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HERBAL DUCK SOUP AT BEN THANH

A “progressive dinner” is an affair where a group of friends decide to have appetizers at the home of one of the friends, the soup or salad course at another’s home, the entree at another’s, and dessert at another’s. You “progress” from one home to another. Seems like they were more common back in the 70s and 80s, but they still probably happen today. Recently, a friend and I wound up having a “progressive lunch-break” by eating our soups in one Vietnamese restaurant and then our sandwiches in another.

For some time now, one of my friends has been telling me “Ben Thanh is open again!” Never having eaten at the original one, which is now closed, I’d say “Yeah, yeah” but not make a firm date to try the new one. Finally, everything aligned just right and my friend and I headed out to the new location of Ben Thanh Vietnamese Restaurant (4200 62nd Ave. N., Suite C, Pinellas Park; 727-526-3051).

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CHAR-GRILLED PORK & CRISPY CHOPPED EGG ROLLS ON THIN VERMICELLI SALAD
AT BEN THANH

I’m so glad my friend persisted in prodding me to try this restaurant. It’s a cozy little place, tucked into an unassuming strip mall up on 62nd Avenue. The owners proudly displays a framed copy of this St. Pete Times article about their reopening. The article is a good one that I hope you read; it fills in details on the history of the restaurant.

My friend had the Hu Tieu hoac Mi Vit Tiem (herbal duck soup). That’s the first picture in the post. You can see the steam rising off it. I had a sip. It was fantastic. I had Bun Cha Gio Thit Nurong (char-grilled pork & crispy chopped egg rolls on thin vermicelli salad), which is one of the dishes I usually order when I’m trying a new Vietnamese restaurant. It gives me a yardstick to compare different places. This is the second picture in this post. It was right up there with the very best I’ve ever had; the fish sauce was perfect.

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The owner of Ben Thanh, Susan Nguyen, is a very personable young woman. We got to talking when she was serving us. Their menu states that if you’re interested in a dish not on the menu, just ask, and they might be able to make it for you. Since I’ve been on a quest to find the best Vietnamese sandwich (banh mi) in St. Pete, I asked her if she made them. She laughed and said no, she loves them too and she buys hers at Banh Mi Saigon (8730 49th St. N. #11, Pinellas Park, FL 33781; 727-549-9121). That got my attention because it was the second recommendation I’ve gotten for this place. The other was from my favorite Vietnamese hairdresser at Ann’s hair salon next to Ichiban’s Japanese Restaurant & Sushi Bar.

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MENU AT BANH MI SAIGON

So…after finishing our excellent soups at Ben Thanh, my friend and I drove up to Banh Mi Saigon. The idea was to just check it out…that became getting a sandwich for each of us to take home…which progressed to having a second course of eating a sandwich, NOW!

There have been other Inkwatu articles on banh mi in St. Pete (see The Land of Missed Sandwiches and Pho 97) which include some excellent links to non-Inkwatu articles giving detailed and extensive information about, and recipes for, this wonderful type of sandwich. Sadly, Cantho Oriental Market, mentioned in The Land of Missed Sandwiches, seems to have recently succumbed to the recession and closed its doors. I will check to see if, perhaps, it’s just moved–I’ll report back on that. Just this week, I ran across this post (The Evolution of Banh Mi) on 8asians–a blog I follow and enjoy very much.

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BBQ PORK BANH MI

Check out Banh Mi Saigon’s sandwich menu pictured above (be sure to click on the picture for larger, more legible version). They have all the different types of banh mi. (And look at the prices! It’s hard to find a better deal in town.) Pictured immediately above is what my friend got: BBQ pork (thit nuong). The photo immediately below is the sandwich I ordered: the special (dac biet). They were made in the real Vietnamese style with more veggies than meat (think of the meat as a garnish). I’m not positive, but I think the baguettes may be of the authentic recipe of half rice flour and half wheat flour. They were very light, very crisp, not heavy and tough.

