Viet World Kitchen

Fish Sauce Taste Off

When I was in Singapore last month, food expert Christopher Tan (foodfella.com) and I had a long conversation about different kinds of fish sauces. I'd tasted it in a number of dishes in Singapore and was surprised to see it so present in the food. Yes, the beloved Viet condiment is used in many cuisines, and it's just not in that of Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines.  I mentioned that Knorr has been buying and bottling tons of nuoc mam fish sauce from Phu Quoc island off the coast of Vietnam -- where the best fish sauce is made. (Okay, I'm biased!) Chris, who has a well-tuned palate and amazing passion for food, said he was preparing for a fish sauce tasting in Singapore and would get some.

In preparation for the event, Chris asked me to decipher this fish sauce label from a Knorr bottle. The label basically touts it's purity and well-balanced flavors -- a lot like a fine wine. It also says to users that it's just for dipping sauces and table uses. It's too good to be cooked with. The price is rather low -- 12,000 Vietnamese Dong (75 cents), which is probably for one of the small tableside-sized bottles. Click on the thumbnail image to view a larger one.

So how did the Vietnamese fish sauce stand up the others? Chris just sent these remarks and  results:

China - Swee Huat Yu Lu from Shantou
Very salty, otherwise unremarkable. A bland fish sauce more suited to cooking or adjusting the seasoning of a sauce/gravy with, or for light dips.

The Philippines - Florence Patis
Salty flavour, though aroma has slight sweetness. Very simple taste. Very short aftertaste has a slight flatness from sodium benzoate.

Thailand - Tiparos nam pla
Both sweet and salty in the initial taste - it contains added sugar - but overall much better balanced than the above two sauces, with stronger and more rounded anchovy notes.

Vietnam - Thanh Ha Chanh Hieu Phu Quoc nuoc mam, 40 Dam
Easily the most complex of all the sauces we tasted. Beautiful colour. The salt hits you first, but then the fish flavours come forward. Rich and smooth feel in the mouth.

Vietnam - Knorr Nuoc Mam Cham
A lot of people liked this. Like a sweeter version of the Thanh Ha, and to me even oilier on the lips. Long aftertaste. Would be peerless as a dipping sauce base.

Myanmar - Fish Sauce (label's all in Burmese, but there's a prawn-shaped logo on it, so maybe prawn brand?)
Very interesting - earthy, mushroomy notes in its aroma, and a murky cola colour, but the taste, though salty, was quite mild, with some of the funky, leaf-mould nuances that you taste in some Burmese dishes. Would work well in braised dishes containing mushrooms, or in claypot rice, I'd wager.

Korea - Sandlance Fish Aekjeot (label is totally in Korean, so don't know the brand name)
Meant primarily for making kimchi, apparently. This had good colour and was very smooth, but it smelt sulphurous, like pungent salted-egg yolks, and hence was almost universally face-wrinkling.

I've done personal tastings myself but not for a crowd. Sounds like fun! If any of you are tasting new kinds of fish sauce, let us know!

Wok-Seared "Shaking" Beef - Thit Bo Luc Lac

Some Vietnamese foods have been poorly translated into English, and thit bo luc lac is one of them. Thit bo means beef and luc lac refers to how you have to shake the skillet or wok to cook the small pieces of meat. For years, my husband expected the meat to quiver and I assured him that the dish wasn't all that dramatic. It's had its usefulness at crossover Vietnamese restaurant menus where it's presented as the meaty option for steak lovers. Let's just say it's become downright popular, despite it not being part of many Vietnamese home cook's repertoire. It's actually a celebratory dish.

In general, Vietnamese people, like many other Asian people, don't eat large piece of meat unless they're cut into small pieces. We just traditionally didn't (and people still don't) have enough meat for things like roast beef. And, if you slice anything up, it will feed people on biblical proportions! In the case of thit bo luc lac, named after the back and forth shaking of the skillet as you sear the cubes of beef, was likely a clever dish invented to deal with tough cuts of steak.  Many Vietnamese restaurants in America prepare this dish with super tender, expensive fillet but it's rather hard to find such a splendid preparation in Vietnam. And the beef you get in Vietnam is likely to be tough and from an animal that's walked plenty of miles and eaten lots of grass, not grain. The meat will have some good chew and flavor. It's not for those with weak teeth.

