Real Vietnamese Food Domination

There are certain things that really offend me. One of them is unauthentic Vietnamese food. No joke. When I see egg rolls that are made with incorrect egg roll skin or crappyily ( yes it's a word) made Vietnamese food it's like a rage comes over me and someone directly insulted me to my face. Why? I'm not sure. Possibly because I know my Viet food. Pretty much my entire family was born in Vietnam. Strange though, because I can eat inauthentic Chinese, Japanese, or other types of Asian food and not get super angry about how it's not right or improper. In fact, I occasionally chow down on Panda Express myself. Anyways today's blog post is on Vietnamese food- a great way for me to end my time L.A. before jetting to Hong Kong for Chinese New Year's since like I mentioned before, all Vietnamese food in HK sucks. To me, Nem Nuong Ninh Hoa is the best Vietnamese place in the San Gabriel Valley. I would even go as far as to say it's almost equal to Brodad in Irvine. It's at 9016 Mission Drive. Rosemead, 91770 if you want to check it out. And you know it's good when they have Nem Nuong in their name! Nem Nuong is pork meat balls in Vietnamese. Yummy!

Left is a picture of their pork grilled meatball wraps. Think spring roll but WAY better! Right is their Charbroiled pork patties wrapped w/ banana leaves. Double yum!

The satay-like sticks of pork are the nem nuong. The small skinny egg rolls in the middle are not the typical Vietnamese egg rolls. Inside each little egg roll is a small individual shrimp. So good!

Left is Bahn beo- is basically a steamed rice cake and it's topped with mung bean paste, shrimp, scallions, and fried shallots. You dip it in fish sauce. The right is bahn hoi which is made of rice vermicelli. It's also dipped in fish sauce.

Here are the 2 sauces available. Left is the special sweet sauce used for the pork. Right is the typical fish sauce. My family doesn't like using the special sauce for their pork. I don't know why. I, on the other hand love that sauce. I'm just way more hardcore at eating Vietnamese food than them.

This is Bun bo Hue. It's a popular soup noodle dish that is made with beef, oxtail, pig's knuckles, or pork and also has cubes of pig blood inside. Like all asian things, it sounds gross but tastes delicious!

Nem Nuong Ninh Hoa is delicious. There's no denying that. My mom comes here to buy frozen pork (nem nuong) 3 times a year in bulk to bring back to my family in Hong Kong but... if you don't mind the driving or live closer to Irvine you should defintely check out Brodard in Garden Grove. You have to drive way farther for them though. There's a Brodard's in Alhambra but trust me if you want party in your mouth spring rolls you have to make the drive to Garden Grove for them. Here's their website if you want to check them out.

Now that I'm done reviewing restaurants, it's time for a review of legit bahn mi (Vietnamese sandwiches/baguettes) places. Let's start with the best of the best.

This is a bahn mi from Saigon Sandwich & Bakery at 718 East Valley Blvd. San Gabriel, 91776. It's freaking amazing. It's actually comparable to the sandwiches I've had in Vietnam. That's how good it is. They make the bread there fresh a few times a day. The trick is to order the smaller and fatter bread and not the longer, skinny one. The small one is much more tasty. In fact, you can just order the plain, fat baguettes 3 for $1! Once you get home, just throw it into the freezer. When you feel like eating them, just wrap it in foil and toast it. It will taste just like fresh if you follow those steps! I usually order 3 plain ones to go and 1 that is stuffed like the picture above. Be careful when ordering so that you get the right bread though. The bread here is so good that I can eat 1 all by myself plain. Or sometimes I make scrambled eggs and ketchup and dip it with the plain bread I buy. Whatever... seriously go buy this bread. Just go to smell the fresh bread. It's THAT good!

Left is a bahn mi from Mr. Baguette. There's a few all over the San Gabriel Valley. Right is a picture of Lee's Sandwiches which are located all over from Irvine to the SGV. I like how their bread is thin and crunchy. I also like how they have the option of adding sesame to their bread. I still would put Saigon Sandwiches above these two though. The bread is different at these two places and Saigon Sandwiches. Best thing to do is just try them all! =)

Happy Vietnamese Eatings!