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SPECIAL BANH MI

When we were waiting for our sandwiches to be prepared, a young workman came in and ordered a BBQ pork banh mi. He was very much a salt-of-the-earth Florida good-ol’-boy–albeit a young one–who looked as if he might usually order a burger and fries somewhere. As he and I waited for our orders, we started chatting. He told me that he’d never had a banh mi until just a few weeks before. He’d thought it was fantastic and had been waiting for an opportunity to return and get another one. If you’ve never had a banh mi, I hope you give one a try sometime. I predict that, like the pizza, the taco, the frankfurter, quiche, and the countless other comfort foods of America’s various ethnic émigrés, the banh mi will enter the everyday lexicon of the American national menu. If you come across other banh mi in St. Pete or Tampa you think I should try, please don’t hesitate to let me know.

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INTERIOR OF BANH MI SAIGON

Had we not been sated from our spectacular soups at Ben Thanh plus our sandwiches from Banh Mi Saigon, we could have easily continued our progressive lunch-break by getting some item at Dong A II, next door to Banh Mi Saigon. We contented ourselves with just wandering around the grocery for a while, enjoying the smells and sights. There are at least two Dong A groceries in St. Pete (the “A” in Dong A is pronounced “ah,” as in when the doctor says, “say ah…”). They are an excellent Asian grocery store. I am a big fan of Asian groceries: you can get interesting veggies at them, good bulk teas, and the prices on items such as sesame oil are a fraction of what a big national chain charges. Plus, you’re supporting local commerce by shopping at an ethnic food store.

Also next door to Banh Mi Saigon, is a Thai restaurant, Pu Thai (8730 49th St. N., Pinellas Park, FL 33782; 727-547-6556), with a lunch buffet! I’ve not eaten there yet, so I don’t know if I can recommend it. But…you can bet I’ll be going there soon! I’ll let you know if I think it’s a good place to eat.

The hours of operation for Ben Thanh are Tuesday-Friday, 11an09pm, Saturday-Sunday, 10am-9:00pm, closed on Mondays. Banh Mi Saigon is open 7 days a week–call 727-549-9121 for exact hours. I definitely recommend both restaurants.

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DONG A II

Dear Readers, I’m conducting an experiment for a while. I’m configuring this blog to only show the opening of the post in blog readers and emails so that, in order to read the full post, the reader must click on the title, which in turn takes them to the actual Inkwatu website. I’m doing this because when people read the entire post in an email or a reader, they never see the actual Inkwatu website–ever! They miss a lot of things available on the website such as special information about the area, photos, links, etc.. In addition, they never have the opportunity to click on advertisements, which is the only way bloggers earn even a few pennies (literally, just a few pennies—certainly not dollars). As time goes by, please let me know if you find this new configuration too bothersome. If enough people complain, I will go back to the other approach. Hopefully, however, this new approach, will bring us all added benefits.

SADLY, PHO 97 IS NO MORE–IT WAS A CASUALTY OF THE DIFFICULT ECONOMY. IT WILL BE MISSED

Blogger Quests

Every so often, a blogger—especially a food blogger—takes a photo of which they are enormously proud. An example is the first photo. It’s a snapshot I took of a banh mi sandwich from Pho 97 restaurant, here in St. Pete (3090 34th St. N., St. Petersburg, FL 33713; 727-526-1997). The moisture on the pickled veggies makes my mouth water just looking at it.

Bloggers often have little on-going quests to amuse themselves and to give structure to their endeavor. One of mine is “eating the length of 34th Street.” By that, I mean eating at every interesting restaurant on a street that, in St. Petersburg, has a large number of excellent restaurants, especially Asian ones. So far, there’ve been Inkwatu posts on two Asian ones on 34th Street: Mekong Vietnamese Restaurant and A Touch of Heart. I’ve only covered one non-Asian 34th Street restaurant, to date: Skyway Jack’s.