Abroad we have lots of good tender, flavorful  beef for tasty renditions of this dish without having to spend tons of money. When I prepare "shaking" beef, I use my favorite inexpensive cut of beef -- trip tip (bottom sirloin, cullotte steak) and have the butcher select marbly pieces. At my local grocery store, Shopper's Corner, I typically pay about$6/pound for the steaks. Once home, I trim off most of the excess fat before cutting the beef into cubes.

With its peppery bite, the watercress is a great contrast to the beef. Coating the watercress in a light dressing and then putting the hot beef over the top, the cress wilts ever so slightly and the beef juices and dressing blend together into a tangy sauce that's great spooned over rice. This is a pretty easy dish to whip up from readily available ingredients.

Wok-seared "Shaking" Beef
Thit Bo Luc Lac

Use both the light and dark soy sauces if you want a little extra deep color. Feel free to dress up the final platter with some tomato wedges.

1 1/4 pound tri-tip (bottom sirloin/culotte) steaks

Marinade:
1/2 teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper
1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons oyster sauce
1 teaspoon fish sauce
1 tablespoon regular (light) soy sauce, or 2 teaspoons regular (light) and 1 teaspoon dark soy sauce

Dressing:
1 shallot, thinly sliced (1/4 cup total)
1 1/2 teaspoon sugar
1 or 2 pinches salt
3 to 5 cracks black pepper
1 1/2 tablespoons unseasoned rice vinegar
2 tablespoons water

4 cups watercress, use only the tender leafy parts
2 tablespoon canola or peanut oil

1. Trim excess fat from the steaks and then cut each into 3/4-inch cubes. In a bowl, combine the pepper, sugar, garlic, oyster sauce, fish sauce and soy sauce. Add the beef and toss well to coat. Set aside to marinade for 2o minutes or up to 2 hours.

2. For the dressing, put the shallot in a mesh strainer and rinse under water for about 10 seconds to reduce some of the harshness. In large mixing bowl, combine the sugar, salt, pepper, vinegar and water. Stir to dissolve the sugar. Add the shallot. Put the watercress on top but hold off on tossing.

3. Heat the oil in a wok or large skillet over high heat. Add the beef and spread it out in one layer. Cook in batches, if necessary. Let the beef sear for about 1 minute, before shaking the wok or skillet to sear another side. Cook for another 30 seconds or so and shake. Cook the beef for about 4 minutes total, until nicely browned and medium rare.

In between shakes, toss the watercress and transfer onto a platter or serving dish. When the beef is done, pile the beef on to of the watercress and serve immediately with lots of rice.

Rice Fever - Shortages and Skyrocketing Prices

Next time you throw away leftover rice, think twice. Rice prices have gone up all over the world and billions of people are looking at hoarding it. In North Carolina last week, some locals and I spent a good deal of time about a news story on rice being sold in controlled quantities. 

Reuter's and the Financial Times reported that Walmart/Sam's Club and Costco were restricting bulk rice purchases because many customers were fearful of rising food prices world wide.  (It's been estimated that prices have gone up about 30%.) That news was reported in Australia and the U.K.

In Vietnam, inflation this year is 16% (it never went down after Tet, as is the usual). Just a few days ago, rice prices in Vietnam went up precipitously (nearly 100% in one instance), within hours as reported in this Thanh Nien news story that Simon Bao pointed me to. Cash is tight in Vietnam, and people are panicking, as reported yesterday in the Globe and Mail. Vietnam is one of the leading world exporters of rice and people are scared, while others, perhaps are speculating and taking advantage of fearful consumers in Vietnam and abroad.

What kind of rice are we talking? Jasmine, Basmati and long-grain -- the favorites for many of us oryza sativa eaters. Not the stuff for risotto.

