Proof That I Can Eat Healthy Too

Little Saigon, Orange County, California

This past weekend, I took a quick weekend trip to the LA area with my parents to visit my sister. Of course, if we’re going to drive all the way from Phoenix, it’s expected that we’ll go out of the way to stop over in Little Saigon (also known as Westminster or Garden Grove in Orange County, CA). My siblings and I usually moan about this since it adds another two hours to the drive, but we’re never disappointed once we’re up to our elbows in Pho.

The first thing we had when we arrived in Little Saigon was Banh Cuon (Banh Cuon Tay Ho, 9242 Bolsa Ave, Westminster, CA). This is one of my all time favorite Vietnamese dishes to eat both at home and out at a restaurant. If you’ve ever had Chinese Dim Sum, it’s very similar. Basically, banh cuon is a rice crepe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%A1nh_cu%E1%BB%91n). It’s pronounced by-ing coon? (there are accents that cause inflection similar to a question). Please remember I don’t speak Vietnamese, so this is my best attempt at trying to spell this out phonetically!

Banh Cuon

It can be served plain or rolled with a filling which may include ground pork, minced wood-ear mushrooms, onions and garlic. It’s normally served with a combination of bean sprouts, cucumber, cilantro, fried onions, and a Vietnamese pork sausage (which might be fried or steamed). The dipping sauce is a Vietnamese favorite, nuoc cham, which is sweet, sour, salty and spicy. The version shown here is also served with sweet potato tempura. Now some might be afraid of the sausage or maybe the description of the dipping sauce (which I have to confess is made with the well-known Vietnamese fish sauce, not much different from Thai fish sauce). However, if you’ve never had this, trust me you will love it. And you can ease your way into it by maybe taking out the sausage and only using a little bit of the sauce. Unfortunately, this dish isn’t something you’ll find at the main stream Vietnamese restaurants or any of those fusion places (at least in my experience). 

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