Pho 97 Banh Mi

The picture above is of Banh Mi Thit Heo Nuong (Vietnamese Grilled Pork Sandwich) from Pho 97. In The Land of Missed Sandwiches post, I had Banh Mi Xa Xiu (Vietnamese Barbecued Pork Sandwich) from Cantho Oriental Market. Similar sandwiches in that both are on a baguette and feature pickled veggies and meat; different in that one is grilled pork, the other barbecued pork. Both Pho 97 and Cantho’s sandwiches are very tasty, but I think my preference is for the barbecued pork, although I preferred the Pho 97 pickled veggies. That’s not to say that I don’t like their grilled pork, I really do, but I’m more fond of it in another dish: bun thit nuong (Pho 97′s bun thit nuong is pictured below).

Bun Thit Nuong

The order in which posts appear doesn’t necessarily correlate with the relative most-favored-restaurant status of a particular restaurant. A case in point is The King and I which I didn’t get around to writing about until this past week but is one of my favorite places. So too, Pho 97. Their bun thit nuong brings me back time after time after time, but it’s not until now that I’m finally getting around to writing about it.

Wandering Chopsticks, one of my favorite bloggers, has a post on bun thit heo nuong, which is a slightly different version of bun thit nuong, in that it also includes shrimp and egg rolls. I also highly recommend her post, 100 Vietnamese Foods to Try for which she has links to articles of her own for almost all of the 100 dishes in the list.

Bun Nem Nuong

If you took a peek at the Pho 97 sign below you may be wondering what “bun nem nuong” is. It’s grilled meatballs with rice vermicelli. That recipe link is from Tia Nguyen‘s Recipe and Photo Journal website. Wandering Chopsticks also has a good recipe for nem nuong.

Bun Bo Hue

If you take another look at the Pho 97 sign, you’ll see “bun bo hue” listed. Wandering Chopsticks has a recipe for bun bo hue. I haven’t tried this dish at Pho 97 yet, but will eventually. Although I’m a fairly adventurous eater, I’m a little put off by the thought of the congealed pig’s blood in the recipe. But…I don’t know know why I should be. I absolutely adore Mexican morcilla and German blutwurst. I’ve never had what the English call black pudding, but I’d be willing to give it a try. So…why my hesitation to try bun bo hue? I suspect it’s the texture…I like the morcilla so much because it’s fried and crunchy. That’s no excuse. Next time I’m at Pho 97, I’m giving it a try. Can’t let Andrew Zimmern have all the fun!

Planning Ahead

Part of my purpose in writing these blogs is to encourage folks to explore new activities, foods, and places so that they discover new things to enrich their lives. I especially want to encourage folks who may not be in the habit of frequenting restaurants of an ethnicity other than their own to give those restaurants a try. Usually, the reason people don’t try new restaurants and foods is that they don’t know what to order. It’s often that simple. Here is a link to a typical Vietnamese restaurant menu. If you don’t have a paper take-out menu from the restaurant you’re thinking of trying, I’d suggest printing out this menu, making your choice before you go, marking the menu, and taking it with you. In no time, you’ll be ordering with confidence. Here’s a short Guide to Vietnamese Menu Items that is helpful.

Dong A Market Near Pho 97

On the way home from Pho 97 this last time, I stopped by the Dong A Market (5200 34th St. N., St Petersburg, FL 33714; 727-526-8594‎) which isn’t too far from Pho 97. They had banh mi cha lua (a cold-cut banh mi made from a thinly sliced steamed pork roll)—next time I’m there, I’ll buy one (…or two or three!). I think, soon, I’m going to have the courage to start making my own different kinds of banh mi at home. The only ingredients I haven’t yet found are the rice and wheat flour baguettes. Dong A had a huge barrel of fresh baguettes from a local French bakery; however, they were made of only wheat flour, not the combination of rice and wheat flour I’m looking for. I may have to learn how to make my own baguettes, too…if I can find the rice flour. Another quest!

Two very good articles detailing the history and basics of dim sum are the About.com article, “Delicious Dim Sum – Chinese Brunch” and the Wikipedia “Dim Sum” entry. In a nutshell, dim sum are little snacks served with tea in the late morning through late lunchtime. Eating dim sum is very much a social occasion, with groups of friends and/or family usually gathered around a large round table with a giant lazy-suzan in the middle upon which the various dishes are placed and from which people select morsels to put on their own plates to eat. There are some fairly traditional selections and these are listed nicely in the Wikipedia article above.

