Vietnamese take-out for my bday!
Hey guys! Late post... from beginning of April :P
I thought for a while whether or not to post this bcos, long story short, I ordered from this home kitchen that may or may not be licensed. It's a Vietnamese lady running the business & basically through word of mouth. Ordering from her took a 3rd party as we do not have a common language.......
Anyway, decided to release this post bcos I want to share my Vietnamese food experience outside of the standard pho/bun bo hue.
When my friend from Montreal came back to visit 2 yrs ago, she invited me to her family home, where her mom prepared banh cuon (Vietnamese steamed rice rolls). Since then, I have not eaten any =( it's not common on menus & even so, I can't give up on my BBH haha
I ordered 3 lbs of banh cuon (pork flavour) & 2 lbs of the shrimp flavour. (left & right respectively).
It came with a dipping sauce & fried onion pack.
The other sauce in the previous picture is for this item, which is banh beo - steamed savoury rice cakes with typically shredded pork, shrimp & mung bean paste. This item came with a small packet of pickled carrot + daikon.
They were fresh (same day made) - they don't refrigerate. But when you take them home, you gotta (re)-steam.
I hardly ever steam anything... this took a lot of effort. I want to recommend microwaving, which is what I did with the leftovers the next day but it's not the same. The rice roll part's quality is compromised when microwaved. The steaming method makes it soft yet kinda chewy.
Sides/veggies that you typically eat banh cuon with are not included, so my mom cut up some veggies nicely. Also of note is .. I believe the "authentic" method is using larger pieces of iceberg lettuce so it's like a wrap. For the purpose of less-messy situation with kids, we decided to go "salad" method.
READYYY
Take some veggies, the steamed banh cuon, & mix with the dipping sauce, which was an amazing, addictive blend of vinegar, chili, fish sauce, lime juice, sugar & water.
Comparing the 3 things: pork banh cuon, shrimp banh cuon, & the banh beo, I liked the pork banh cuon the most!
The banh beo is good for ppl who like salty + sweet combo. The base/rice cake portion of it contains coconut milk so it's a little sweet. The topping is savoury. That being said, the dipping sauce for the banh beo was better than the other one bcos it was spicier & contained more garlic! Actually ended up using the banh beo sauce for everything after trying both. The sauce just had more depth to it. (Banh cuon sauce sweeter, less spicy)
As for why I like the pork one more than the shrimp for the banh cuon, it is bcos the pork one had an extra mmph from the pork fat/grease. More flavour than the shrimp one. Also the shrimp used were the dry shrimps. Not the completely dry ones but .. not baby shrimps. Sorry, I don't know what they're called. The texture wasn't the best.
Mom deep-fried some shrimp crackers :D
& also one of my favs of my mom's... shrimp envelopes. We don't have a name for them, but it's basically marinated shrimp (garlic powder, pepper, salt) inside a wonton wrapper & fried. It's super quick prep/cook time! SO GOOOOD!
