Vietnamese

395 Vina – Gambling on mock gluten

September 14, 2014 by Andrew Christie Leave a Comment

Friday night. The best night for going out. Everything is open, and everyone is in a good mood after a working week. Unfortunately I am running a bit late for the rendezvous at the Social Club due to a beer-based staff counselling session. Not that Strop minds, the delay gives her another half an hour of catching up with old friends and colleagues. The friends are old Quest hands Duncan and Rebecca (New Taste, Thai Pothong) and newcomers Keren and James (who are vegetarians luckily, and have also been to Vina before – so they can do the ordering).

After a quick catch-up beer, which I don’t really need due to the nature of the counselling session, we file out and squeeze past the crowd waiting outside Lentil as Anything and make our way to the not-so-busy Vina. The dining room at Vina maintains the tradition of cheap Asian restaurants having very bright lighting, colourful walls and questionable art. While the rest of us settle in and explore the menu, Strop dashes off up the hill to get some more wine. “Just in case.”

Vina turns out to be another of those vegetarian restaurants that fashions gluten into various forms of meat substitutes. At Vina they use the term mock for these meat analogues. So the menu features Mock Crispy Fish, Mock Ham, Mock Chicken and rather endearingly, Mock Gluten. They also offer Wantons. I’m really starting to like this place. Rebecca and Keren take over the ordering as no one else volunteers. The young waiter is very helpful, giving advice on the dishes and suitable quantities. He also brings wine glasses to the table, six of them, none match. Impressive.

Soon after Strop returns with wine, the food starts arriving. There are DIY rice paper rolls, spring rolls, which I really enjoyed not least because there was an alluring hint of Chiko Roll about the flavour, which took me straight back to summer holidays by the beach. The Mock Crispy Fish lived up to its name being both crispy and tasty. In fact it tasted suspiciously fishy. The highlight for me though was the fried rice. It wasn’t like any other fried rice I’ve had before. It had black bits (which turned out to be seaweed) and a hint of mint. Nothing mock about it at all, just very tasty.

Somewhere in amongst all the eating and commenting on the food, Rebecca let slip that she had a sports bet account and had a financial interest in the outcome of the Hawks v Cats match up. You’re kidding? I had images of Tony Soprano, talking on the phone about The Spread and Laying Off. No idea what that means. No, Rebecca has a hobby, she doesn’t do needlepoint, she bets on AFL matches.

For dessert I couldn’t go past the fried banana and pineapple. I have long been a fan of the banana fritter but I had never tried pineapple in this form. I chickened out on the offer of vegan ice-cream and opted for the cow-based analogue instead. Strop went for something different. She described it as a delicious coconut milk and rice slurry, a bit like congee. I had a taste – it was surprisingly nice.

Afterwards posing for the obligatory group photo outside Vina we were massively photo-bombed by a group of happy hooligans.

343 – Pho 88 – We’re keen – we’ve heard good things – and we’re not disappointed

June 9, 2014 by Andrew Christie Leave a Comment

There haven’t been very many Vietnamese restaurants on our King St journey, the last was probably Pho 236, so we have been quietly looking forward to this one. It is also a bit of a celebratory dinner with the Melb. branch of the family visiting, a couple of imminent birthdays, and the Stropolina about to make her annual winter-avoiding hemisphere hop. We are starting early because the 2.5 year old is in desperate need of an early night after she spent the whole previous day and night play-bonding with the cuzzy-bros.

Pho 88 is a small place, so our table for six creates a bit of a squeezy disruption, especially as one of our party seems to have left her inside voice in Melbourne. However, she is quickly connected to a coconut via a bendy straw and all is peaceful as the rest of us give some serious thought to the food offerings.

Only the juice of the coconut can quell the Outside Voice

Pho. There are quite a few of those on offer as you would expect, and there are also other Vietnamese dishes, some familiar, others new to me at least. There is also a section called ‘Infusion’ which features Ribs and other non-traditional culinary excursions. The menu includes glossy pictures of some of the dishes as well as hand written last minute additions. There was a fair bit of discussion about the share-ability of pho and whether we should just let one or two people do the ordering, so everyone else can carry on talking. Everyone thought this was a fine idea, disagreeing only on who should be burdened with responsibility for the food choices and ultimate happiness of everyone else. I realised that the obvious thing for me to do was to start ordering whatever took my fancy. This blatantly rogue act immediately compelled the sheilas in my life to correct my wrong-headed and inappropriate choices. Problem solved.