The characters for dim sum are (simplified) and (traditional). You see the traditional form in the above picture of the electronic sign in the window of St. Petersburg’s Halong Bay Vietnamese Cuisine and Dim Sum restaurant. In Cantonese, a form of Chinese spoken in Hong Kong, Guangdong, and Macau, the pronunciation is “dim sum;” in Mandarin, which is spoken on mainland China and Taiwan, the pronunciation is diǎnxīn (dien-shin). You can hear the pronunciations in both Cantonese and Mandarin at this brief Wikipedia page for .

The following, which I quote, highly abbreviated, from the main Wikipedia dim sum article states: “The Cantonese phrase dim sum…means literally “touch the heart” or “order to your heart’s content”. It may be derived from yat dim sum yi…meaning “a little token”. (“A Touch of Heart” is perhaps the more poetic translation.) … the word “Dim sum” is often mistakenly used as the name for Yum cha. In fact, in Cantonese, Dim sum…is just a phrase for wide range of light dishes where Yum cha…“drink tea”, is the process.”

Books on Chinese Food Names and Characters

That’s starting to sound a little pedantic, but a far more enjoyable informative experience for absolutely anyone—not just a student of the Chinese language—is the book, “Swallowing Clouds” by A. Zee, who is professor of physics at the Institute for Theoretical Physics, UC Santa Barbara. His hobbies, fortunately for us, are Chinese cooking and the etymology of Chinese characters. This book is entertaining and is worth reading just to enjoy the author’s humor and style. You can order it at the Amazon link immediately below. Another book on Chinese names for food, unfortunately nowhere nearly as much fun as “Swallowing Clouds,” but nonetheless of interest to a serious student of Chinese language or cooking is “The Eater’s Guide to Chinese Characters” by James D. McCawley, also available through an Amazon link below.

The Poetry of Chinese Characters

There is a profound beauty in the Chinese language. I’m very much a beginner student of it and have come to accept that I will never be able to communicate in Mandarin anywhere above the level of a sea slug, but there is something about the Chinese language, especially its characters, that has charmed me all of my life. A couple of examples: a good friend, a Beijinger, counseled me once when I had become prey to the anger of a personal, perceived injustice that the Chinese character for the word for anger, “kài,” contains two parts. One part is related to the sign for “heart,” (xīn) and the other part to the word for energy (qì)—in this case, a destructive energy, and, I would assume, destructive to the heart in all its meanings. His point was well taken.

A lighter example, also using the word, “qì,” (energy) is the Chinese word for “weather,” tiānqì which combines the word for day or heaven (tiān) and for energy (qì). Makes sense, doesn’t it!? If you enjoy that, I highly recommend this free little widget (or just go to the website, http://zhongwen.com.

Every few moments it gives a new Chinese word, its meaning and the meaning of the characters that represent it. Some of the meanings are incredibly poetic. For instance: “feet going separate ways=path” or, “move in opposition=defy,” or, perhaps my absolute favorite, “xián,” (leisure or tranquility) which the pictographic nature of the character perfectly depicts: the moon (yuè) through an open gate (mén).

Another fun widget is this one, which gives you a word of the day, complete with clickable pronunciation.

Halong Bay Restaurant

Which brings me, finally, to the topic of this post, the Halong Bay Vietnamese Cuisine and Dim Sum restaurant (5944 34th St. N St., Petersburg, FL 33714; 727-522-9988). In a previous post, I mentioned that I was eating my way down the length of 34th Street. I really wasn’t joking. Halong Bay is one of those 34th Street restaurants. It’s been taunting me for months while it’s been in construction. Finally, less than three weeks ago, it opened. The tantalizing words, “dim sum” on its sign called to my heart for I truly love dim sum!

