TRANQUILITY: But a wide array of tasty dishes tickled my complexes
Province
Bon Tsang (left) and Vieny Phan show off dishes. — SAM LEUNG — THE PROVINCE
When I crave pho I usually look for a disco ball. And neon and chrome and a wide screen TV showing Sylvester Stallone in Rambo. So when I heard of this place that supposedly broke the mould when it comes to your typical Vietnamese pho environment and experience I was on it like a famished foodie on a salad roll. Which by the way is really tasty at this place.
Met up with my old cerebral nemesis Dr. Orval Haltiwanger, once my psychoanalyst until he tried to have me committed just for admitting I’d had a dream involving Raquel Welch, a platypus and a can of aerosol cheese product. But I didn’t hold that against him or the straitjacket he gave me for Christmas once that he personalized with a Bedazzler, spelling out my name with rhinestones on the front. It’s the thought that counts.
First off you notice how subdued and tranquil the room feels with its low lighting, bamboo-screened entranceway, faux-finished stucco walls and tasteful wood furnishings. It ain’t the Ritz but at least it’s not lit up like the Las Vegas strip.
Pho is certainly a good way to go here but the menu is actually surprisingly extensive in Vietnamese home-cooked offerings so you won’t feel boxed in by the usual rare beef, beef ball, beef brisket, beef tendon and beef tripe bobbing about in noodles and broth.
The grilled lemongrass chicken is excellent as is the satay beef skewers (both $5.50) with thinly sliced beef curled around lightly cooked but still crispy pieces of celery plus the usual fresh greens and cucumber as a palate refresher.
There are so many choices and combination options on the menu I was having a hard time deciding what to order.
“You know, this inability to decide is really a manifestation of your deep-seated fear of being mistaken for a shrimp at an all-you-caneat buffet at a convention of funeral directors from Muncie, Ind. I call it the crustacean complex and it’s very serious,” Dr. Haltiwanger informed me. “Tell me again about this dream with Raquel Welch, the platypus and this canned cheese. I’m not sure I got all the details the first time.”
I shook my head no and scooped the last stuffed boneless chicken wing appetizer ($6.50) onto my plate while he pondered my fate. Truly a wondrous start with the poultry appendage filled with vermicelli, ground pork, carrots, something fungus-like and who knows what else.
Next was grilled minced pork and prawn supreme with vermicelli ($7.50), an intriguing dish wherein the shrimp is ground to a pastelike consistency and wrapped around a stalk of sugar cane and during cooking the sweetness seeps into the mixture. I think of it as the Vietnamese version of a hot dog on a stick since the shrimp has the same spongy texture as a wiener and you can one-hand this sucker while driving, channel surfing, playing tennis or skeet shooting. Dr. Haltiwanger might have something to say about my description of this dish but sometimes a prawn supreme is just a prawn supreme no matter what you may think.
Also tried a salad roll, fat shrimp and that strange Vietnamese ham visible beneath the roll’s translucent rice skin wrapping like some alien creature whose innards can be seen pulsating. Nevertheless, very tasty, especially with the sweet zing of the nuoc cham fish sauce for dipping.
Finished with some Vietnamese coffee while Dr. Haltiwanger ticked off my complexes and neuroses with meerschaum pipe-calloused fingers. “And forget about your crustacean complex,” he finally summed up. “I saw the way you attacked that shrimp on a stick. Obviously what you have is a bad case of prawn envy.”