While food negotiations were ongoing, drinks were sought. The young waitresses, of whom there were quite a few, seemed to be a bit new to the game, and lacked any pro-active tendencies. One mistook the famous 333 Vietnamese beer for 666, the infamous devil’s brew, and another decided that six water glasses weren’t quite enough for six people, and started moving them out of the way so she could fit a new batch of water glasses on the table. Until we told her to stop.

Luckily when it came time to order, the senior staff member showed the others how this waiting-at-table gig should be done, giving very good advice on food choices and quantities. For entrees we had coconut prawns, spring rolls, fresh spring rolls, salt and pepper squids. These were all good but the prawns were a standout – fat, juicy prawns coated with shredded coconut and deep-fried till golden. Yum. The mains were pho with roast chicken, bun (pronounced with the U-sound from pull, I discovered – and chosen because I am a sucker for a funny sounding name), Hainan chicken, fried rice and DIY spring rolls with spicy beef. The food came quickly and table real estate immediately went up in value as space was required for all the pho garnishes and the DIY roll ingredients. Heater determined that the pho broth was excellent, but not as good as Melbourne. Fair enough, I wouldn’t expect any less from a Mexican. My bun turned out to be a kind of salad with vermicelli noodles, and was very good, particularly once I was shown how to dress and season it. The Hainan chicken and the beef DIY rolls were good too, but the fried rice was a standout. It was the most generous fried rice dish I can remember, full of enormous fat prawns and lots of freshly cooked vegetables.

Dessert was a no-brainer. Immediately above our table was a hand written notice imploring us to try their Fried Golden Gaytime special. So we did. It was unusual, but in a really nice way. A stickless Gaytime, wrapped in a kind of filo pastry and sprinkled with shredded coconut, crispy on the outside, and pure Streets on the inside. Weird but wonderful.

If we weren’t busily motoring our way toward St Peters I would definitely be going back to Pho 88. I might even drop in for another Gaytime on the way home from our next questing venue.

236 – Pho 236 – That’ll do for this year

December 29, 2013 by Andrew Christie Leave a Comment

There is a no nonsense attitude about this place. It is there in the name, with the street address included. There is nothing fancy in the fit-out either, and no decorations. Just a long narrow rectangular tube with glass at the street end and a counter at the back. Tiled floors and plain painted walls, containing a row of tables on either side of a central aisle that leads straight from the door to the business end. There is nothing fancy about the food either: Vietnamese/Chinese that is not great but good enough for the price. Service is fast, and you can drink Coke or Sunkist or Water, or you can bring your own. We brought our own. A nice little Pinot Grigio courtesy of the Coopers Arms across the street, which seemed a bit far to go as there is a Vintage Cellars next door, but unfortunately it is closed due to it being Boxing Day and there being trading rules.

It is early but Pho 236 is fairly busy — as it always seems to be. It has been around for as long as we have been paying attention and nothing seems to change. It is popular with the traditional Newtown set of students and people after a quick feed before a movie or going on to a pub or whatever it is that young people do after 9pm when all decent gentle folk are in bed or watching Midsomer Murders.

We are earlier than usual tonight as we have the granddaughter, Pancetta in tow, and we are leaving bright and early the next morning to go on a Summer Holiday (sing along now with Uncle Cliff: We’re all going on a…., No more worries for a week or two, etc.). Stropette and the Heathen are along for the ride and we’ve extended the family to include, Cousin Alison and Brother Steve. After dragging a couple of tables together, counting heads and matching them to chairs, we are delivered of a pile of particularly raggedy-looking laminated pictogram menus.

Due to the rule of nominative determinism Strop and I resolve to have the Special Beef pho. Strop likes to go for the “Special” because it traditionally comes with sausage and bits of tendon (or gristle as she refers to them). Steve orders the chicken pho, Alison goes for sizzling king prawns, Stropette orders spring rolls and vermicelli for herself, and tofu and vegies for the Pancetta. The Heathen has something with prawns and tofu, chow mein I think — I wasn’t paying very close attention. To start we have fresh spring rolls, because they’re usually delicious, and a bit of a tradition with us.

The Pancetta, being blonde and gorgeous, proceeds to seduce the staff behind the counter by smiling and talking nonsense at them, only occasionally interrupted by the ear-drum piercing squeal of a metal chair leg being dragged across a ceramic floor tile, and being amplified by every hard surface in the restaurant. Yes, it is a bit noisy. But the food comes quickly, preceded by a handful of cutlery and chopsticks, placed in a delicate pile in the middle of the table.

Fresh spring rolls: nothing special, nothing terrible. About the same quality as you can buy in any food hall in the city.