Halong Bay is a very attractive restaurant with a fountain near the entrance that is a large pane of etched glass with water sheeting down its surface. In keeping with dim sum tradition, they’re open for an early lunch and it fills up early, even on a weekday (traditionally, Sunday brunch is the big dim sum time in Chinese communities). There are tables for 2 to 4, but also plenty of the round tables with lazy-suzans for much larger parties. Wait staff bring by the various carts of fried and steamed and sweet dishes for you to select from which they record on a card at your table. This is the dangerous part because you are charged for each dish. It’s too easy to let your eyes do all the choosing instead of your inner-accountant. However, the prices at Halong Bay are very reasonable, and a friend and I ate there this week, and left stuffed for under $30, total, including tip. It was definitely worth it.

Halong Bay, Vietnam

Another feature of the restaurant is its collection of very large, quite good, original paintings of the main geographical feature of Halong Bay, Vietnam (literally, Bay of the Descending Dragon): eerie, monolithic islets of limestone that rise above the water forming a barrier against invaders from the sea. An image search of Halong Bay on Google reveals many stunning photographs of these geological formations.

Chinese in Vietnam

Probably some of you have been unconsciously scratching a mental itch at an incongruity in this article, asking yourself, What’s all this talk about Chinese characters in the context of a Vietnamese restaurant?!

There could be any number of logical explanations—which may even be true for all I know. For instance, although it is absolutely true that dim sum is a Chinese tradition, as a Wikipedia article on this topic describes, there are a number of ethnic Chinese living in Vietnam, such as the “Hoa, Chinese who immigrated to Vietnam during the Qing Dynasty and Republic of China period,” the “Ngái, rural-dwelling Chinese speakers, counted separately from the Hoa,” the “San Diu, the so-called “Mountain Chinese”, who speak an archaic dialect of Cantonese,” and “Republic of China nationals in Vietnam.”

Elsewhere, I’ve seen a discussion of a “Vietnamese style dim sum,” so it’s even conceivable that there is a Vietnamese tradition of its own akin to the Chinese tradition, but not coming directly from Chinese expats. (I doubt this, however. If anyone knows for sure, please comment!)

More likely, however, are two facts: in contemporary America, many, if not most, shops and commercial establishments in various big city “Chinatowns,” are increasingly owned and operated by Vietnamese, not Chinese! This was certainly true in Honolulu. And, in my opinion, the Vietnamese owned and operated Chinese restaurants served splendid Chinese food! Such things are not uncommon. A case in point, for many years the owner and cook of the best Chinese restaurant in Philadelphia was the uncle of a Jewish friend of mine. So, ethnic alignment is not a prerequisite for appropriate culinary skill. More examples: both my favorite sushi places in St. Pete (Hook’s and Ichiban’s) are owned and operated by Thai’s.

The other fact, that facilitates the above trend, is, sadly, the typical Caucasian’s insensitivity to the differences among Asian ethnic groups. There are simply too many to list, but Caucasians who haven’t lived in a community where Asians are the majority, haven’t learned to distinguish features typical of different ethnic groups. (The sad part is that too many do not care that they can’t!) This results in some curious hiring practices: must all sushi preparers in grocery stores be Asian, even if they’re Vietnamese and not Japanese? Racism or just ignorance?

Other Dim Sum Restaurants

When visiting a friend in Beijing, I was fortunate to have really good dim sum at an upscale restaurant there–it was spicier than dim sum I’ve had from Cantonese places, and I think I prefer the spicier style. Of course, on visits to San Francisco and New York City, I’ve had great Cantonese style dim sum. While living in Honolulu, there were simply too many dim sum restaurants to count, but one of my favorites was Legends (seen here in a video by another blogger).

My favorite dim sum in the Tampabay area is still China Yuan over on the Tampa side, which I will be writing about soon. But, mainly, I’m just grateful that there is now a dim sum restaurant on this side of the bay. I will be returning, soon, to Halong Bay. Their chicken’s feet are a perfect texture. I haven’t yet tried the tripe, but will next time. But, every time, I must have my favorite: daikon radish cake (also called turnip cake)…so mild, so delicious. See you there!

