Vietnamese Lunch

As I said in Sunday's post, I no longer have to rely on LOGS and there is a great variety of places to grocery shop down here. One of my favourite places to go is T&T Supermarket, a large Chinese chain. And I have one within walking distance! Needless to say, I go there often. They have good prices and because it's a large chain, the variety is stunning. The exotic ingredients are both puzzing (pigs uteri) and exciting (fresh keffir lime leaves). The store closest to me has a food court, too, and it has several different cultures represented there. There is Korean food, Thai food, Japanese food, of course Chinese food, and one place I've been to a couple of times, Vietnamese food.

I have always enjoyed Vietnamese food, and one of my favourites is salad rolls with shrimp. I've ordered these a couple of times, for the not-so-bad price of $4.75. They are made fresh (unlike Save-on Foods' ones, which are terrible) and come with a tangy sauce.


But look at what else is in theses salad rolls. On the bottom, there are a couple of slices of that pale sausage similar to the one I encountered in my pho experience last year. I was a little surprised when I first saw this, but once I tried it, I really liked it. The sausage is very mild in flavour and is a touch - just a touch - salty. It's really good!

I also tried something new at my last trip there, Vietnamese carioca. They were described as deep fried rice balls, and I could see that they were coated in coarse sugar and drizzled with caramel. But when I bit into one, it was like biting into soft, mushy marshmallow. They were not balls of whole grain rice. I think this is more of a rice flour dumpling, deep fried. And they were really good! The texture of the balls was quite decadent and they used real caramel for the drizzle, not a caramel sauce. That really impressed me.


Lunch that day was yummy, and it only cost $6!

Pho!

My brother & SIL live in downtown Vancouver, right at Robson & Seymour, and there are like a zillion options for eating out right within a block's radius. It's ridiculous. When I went to visit Jem last Saturday, after our Miura Waffle experience, we decided a couple of hours later that it was time for dinner. Since Jem was very under the weather, he was in the mood for soup, and he recommended a pho joint near Robson & Richards - a mere two minute walk from his place.

Alas, I did not get the name of this pho place! But as soon as I entered it - it was tiny and had two chairs available at a small window front counter for people to eat at, so it's definitely a take-out place - I was overwhelmed by the smell of broths containing star anise. It made my tummy grumble. There was a small menu that included four types of pho, a few Vietnamese subs, and some salad roll type things. My brother opted for one of the beef phos and I had the chicken one. They were all $6.45. I also ordered a Vietnamese salad roll for $2.75.

This is not environmentally friendly take-out, as you can see. You get with the pho three containers: one for the noodles & meat, one for the broth, one for sauce, and then you get a plastic baggie with bean sprouts and fresh basil. You mix all this up at home.


Plus, I of course had a container for my salad rolls. Mother Nature is no doubt justifiably upset.

Guilt aside, the meal was great. The salad rolls were OK (I've had better other places). The noodles were a rice stick, there was plenty of chicken, the addition of the bean sprouts and basil was great. But I had some surprises in store for me. As I was eating the soup, I came across two small eggs. I am assuming by their size that they are quail's eggs. I was not expecting that. I also was not expecting a few large chunks of pale sausage of unknown origin. It tasted OK, but I was a little leary at first. I doubted it was a pork sausage but I also doubted it was a poultry sausage. In the end, it was a mystery. It tasted fine, though.


The sauce that came with the pho was not to my liking. It was actually a brown sauce with a large squirt of a red spicy sauce, so I just skipped that part of it. All in all, excellent meal at an excellent price. I just wish there was a more environmentally friendly way of doing this particular kind of take-out.