The Special Beef pho is not bad, although Strop is disappointed by the total lack of gristle, but there is plenty of sausage to compensate. I really enjoyed the stock when I got the balance of basil, chilli, and lime garnishes just right. Strop was disappointed but then she is comparing it to Pho Pasteur which has very good stock. I think the verdict on the rest of the dishes was along the lines of “Okay, but I’ve had better.”

I hadn’t planned on being the entertainment for the evening, but that was the way it turned out when I got a chilli seed caught at the back of my throat. My usual reaction to a chilli overdose is a light-hearted bout of hiccups, which is particularly entertaining for Strop. This was different. This was coughing. And choking. Perhaps not life threatening, but certainly snot-and-tear-inducing. The worst part was that it seemed to have scarred the back of my throat so that even when I had regained my composure, and assured Strop that I didn’t need “a good thump between the shoulder blades,” every subsequent mouthful of soup brought on more coughing. How they laughed — once they had decided I wasn’t going to actually die.

The menu board doesn't look as if it has changed this century — The menu board doesn’t look as if it has changed this century

The damage, apart from my pride, was $75 for seven people. Not bad.

So now we have reached the intersection of Church Street, from now on we will be turning right at King Street and making the run down towards the railway station, where we will have to decide whether to stick with the mediocre task at hand, or allow ourselves to be seduced by the bright lights and higher culinary standards of Enmore Road. Only time will tell. See you next year.

154 Tre Viet – The Classy Aquarium Vibe

July 13, 2013 by Andrew Christie 4 Comments

When we got to Tre Viet two things struck me. The empty restaurant was being warmed by the gentle strains of a Viennese waltz and they had an aquarium. These were both firsts for the quest and fitting additions to our first lunchtime outing. We have opted for lunch so that the Melbourne-based members of the family can join us. Specifically so that the Heathen-Outlaw can make it. We have also performed a bit of jiggery-pokery with the running order so as not to inflict New Taste or Mad Mex on the out-of-towners. The family are in town because we have just celebrated the 90th birthday of the G-rent-mother, which was very pleasant. So we have squeezed a questing into the packed program, between a morning’s outing to the Sydney Park playground and a mid-afternoon dash to the airport. Due to a lack of seats in our motor, Stropette and I volunteer to take advantage of the crystal clear day to walk to the restaurant pushing the sleeping Pancetta and her stroller in front of us.

This peramble gives us the opportunity to explore the far reaches of King St and to do a bit of quest calculating. As of last Sunday there are 50 eateries on the far side of the station and then another 16 to Church Street which is looming as our target for the end of the year. So I’m thinking that the quest is looking like a 2 year thing. This is do-able. Then we can get our lives back. There has been a bit of chat amongst Strop’s Crew about taking a detour at Enmore Road, because that is where the cool is now, but I think these notions have to be rejected as revisionist nonsense. We must stick to the plan, even if it is a bad plan.

While the Stropolina and Pancetta are oohing and ahhing over at the aquarium (it really is a classy aquarium, it’s got coral and stuff, just like Feej) the rest of us get the essential beer order in. Unfortunately in our haste to get a thirst quencher down our gullets, we miss the fact that they stock the trusty Vietnamese 333, so we have to quickly down our James Squires and Tigers so we can move on to the more culturally appropriate 333.

The restaurant is beginning to fill with a restrained Sunday-lunch crowd. There is a cool and relaxed atmosphere to the restaurant which is exemplified by the aquarium. Our table soon disrupts things though by deciding that we need a bigger table to accommodate the high chair. As the bemused wait-staff look on the female members of the party begin appropriating the adjoining tables and shuffling chairs, strollers and beer glasses. When someone, that might have been your correspondent, points out that we are disturbing the Vibe of the place, Strop looks disdainful and announces that she is “Deaf to the Vibe” which effectively ends the discussion.

When we are all re-settled and have identified our own beer glasses, the Heathen Outlaw throws a bit of a spanner in the food ordering works by enquiring about No 37. He obviously hasn’t been paying attention: the No. 37 rule only comes into force in Thai establishments. We are on the wrong side of the border here mate. Not that there is anything wrong with him choosing to order No. 37 if he so desires but it would strictly be on the basis that it was “just another dish, might as well be No. 19”. When the dish in question turns out to be a Chicken Curry with Coconut milk the issue is quickly dropped, and Strop takes over the ordering, while I tap out what are now indecipherably cryptic notes on my phone.