Costco Chief Executive Officer James Sinegal speculated that there was overreaction due to media hype, but my husband and I were thinking of switching to buying a 50-pound bag instead of our usual 25-pound bag of jasmine rice next time we're at the Asian market.  The stuff doesn't go bad quickly . . .

I don't know if this is universally human or just an Asian proclivity to hoarding or an attribute of people who've been through hard times. My father vividly recalls the northern Vietnam famine in the late 1940s when there was not enough transportation to deliver rice from the south to the north. Thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people, died within months.

Ours is a hungry planet and world population is not shrinking. Are any of you stocking up on rice?

Are Vietnamese Restaurant Empires Possible?

I'm in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, for a few book-related events this week. Yesterday, I cooked with the folks at Lantern, a nationally acclaimed restaurant that's been featured in publications such as Gourmet and Saveur. Chef/owner Andrea Reusing's smart, local, sustainable take on Asian cooking is a model for such types of restaurants all over. I met a local farmer who delivered her luscious lettuces and leafy greens, the shrimp were from Georgia and the crab were lively blue crabs full of roe and tomalley.

Our sold-out dinner for 60 (ahem, that's 1 seating folks) with Spanish sherry and wine pairings by Andre Tamers of De Maison Selections went exceptionally well because Andrea has an amazing, tight staff. Theirs is a small operation and the kitchen is comfortable, not huge, just right. Restaurant cooking is teamwork and you laugh while prepping and picking a good 50 pounds of blue crab and you holler and follow orders like as if you're in a battle zone once service begins.

A good restaurant experience is at core about the food, but also about the management, kitchen staff and the wait staff, who know to bring out the food at the right moment, and to pace things for diners. Guests at a restaurant have no clue what goes on behind those waving kitchen doors because they're great sound insulators. But lots of conversation and strategic management goes into a fabulous meal. At the end of the day, dining at this caliber nurtures the belly and soul and entertains on many levels too.

So as a restaurateur, can you replicate that in other locales for the sake of making more money? Or do you stick to your roots and make good food for your community?

Alice Waters doesn't want cookie-cutter Chez Panisses. Andrea Reusing, who has a family, doesn't have designs on expanding to other cities with mini Lanterns. Charles Phan has Slanted Door and takeout versions called Out the Door -- all in San Francisco. Sophie and Eric Banh of Monsoon happily succeed and are satisfied with their eateries in Seattle. David Chang keeps his Momofukus tight and small in Manhattan.

In our little Vietnamese food and restaurant world, we have Michael Bao Huynh -- a Saigon native who's had restaurants in New York City (Bao 111, Bao Noodles, Mai House), Los Angeles, and the latest is in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I'd read that he was looking into opening in Saigon too. Most chefs stay in their cities (e.g. Joachim Splichal) while others with well-honed management teams go domestic (e.g. Wolfgang Puck and Tom Colicchio). But going international is another level of ambition altogether.

You can't be all over the place to keep quality and standards up. Many things can go wrong on a regular moment-by-moment basis in a restaurant. HOWEVER, demand for Vietnamese food is so high these days that someone has to fill the void.

With exception to Pho 24 from Vietnam, which serves a tiny limited menu dedicated to you know what, I've not been to a [good] successful Vietnamese chain restaurant. Is that possible? What do you think that takes? Let me know your thoughts...

Hainan Chicken and Rice

Since we've been talking about what is authenticity in Asian food and mixing things up, it got me thinking about a great dish -- Hainan chicken and rice. The one dish wonder comes from the island of Hainan off the coast of China. Called Hai Nam in Vietnamese, the surrounding waters of the oil-rich island has been the subject of maritime dispute was disputed territory between China and Vietnam for years ago and Vietnam skill keeps its eyes on foreign oil contracts related to the territory.

Chickens are precious in Asian kitchens so take a whole one, poaching and eating it is saved for special occasions like Tet in Vietnam. For that reason, a dish like Hainan chicken and rice is a grand thing indeed. It's a resourceful dish because practically all the parts of the bird are used!

