Banh Beo and Banh Bot Loc Combo at Ngu Binh
- At Ngu Binh, a menu with English translations and pictures supplements the previously all-Vietnamese single-sheet list, offering about 18 dishes. Most are rearrangements of rice-flour batter, the chosen medium. The starch is to this Hue cuisine specialist as semolina is to the Italians. Steamed in tiny saucers, it’s called banh beo. Spread as thin as film and used as noodle wraps, it’s called banh uot. And that’s just two iterations. But then there's the banh bot loc dumplings, which are made with tapioca flour instead of rice. They're translucent, resembling squat jellyfish with shrimp-y brains at dead-center with a chewy texture similar to old bubble gum. And when you get both the banh be and the banh bot loc together on the same plate, the competing textures duel in your mouth.
- The banh cuon at Tan Hoang Huong in Tustin is laid out next to register, wrapped in plastic and offered in about three varieties. The one you want is the complete kit sold for about $5 and includes crisp fried onion, a side of julienned vegetables, slices of cha lua (Vietnamese bologna), a fried tofu, and a nouc cham dipping sauce. To eat it, you dip the meat, crisp-cool veggies, but especially the translucent parcels of the banh cuon into the fish sauce, slurping all the way. Since banh cuon is typically eaten for breakfast, Tan Huang Huong's stock tends to run out the later you go in the day. But you can usually score one for a light lunch. If you're feeling peckish, banh cuon is actually a great first course before tucking into one of Tan Huang Huong's banh mis, which, by the way, are also a great summertime meal.
- This is the one item that has seeded Brodard's success and the reason there's always a line. The nem nuong cuon is a spring roll to end all spring rolls. A wetted cylinder of rice paper hides lettuce, a slender piece of deep-fried egg-roll skin, cucumber and nem nuong, a ruddy concoction made of pork or shrimp that isn't quite a sausage and not really SPAM, but a combo of the two. A lot of places in Little Saigon can construct a fine nem nuong cuon, but only Brodard seems to have perfected the sauce that makes it sing. Halfway between soup and dip, its ingredients are a mystery. It's possibly the most guarded secret recipe in the enclave, perhaps OC. For sure, there's garlic, a little chile paste, maybe sugar. Magic and sorcery? More than likely.
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