We start out with Betel Leaf Beef which turn out to be surprisingly similar to scrumptious little sausages only wrapped in betel leaves and with coriander flavours. They disappear very quickly, but are followed by fresh spring rolls, and a vegetarian pancake. While we are busily stuffing our faces, talk turns to the planning of a Wedding that will turn the Heathen Outlaw into the Heathen in-law. There is heated discussion regarding possible venues, catering, guest lists and gifting arrangements. It soon emerges that there deep philosophical divides regarding the righteousness of the Gift Registry. Some people are more risk averse than others I suppose. Personally I think the risk of receiving 13 toasters and 5 ugly vases is worth taking, but then I come from a generation that thought nothing of getting married in a park in February without even a thought to deploying a risk-management marquee.

The rest of the food arrives before the Gift Registry Stand-off turns ugly. There is a Caramelised Pork Hotpot (big ticks), Papaya Salad, Chilli and Lemongrass Beef (yum), Charcoal Grilled Chicken and eventually Poached Vegetables. This sounds like a lot but there wasn’t much left by the time we had finished. We even had room for Vietnamese Coffee, with a yummy hit of condensed milk, and a couple of those strange Asian drinks with the coconut milk, weird green agar worms and red beans. Pancetta thought this was nearly as exciting as the aquarium and indeed parts of the drink wouldn’t have been out of place amongst the coral.

Tre Viet is a similar scale and style restaurant to Thanh Binh but has a calmer and less hectic vibe (even allowing for a lunchtime visit the calming effects of the aquarium are obvious) but I think Thanh Binh has a slight edge on the food side.

Next up we are back across the road and back into the realm of cocktails at Corridor. See you then.

131 Rice Paper – Lost Speedos On The Waterslides of Life

June 1, 2013 by Andrew Christie Leave a Comment

We are simultaneously closing in on Missenden Road and a holiday in Fiji. I know which one I am looking forward to most.

Tonight it is just the two of us again and we have a weird role-reversal start to the evening. I find Strop in the front bar of the Marly, surrounded by noisy Waratah’s fans watching the big screens, looking ever so slightly pissed off as she finishes her beer. She can’t wait to get out of the pub so it looks like I’m missing out on my weekly instalment of Dogbolter and rugby. “Why didn’t you go out into the back, there’s a new girly, gardeny, bistro bar?” I ask as we cross Missenden Road. “I didn’t know it was there,” is the answer. It is going to be that kind of night, I mean who goes to a pub and doesn’t check out the back bar? Apart from Strop, obviously.

Rice Paper is mostly empty when we arrive, but fills up while we are there. It is only a couple of years old and the room is very modern and stylish in a Freedom Furniture kind of way, but the decor is somewhat let down by the detailing – our menus are held together by cable ties. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of the adaptive powers of the cable tie. I once built an air raid shelter for our dog out of electrical conduit and cable ties. No, it’s just the context, you wouldn’t bat and eyelid if cable ties made an appearance at Thai La-Ong but here they let the side down a bit. The service is attentive though, so we quickly order before I dash across the road to get a bottle of plonk.

The unwritten law of nominal determinism means that we have to have rice paper rolls – there are four varieties on offer – 3 seasonal types and 1 geographic. We opt for the geographic option as it is named after Nha Trang, a town we have actually been to on the coast of Vietnam. We stayed there in a Stalinist version of a seaside resort. It was where I ripped the arse out of my Speedo’s accompanying the young Stropolina down a water slide so old that the terrazzo surface at the bottom of the slide had been eroded to an exposed-aggregate finish by the chemical laden water. The top was perfectly smooth allowing me to accelerate in the expected manner, but at the bottom I kept going into the pool while most of my costume stayed hooked up on the little bits of stone embedded in the slide. So of course I have fond memories of Nha Trang.

For mains we order Vietnamese Chicken Lemongrass Chilli from the Only-@-Rice-Paper part of the menu and some stir fried seasonal veges and steamed rice from the Same-As-Everywhere-Else part. Disappointingly the Vietnamese restaurant version of number 37,Rau mung, is a seasonal vegetable, just not this season.

When I get back with the Pinot Gris the entrées have just arrived. Strop and I chat about work frustrations while we attack the food, coming to the conclusion that if work was fun they wouldn’t have to pay you to do it. The Nha Trang rolls come with tasty little squares of charred meat balanced on top and a nice chilli and nut sauce. These are quickly disposed of and replaced by the mains. The chicken is nice enough but the vegetables are coated in an oyster sauce which is entirely unnecessary. Oh well.

“It wasn’t that good was it?” says Strop as we leave, running for a bus to take us to Enmore Road and the promise of an award winning gelato joint. This turns out to be the best part of the evening, but as it was not on King Street I can’t tell you about it.