First the chicken is gently poached and then the cooking broth is cooked down a bit and used to cook the rice, which is fried in a little chicken fat. The chicken is cooled to room temp and cut up to be served with the flavorful rice.  A dipping sauce flavored with the broth and sometimes gilded with chicken fat accompanies the chicken. The leftover broth is served as soup on the side.

In Vietnam, we typically poach chicken and serve it under a layer of super finely shredded tender lime leaves. The sauce is salt, pepper, lime juice and fresh chile. Hainan chicken and rice is just a few steps further beyond that. I ate many versions on my recent trip to Asia and the best rendition was in Singapore. After returning home, I replicated it, but added my own Viet touch, a bit of nuoc mam in the broth.

Typically, there's a fresh ginger dipping sauce. In Singapura, they serve a sweetened soy sauce and a super duper spicy chile sauce. I've offered all three below for you to choose. You can make these sauces 1 or 2 days in advance to cut down on the work. In developing this recipe, Singapore food expert Christopher Tan's book Shiok!  was quite helpful.

Find a good chicken for this dish. I used a Buff Orpinton raised by Deep Roots Ranch in Watsonville, and the fat that I got was oh so yellow and flavorful. It's lean bird, what you'd say is chewy in Vietnamese terms. Chinese markets have terrific whole chickens, with the head and feet attached. Or just go to your grocer and find the best your pocketbook can afford.

And, that shocking in ice business after poaching? It firms up the skin and puts a great layer of gelatin underneath. The process is a little secret among master chicken poachers. Enjoy.

Hainan Chicken and Rice
Com Ga Hai Nam

Serves 4 to 6 as a main course

For the chicken:
1 whole high quality chicken (about 31/2 pounds)
5 quarter-sized slices ginger, peeled or unpeeled, crushed with the broad side of a cleaver or chef's knife
1/2 medium yellow onion, sliced
2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon fish sauce

For the rice:
2 cups raw long-grain rice, such as Thai jasmine
4 tablespoons chicken fat (take from poaching liquid) or peanut oil
1-1/2 tablespoons finely chopped garlic
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh ginger
1 tablespoon finely chopped shallot
4 fresh or thawed pandan leaves, tied together in one loose knot (optional)
Salt, to taste

Sauce option 1: Ginger sauce
2-inch chubby section ginger (about 2 ounces), peeled and thinly sliced
1 1/2 tablespoons peanut oil
1/4 teaspoon salt

Sauce option 2: Singapore chili sauce
2 or 3 large red chiles, such as Fresno, cayenne, or long chile, coarsely chopped
2 or 3 hot Thai chiles, coarsely chopped
1 teaspoon finely chopped garlic
1-1/2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh ginger
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
1 tablespoon hot chicken poaching broth

Sauce option 3: Sweet Soy Sauce
1 tablespoon light (regular) soy sauce
1 tablespoon dark soy sauce
1 -1/2 teaspoons unseasoned rice vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon Asian chili sauce, such as Sriracha

Garnishes
1/2 English cucumber, peeled, seeded and thinly sliced
1 tomato, thinly sliced or cut into wedges
4 or 5 sprigs cilantro, coarsely chopped

1. Rinse and pat the chicken dry with paper towel. Cut off the head, neck, wing tips and feet - extraneous parts that are on your chicken. Use a heavy cleaver to cut the neck and wings into halves or thirds. Aim to cut through the bone. Set aside.

2. Select a pot that the chicken snugly fits into with about an inch clearance between the top of breast and the edge of the pot. Fill it halfway with water and add the extraneous parts that you just cut up, along with the ginger, onion, and salt. Bring to a rolling boil over high heat and add the chicken.

When the pot returns to a boil, lower the heat to gently simmer. Bubbles should softly dance at the surface. Basing your cooking time on the chicken's original weight, poach for 10 minutes per pound (a 31/2-pound fryer takes 35 minutes). Use tongs to rotate the chicken halfway through to ensure even cooking.