How many times have we discovered, too late, that we had been in the presence of something which at the time it was available we ignored, dismissed, or just didn’t see but, now, we would love to experience, but cannot because circumstances have changed and that thing is no longer at hand? (This goes for places and people, too, of course; not just things.)

So it is for me with the countless Vietnamese sandwiches I could have experienced at the Manoa Marketplace Ba-Le, but didn’t because I was (1) too enamored of their phở gà, (2) too ignorant of what a Vietnamese “sandwich” was (“pork sandwich doesn’t even come close to describing it), and (3) too sure of what I thought a “sandwich” was.

Now, in true Kung Fu Panda fashion, I must philosophically turn those missed opportunities into more auspicious ones. It means I have the opportunity for a QUEST: finding the best Vietnamese sandwich I can in St. Petersburg, Florida. Unfortunately, never having had an authentic one, and therefore lacking an experiential standard for comparison, I’m at a bit of a disadvantage.

But…I have a pretty good imagination and I have some excellent reference resources. There are three features that make a Vietnamese sandwich unique:

• the bread
• the vegetables
• the meat.

Wandering Chopsticks has recipes on her site for two different kinds of Vietnamese sandwiches, “bánh mì” in Vietnamese. Here are the links to her two recipes:

• bánh mì thịt heo nướng
• bánh mì xa xíu.

The text and pictures for those recipes helped explain things quite a bit. I’d read elsewhere that the flour that’s used for the bread for Vietnamese sandwiches is a mix of wheat flour and rice flour.

I stopped and got my first, banh mi sandwich with xa xiu (barbecued pork) filing.

I’d never noticed bánh mì in any of the several Vietnamese restaurants I frequent. So, one day while shopping at the Cantho Oriental Market, I asked the proprietress, with whom I’ve become quite comfortable asking Asian cooking questions, where was a good place in town to buy bánh mì. “Why here!” she said. “Come back Saturday, noon, and you can have special one.” So…I did.

An old professor to the core, I did more online research before I returned the following Saturday. I found a terrific resource for the different types of bánh mì that I printed out to take with me for her to point to, so I could accurately report on the type of sandwich she prepared. It’s an extremely informative list of each type of bánh mì and its contents. Please check it out: Fillings on the Battle of the Bánh Mì subpage of the White on Rice Couple blog. There are four other bánh mì articles on White on Rice Couple that are very relevant:

• Party Ideas
• Meat & Veggie Recipes
• Daikon/Carrot Pickles
• Make Your Own Bánh Mì

When I returned to the Cantho on Saturday for my bánh mì I had my printouts in hand for her to use to identify which kind I was getting. Turns out it was the “6. Xa Xíu (Bar-B-Que Pork)- Sweet, pinkish colored pork cooked to the style of Chinese bar-b-que. Cuts of pork can also vary like those of grilled pork.” (Quote from the White on Rice Couple’s Fillings list.)

She had me come back behind the meat counter at the back of the store that I’d never paid much attention to and she showed me different types of bar-b-qued beef she had freshly cooked. She let me sample a sliver of each. I picked the one that I liked the best—hard choice, they were all tasty—and she began preparing my sandwich. She explained how she trims from different parts of the meat for each sandwich, a little from the crunchy part, a little from the soft part. Then she asked how much fat I want. I admit to being a pig fat fan (if it’s properly prepared) so I said, “oh yes…a little, please.”

She only has the standard French baguettes, not the ones made with rice flour, but the meat was so good, I didn’t care. This was my first bánh mì, and the details didn’t matter! She put on some of the pickled vegetables and wrapped the sandwich which I took home and promptly ate, pausing only to snap the picture at the top of the article.

When I returned for more shopping this week, I told her how much I enjoyed the sandwich. I can truthfully say the bar-b-qued pork—which they cook themselves, fresh—was fantastic. I also told her I’d like a bit more of the pickled vegetables next time. She brightened up and said, “You like?!” Then she explained that usually she didn’t put many on because some folks (unfortunate foreigners such as me, I’m sure she meant) don’t like them. I assured her I do, so I’ll be back for a better balanced one next weekend.