Next it is Mad Pizza e Bar, which we have mixed feelings about. It recently replaced Slice and Ice which was our preferred gelato dispensary until it fell foul of The Churn. But we will try to approach our plates with open minds and hearts.

111 Thanh Binh – Tres Bien

April 13, 2013 by Andrew Christie 4 Comments

Thanh Binh is the quest’s first Vietnamese restaurant, and I am certainly glad to metaphorically cross the mighty Mekong River – represented somewhat inadequately tonight by Elizabeth Street – into the refuge of a non-Thai cuisine. Love my Thai and all, but 3 in a row is enough. Tonight we’re looking forward to some Vietnamese and a complete absence of number 37.

We’ve been to Thanh Binh before, but not for a few years. I have a mental block about the name, I always think of it as Tres Bien – probably something to do with the French/Vietnamese thing and a very short, subliminal restaurant review. It doesn’t appear to have changed much, still packed on a Friday night.

Tonight we are joined by John, Pauline, Jill and Roy. Old friends who are desperate to join the quest and see their names in print. It turns out that not only are we are having a good old get together, we are also celebrating Strop’s new job. So fizzy alcohol in tall glasses is required. Well done Strop! Can I retire now?

We are just getting used to Strop’s new celebratory status when John announces that in order to give me something to write about he has selflessly arranged for Pauline to be put on a strict diet that only allows her to eat not very much at all. I am sad to say that my first thought – goodo, all the more for me – was not a worthy one. Poor Pauline. Oh well, now what are the rest of us eating?

I glance at the menu and decide that it requires more attention to detail than I am prepared to give as all the names are in Vietnamese, so Strop does the ordering. The waiter is very helpful arranging some plain chicken to meet Pauline’s dietary restrictions. While all this is going on, I get on with the chatting. We are on a circular table, perfectly suited for 6 diners so you can actually talk to everyone else on the table. This is a very fine arrangement, and in order to keep Roy happy we have also done a very fine job of boy-girl-boying so everyone’s partner is opposite them. This seems very auspicious to me and I wonder if there is a Vietnamese equivalent of Feng Shui that we have accidentally stumbled upon.

The first food to arrive is Pauline’s special poached chicken, complete with coriander garnish which is immediately disallowed and banished to an empty glass. The chicken sits in the middle of the table looking a bit lonely until some other dishes start to arrive. Once the food starts though, it doesn’t seem to stop. I rather rashly told Strop to over order, and for once she has listened to me.

Poached chicken with garnish re-instated

There are rice paper rolls and vegetarian omelettes to start. Then clean plates arrive along with DIY kits for making more rice paper rolls with very tasty pork fillings. Lots of reaching and passing is involved as we all take turns struggling to produce strange, misshapen and leaky parcels. It’s a wonder any of us made it through kindergarten with fine motor skills like this. But luckily they taste very good, particularly the lemongrass pork, so we persevere.

More new plates appear on the table heralding the arrival of some stunt ‘cook at the table’ food. Jill can’t help being helpful and starts passing the plates around the table, only to be chastised by the waiter who needs them right where he put them, thank you very much. This turns out to be tumeric fish in a clay-pot, although the clay pot turns out to be a little wok on a gas burner, and this is good too.

The conversation covers a lot of territory. We learn more than we need to know about John’s predilection for bicycles called Beyonce, and being stalked by a bicycle mechanic. Then suddenly we’re in Tasmania and Roy is talking about the famous wall-of-vaginas at the Museum of Old and New Art. Now I know why people talk about MONA as a theme park for adults – I’m definitely going. When Jill starts talking about Roy’s obsession with wooden boats, I butt in to float my theory that Margaret Thatcher is the victim of misogynist misunderstandings. Luckily more new plates arrive just in the nick of time.

I have this theory about Mrs Thatcher... — I have this theory about Mrs Thatcher…

This time they are for twice cooked aniseed duck, salmon in tamarind sauce and water spinach, Strop’s Vietnamese equivalent of number 37. Water spinach, or rau-mung, as it is known in our household, is the dish she always orders in a Vietnamese restaurant, no matter what. There does seem to be some confusion about what it is actually called, but it will always be rau-mung to us – and we’ve been to Vietnam, ok? Tonight’s incarnation of rau-mung comes with lots of crunchy bean sprouts and okra. Jill and I approve of this innovation. Yum. The only real disappointment is the salmon, which is in a syrupy tamarind sauce.

So, Thanh Binh – tres bien.

Next week we’re fronting up to that vegan’s delight, the Green Gourmet. Is it a coincidence that I have just realised that this end of King Street is crying out for a decent steakhouse, or is it just my carnivore stomach talking.