Near the end of the cooking time, get a large bowl of ice water ready and set it near the stove. Use tongs to remove the chicken from the pot and plunge it in the ice water. Turn the chicken to expose it to the cold water. Drain and place the chicken on a plate. Let it cool completely before slicing. Leave it at room temperature if serving soon, or cover it in plastic wrap and refrigerate. Bring it to room temperature before cutting.

3. Meanwhile, add the fish sauce to the broth. Boil the broth until it has reduced by one-third, or until its flavor has concentrated enough for your taste. Turn off the heat and, skim the fat - reserving it for cooking the rice. Strain the broth into another pan. Discard the solids. Cover and set aside while the chicken cools.

4. For the rice, rinse the rice and let it drain for 10 minutes in a mesh strainer positioned over a bowl. Meanwhile, bring the stock to a near simmer in a small saucepan, and then cover to keep it hot.

5. In a heavy-bottomed 3-quart saucepan, heat 4 tablespoons of chicken fat over medium-high heat. Add the garlic, ginger and shallot and cook, stirring constantly, until no longer raw smelling, 1 to 2 minutes. Firmly shake the strainer of rice to expel any hidden water, and then add the rice to the pot. Stir constantly with a large spoon until the grains are opaque white and feel light, about 3 minutes. Reduce the heat slightly, measure out 2 1/2 cups of hot broth and add the broth and expect dramatic boiling. Immediately give the pot a big stir, reduce the heat to medium to simmer, and let the rice simmer vigorous.

Cook the rice for a few minutes, stirring 2 or 3 times, until most of the water has been absorbed and the surface looks glossy and thick; small craters/holes may form too. Decrease the heat to low, cover, and cook for 10 minutes. Turn off the heat and let it sit for 10 minutes to firm up and finish cooking. Uncover, fluff with chopsticks or a fork, and then cover. Wait 5 minutes before serving. The rice will stay warm for 30 minutes.

6. Make one, two or all of the sauces and set at the table:

For the ginger sauce, put the ginger, oil, salt, and 1 tablespoon of hot chicken poaching broth (take it from the pot) into a small electric mini chopper and process to a fine texture. Taste and add up to 2 more tablespoons of poaching broth. Transfer to a dipping sauce dish.

For the Singapore chili sauce, put all of the ingredients, the large red chiles, Thai chiles, garlic
Ginger, sugar, salt, lime juice and 1 tablespoon hot chicken poaching broth into a small electric mini chopper and process to a semi-coarse sauce. Transfer to a dipping sauce dish.

For the sweet soy sauce, combine the light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, vinegar, sugar, and chili sauce in a dipping sauce container, stirring until the sugar has dissolved.

7. To serve, use a sharp knife to detach each wing at the shoulder joint. Separate the two wing sections and use a meat-chopping cleaver to chop them into smaller pieces. (Or, keep them whole.) Arrange them on one large serving plate or two small ones. Remove the breasts and leg and thigh quarters. Cut the meat off the bone and slice it into bite-size pieces. Add them to the serving plate(s) in a nice arrangement, skin side up for a beautiful presentation. (Guests may remove the skin while eating.) Finish by scattering cilantro on top.

Bring the broth to a near boil and taste, adding extra salt if necessary. Strain the broth into a large soup bowl and sprinkle with black pepper. Serve immediately with the chicken, rice, cucumber and tomato slices, and dipping sauces.

You may have guests eat the broth out of a rice bowl and the rice and chicken from a plate, using fork and spoon as primary utensils.

What is Authentic Asian Food?

Binh and Robyn just brought up an important issue that plagues me -- keeps me worried and up at nights, frankly: What is authenticity in the realm of food?

For example, every once in a while, I get an email from a Vietnamese American asking me if my book, Into the Vietnamese Kitchen, offers authentic Vietnamese recipes or Americanized Vietnamese recipes. I don't know what "American Vietnamese" food is about. Are they wanting techniques and ingredients presented from the motherland? Am I inauthentic because I use a 4-burner gas stove instead of a single burner, propane fueled system or a charcoal brazier? Should I sit on a low stool on the floor to do all the prep work? What about the food processor -- one of my favorite appliances? Is that modern convenience inauthentic?