All You Can Eat- A Meal of Champions, A Test of Pride

    I'm always weary of All you can eats (AYCE) because you either spend the night with bad service while fighting with other patrons for food AND/OR eating so much that you end up feeling like crap or throwing it all back up. But yesterday's meal was different. I went to Irvine to visit my besties and we decided to get AYCE at this place called Zenko's. About $22 for AYCE. Awesome! And the best part? The waitresses were all super nice and attentive and the food was pretty good! And the best best part? Together we beat their previous personal  record by eating more than 22 plates of food (the 4 of us) and more than $160 worth of sushi not including appetizers. We definitely got our money's worth. In fact we even busted out the calculator just to make sure. As a trophy, we even took home our order receipt to frame on the fridge. My friends are hardcore! Loves it!

    These were our appetizers. We ordered 4 orders of fried calamari, a miso soup for each of us, and baked mussels. I had 2 misos just myself!

    Is your mouth watering? Yes it was amazing. The sushi wasn't dry either, which is something I was worried about since it was an AYCE place. We basically tried to order some of everything on the menu. They tried to save plates by putting as much sushi on one plate as they could. Notable dish was definitely Box 1. If you look closely the sushi is inside a jalapeno pepper. Box 2 we have 2 BSCR rolls, a baked scallop roll, and a green dragon roll. Box 3 tuna, white tuna, albacore sushi and some type of fried tempera crunch roll thingy. Box 4 has a salmon skin roll and something else. Honestly everything starts tasting the same when you are eating for pride, trying beat your previous record. Plus, we had many flat screen TVs on around us and also unlimited time to eat as much as we wanted.

    And here comes the conspiracy theory...  Look at our waters! They were so freaking huge! So I'm pretty sure they did that not to help quench their customers' thirst but to try to get us fuller, faster since the rice would start to swell up more in our stomaches. Cunning and clever idea, but they obviously didn't know who they were messing with. Everyone had multiple refills of water and then proceeded to order even more sushi. 

    And they all kept on coming and coming. One thing I would like to say is about the fried Philadelphia roll in Box 2. I personally hate Philadelphia rolls. I think they are the worst invention ever. Who the hell puts cream cheese in sushi? It's not a bagel. But this one was fried in tempera batter and I have to admit it was quite tasty! 

    I ended my meal with another order of miso soup and then with this tempura green tea ice cream! It was a great way to end our victory meal. My bestie was really worried that I wouldn't enjoy Zenko's because it was completely opposite of my pervious post from Sasabune. This was the typical Korean owned Japanese joint with "fake" Japanese food. Honestly, I really enjoyed Zenko's. I know it represents all those unauthentic Japanese rolls but those rolls are good too. If I wanted to go to a really authentic Japanese place, I would have gone elsewhere. Just because it's not a real Japanese meal didn't make it any less tasty. And breaking a record was awesome too! Great night!

 

    And since I was in the area, I obviously had to stop by 85 degrees Bakery, which I've previously mentioned in my cakes post. So yesterday altogether, $78 was spent buying bakery items at 85C. Yes... I can't really explain myself. Stressed spelled Backwards is Desserts after all. Box 1 is 85C's Chocolate Cookie Crumble, Box 2 is their Strawberry Cadina, and Box 3 is a half eaten Black Forest cake. 

    Miscellaneous breads I ended up purchasing. The black bread in Box 1 is a Japanese Calamari Bread. It looks gross but is delicious. Other breads I purchased included, sweet bread, chocolate bread, pineapple bread, brioche, coffee bread, mocha bread, just to name a few. The fun part about 85C is they constantly have fresh bread coming out of their ovens. When a worker brings out a new tray of fresh bread they shout "Fresh Bread" and then all the other workers shout in unison too! Then everyone tackles them for their fresh bread. Personally, I think 85 is a good bakery but if you are in Irvine the best bakery to check out is Les Versailles Boulange in Westminister. Their coffee, eclairs, brioche, and other breads are better than 85!


Happy Eatings and grab your besties and eat til you get kicked out!