and have better hygiene than Chinese or Filipino people. This includes their restaurants thank goodness.

I worked with a Vietnamese man and he told me that his family made the dipping sauce with 1/3 Fish Sauce, 1/3 rice vinegar & 1/3 water. The add a small amount of shredded carrot, green onion & Ginger.

R79 = John/PMBT

R80 you got it right

I love Vietnamese salads, lots of fresh herbs and crunchy Julienne veggies.

[quote] veggies

Ugh. Almost as bad as “veg”.

Banh mi

Grilled Pork Vermicelli

Spring rolls

Pho

and French-Vietnamese pastries for dessert

And then?

Fried Golden Retriever

lol R87.

"taste like chicken!"

rotfl

Love beef pho. There’s a Vietnamese restaurant across the street from me and I get it all the time. Once, when I was home sick from the flu, I ordered takeout from them. Beef pho. When they delivered it to me, I took it to the kitchen and pulled the ingredients out of the bag. Imagine my surprise to see that the beef was raw!! I called the restaurant and told them that they sent me uncooked food! The woman on the line calmly explained that the beef had to be placed into the hot broth, let me tell you how embarrassed I was...we had a good laugh over it.

Pho is surprisingly easy and good to make at home. It takes some time to make the bone broth and finding a few unusual ingredients, but if you have an Asian market available, it's not difficult.

Bangh Mi Ass Pho Shure

It's the 3000 mg of sodium that makes pho so tasty.

They call it the special of the day but it's usually just strays.

You need to cook the bones for at least 10 hours to get all the flavors out, it has to be gelatin-ey and that just takes time.

The bone broth is infused with fennel, aniseed, cardamon and cloves and some other herbs and spices.

I usually get it with raw beef, noodles, bean sprouts, Vietnamese mint, Thai basil and lemon wedges. I love it!

Spend the night close to a private bathroom with plenty of toilet paper.

R96 staying in his parents’ basement for the last 40 years

This makes me absolutely desperate to try Vietnamese cuisine. Unfortunately I live in a small, unsophisticated area of Florida with few Asian immigrants, so there are no restaurants. Perhaps the next time I am in Orlando I can experience this yummy sounding food.

Tender chicken, OP. Oh, wait, I see you have already ordered!

R15, thanks for the recommendation about Bo Ko. Tried it at one of my regular Pho haunts and it really is good. The combo of stew meat and carrot with other normal Pho garnishes made for a much richer broth than just typical Pho - didn't have to add any hoisin to add depth.

Crispy Pancakes are among my favs, also Pho and spicy noodle soups. Love Vietnamese food!

And then?