I know what is good and what is bad food to my palate. I wouldn't put forth a recipe that I wouldn't eat or wouldn't proudly present to family and friends.  As a food writer and recipe developer, I try to compromise as little as possible but I also balance that with the need to get people into the kitchen to cook.

In response to such queries, I often ask these folks to elaborate a bit, and one of the responses has been that Americanized Vietnamese food is the overly sweet crud that is dished up in Viet restaurants. Well, my friends, plenty of Vietnamese people prepare and patronize those establishments and they say that the food is cheap but "it's just okay." Why eat it then? Why not demand better? Why not make it yourself. You'll have no one else but yourself to praise or blame.

I'm a stickler for learning the foundations of cooking and of a cuisine before fiddling with it. I'm working on a new book project (not Vietnamese) and in a conversation with a renown Japanese food expert and author Elizabeth Andoh, she mentioned that she avoids the word classic because food is constantly changing.  She instead goes for 'typical' preparations -- what people in the main prepare, how they prepare it.  We didn't even touch on what authenticity is. However, at the end of the day, the food has to taste good and the techniques have to be solid.

Something else that Elizabeth said a few years back that always sticks with me is this (and I paraphrase): Mastering a cuisine is not a birthright. This means that just because you're of a certain ethnicity doesn't mean that you're genetically programed to prepare it well.

Saveur magazine, a food magazine that I write for and am a contributing editor of, has the tagline of "Savor a world of authentic cuisine." So what does that mean? How is authentic cuisine defined? We answer it all the time, for every story, and it changes because it has to do with the subject. At the end of the day, I always define authentic cuisine as one that captures the relationship between people and their food.

If any of you are philosophy types, Jean Paul Satre was a proponent of something called the authentic self -- meaning that you are a true, honest person. Though that authentic self includes the good, bad and ugly, I like to put a positive spin on things by defining authentic food as this: Good tasting food that's well-crafted from someone's heart and soul.

And now, it's your turn!

Some parting thoughts and I await your shots...

• What does authentic food mean to you?
• I just came back from Asia, where I did some serious eating with Robyn and her husband Dave in Kuala Lumpur, where the cuisine is a crazy combination of Asian cuisines that's evolved over centuries. How would you capture authenticity there?
• In Hong Kong, there is instant ramen noodles everywhere for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  Is that authentic  Hong Kong fare or merely a trend?
• In our post-modern, reality-TV based world of the Food Network and Top Chef, how authentic is the stuff presented on air?

Top Chef Season 4 -- Nouveau Summer Rolls

I've been out of the country and upon my return, Simon Bao notified me that Top Chef contestants in season 4 are putting interesting twists on Vietnamese culinary concepts. Perhaps with Hung's win last season, the door is opening up to incorporating Viet ideas into the food.

Recently, contestant Spike Mendelson and Manuel Trevino make this little ditty:

Summer Roll with Black Vermicelli (see recipe)

Let me make a few points, and I suppose I'll get my aggression out first and then you're free to weigh in...

The name "Summer Roll" -- What's with calling these hand rolls summer rolls? Is it versus Chinese spring rolls? These Vietnamese rolls are a year round food. Chinese spring rolls are literally called that in Chinese, and they're a traditional food that's enjoyed during Lunar New Year. I translate the Viet rolls as salad rolls because their original name goi cuon is literally salad roll since most of the common elements of a goi (special event salad) are cuon (rolled up) in a sheath of rice paper.

Now, there's a bit Chinese garlic chive that gets tucked in there and that's a summer veggie. Is that why they're called summer rolls by so many English-speaking people? Because of the seasonality of the chives?

The other name that I've  often seen is "fresh spring roll." Is that opposed to an old one?