Turns out that only on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays does she fix the special bánh mì such as the xa xiu I had, but on any weekday you can get the cold ones like the “1. Chả or Chả Lụa (PORK ROLL)- Ground up pork is packed tightly into a roll, and wrapped with banana leaves (and or aluminum foil) then steamed or boiled , hence producing the dense ‘pork roll’. Sliced thin like bologna, these make up one of the most common cold cuts found in Bánh mì.” (Quote from the White on Rice Couple’s Fillings list.)

She also sells the pork rolls not in a sandwich, but all wrapped up in their banana leaves, right beside the counter, so you can take them home and make your own sandwiches. There’s an excellent Chinese bakery over on the Tampa side. I’m going to call them and see if they make the wheat flour-rice flour combination baguettes or if they know of a Vietnamese bakery in the area. If I can find the wheat/rice banquettes locally, I’ll get some, buy some of the pickled vegetables, and try making my own xa xiu or cha lua myself.

Or, maybe I’ll see if Ba-Le has any plans to open a restaurant in St. Pete any time soon. If not, I’ll be forced to fly back to Oahu for lunch. Either way, I won’t be quite so quick to assume I know what a “sandwich” is.

I take Mandarin classes at the Clearwater Chinese School. On my way home, I often stop at the nearby Mekong Vietnamese Restaurant for lunch (5944 34th St N # 20, St Petersburg, FL 33714, 727-521-3378). I’m very fond of Vietnamese food. Fortunately, Vietnamese restaurants abound in almost every major city in the US, including St. Pete. Each is subtlety different.

My standard getting-to-know-you dish is Pho Ga (chicken noodle soup). No two restaurants fix it the same! Mekong’s is good; the soup base is particularly fragrant. My second most frequent how-does-this-place-compare-to-other-Vietnamese-restaurants-I-have-known dish is Bun Cha (hot grilled pork–sometimes with or without cut-up egg rolls mixed in–on top of cold rice vermicelli which, in turn, is over shredded lettuce, various whole herbs, and julienned cucumber, the whole thing topped with lots of Nuoc Cham, or fish dipping sauce). That juxtaposition of hot against cold, crispy against soft, unified by the melange of flavors from every angle: heaven! Mekong’s Bun Cha is stellar.

[Note, I've also seen it called Bun thit nuong. I think the chopped up egg roll version is called Bun Cha Gio. Here's three recipes--1, 2, and 3--out of many on the Internet.]

[Since this post first came out, there has been published an excellent and very informative post about nuoc mam (fish sauce, one of the ingredients in nuoc cham, fish dipping sauce) on Wandering Chopsticks, a really good food blog I read regularly. Here's the permalink to that Wandering Chopsticks article.]

Mekong has a wide assortment of vegetarian selections and also has take-out. They serve beer and wine and don’t use MSG. The tough thing about 34th street in this part of town is that it’s hard to go more than 3 blocks without passing a Vietnamese restaurant. Slowly, I’m eating my way the length of 34th street.

Next door (literally right next to it in the little strip mall) is Chợ Lớn Oriental Market (5944 34th St N # 1718, St Petersburg, FL 33714, 727-527-7511‎). Tampa has several, quite large, Asian grocery stores, but St. Pete seems to have more, smaller ones. They are very much neighborhood markets where locals hang out. Next door at the Mekong, there’s a row of chairs against the outside wall where old and young men smoke cigarettes and have long ardent conversations.

There’s an Asian market near my home where I’ve developed a good rapport with the proprietress (Cantho Oriental Market; 1960 16th St. N., St Petersburg, FL 33704, 727-896-8310‎). She now gives me lots of tips on cooking different Asian dishes and on which products to buy to improve the authenticity of the taste of my recipes. So even though I usually shop at her store, when I stop to eat at Mekong, I can never resist going next door to Chợ Lớn and buying something, even if I don’t need it. Did I really need that Sichuan cookbook last time? Yeah…I did: Now I have a recipe for “Homely Ducks Breasts.”