In Saigon, there's now a restaurant dedicated to rolling stuff up in rice paper. It's a roll-your-own joint called "cuon" because that's the generic name for these rolls -- rolls.

This is a global issue that I've noticed for years and no one has been able to answer the question for me...what's with "summer roll" and "fresh spring roll"? Do tell if you have a hunch!

As for the specific recipe presented on Top Chef, it seems to have been rather creative. I like the Chilean Sea Bass (which frankly shouldn't be used because it's a no-no fish on the overfished list; see the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch page for information on sustainable seafood) .  Catfish, regular seabass, trout, or butterfish would have been nice. As for the black vermicelli (bun), I've seen that pricey product at the Asian market so it was a good, trick to use.

The odd thing was with the dipping sauce, called Apple clam -- which I mistook for a kind of mollusk. Lo and behold, it's a sauce make with -- ahem... fish sauce, apple soda, apple cider vinegar, lime juice and chiles. I suppose that was to match the apples in the roll.

I often feel that cooks take modern/nouveau twists on sushi and roll it up in rice paper. Nothing wrong with that, as long as it tastes good.

I'm not sure if this tasted good -- especially on the bed of chard. I guess it wasn't great since one of the chefs was eliminated...

Any insights from you all?

Andrew Lam's Journey Home to Vietnam

Award-winning author and noted news commentator Andrew Lam just let me know of the release of his PBS program on journeying home to Vietnam in 2002. Many of us left in haste and going back is always difficult, sometimes shocking. But as a Saigon cab driver told me a couple of weeks ago, "Sister, the more times you return, the better it will be." And he's not just talking about improving my Vietnamese!

Andrew is a very considerate, insightful, thoughtful person with lots of observations and analysis that spans many of our experiences -- whether we're Vietnamese or not.

Peruse his story and video diary at this site:

PBS website - about Andrew's story and the series, the links are to a video diary

A documentary style program is accessible via this page:

YouTube links - click on one of the links to access a sement

Andrew's work is included in this PBS program on identity, race and ethnicity because it was among the select winners of the America, My Home multimedia essay contest.

After viewing the materials, feel free to comment here and I'll get Andrew to weigh in!

Pho in a Box

Here's a new one -- a pho kit sold at Tan Son Nhat airport. It all comes in a box and makes 2 bowls. The box contains:

Dried noodles - rice, salt, sugar, MSG
Stewed beef pack - pre-cooked beef with palm oil, ginger, shallot and salt
Soup base pack - salt, sugar, MSG, disodium 5-guanylate, disodium 5-isoninate, caramel
Vegetable pack - green onion, eryngium (culantro)
Chile sauce pack - chile, modified cornstarch, salt, sugar, citric acid

Directions: Put content into bowl and add 600 ml of boiling water. Ready to serve between 3-5 minutes.

The cost is 6 USD. "Who buys it?" I asked the young saleswomen. Many Japanese visitors, they just love pho. Is it sold outside of the airport? Not to the young women's knowledge.

Big Chiles in Saigon

Chiles come in all shapes and sizes but in Saigon these days, the predominant ones are largish hot ones that resemble long chiles. They have heat and are what you'll find sliced and served at the table. They don't have the perfume heat of smaller ot hiem but do pack a punch.

Last year, when I visited, these chiles weren't everywhere and you could sometimes get smaller ones. Looks like these are the ones people like nowadays. They keep better once cut and definitely have more zip than your jalapeno in the States!

Compare the size of the chiles to the limes, which are regular sized ones. The chiles are a good 3 to 4 inches long. At markets I found the chiles already ground up so that you don't have to chop them yourself. Usually, there's a vendor who sells pre-chopped lemongrass, garlic and chiles. Other aromatics, such as shallots and lemongrass are typically sold by the same person too. The chopping is done by machine. Quite convenient.

At casual restaurants (joints), a small container of pre-chopped chiles sits at the table, ready to be added to sauces, etc. There's no Sriracha or chile garlic sauce here! You could certainly use these chiles to make your own chile garlic sauce.