Subject: Vietnamese Food and Cooking

• $13 at Nam Vietnamese Cuisine Restaurant on Fondren

  May 10, 2008

• The Durian Dare

  At sumptuous Ba Ky, the beer's on ice, the durian is stinky, and the food is great

  June 27, 2002

• Back to Wok

  October 17, 1996

• Fish Story: Crazy Irishman Sushi Roll

  In Café this week, we sampled the "Crazy Irishman" at Soma on Washington Avenue -- one of the wildest looking sushi rolls in town. It's one of the spiciest too. The roll contains salmon, tuna, and avocado which is all wrapped in green soy bean paper and then flash-fried. The crispy roll is then topped with fish roe, sweet sauce, green onion mayo and fiery Sriracha mayo. There are white stripes of mayo and orange stripes of Sriracha mayo zig-zagging across it with chopped scallion and roe prot

  February 4, 2009

• Huynh-ing Combination

  October 9, 1997

• To Eat, Perchance to Dream

  November 6, 1997

• Cali Sandwiches

  January 21, 1999

• Lido's Lessons

  May 27, 1999

• Huynh

  March 12, 2009

• Shabu Chic at Shabu House

  October 23, 2008

• Casualties of War

  Houston's Vietnamese now call Texas home, but they continue to be haunted by ghosts of the conflict that drove them here

  February 9, 1995

• Hunan Restaurant Gives Birth to Gigi's Asian Bistro and Dumpling House

  February 21, 2008

• Que Huong

  January 10, 2008

• Le Viet Restaurant & Bar

  Sometimes Anglo-friendly Vietnamese food does taste better than the real thing

  June 7, 2007

• Two Faces of Mak Chin's

  A new pan-Asian restaurant on Shepherd has a split personality

  February 1, 2007

• Letters to the Editor

  April 6, 2006

• Pho Real

  Soup comes with chrysanthemum stalks at Pho Dung

  March 23, 2006

• Sanguine Soup and Sandwich

  Bodard Bistro on Bellaire is packing them in with "not too greasy" Vietnamese food

  December 29, 2005

• Crispy Muc, Tender Bo

  There's a thrilling new Vietnamese restaurant on Bellaire with a menu that reads like a mystery

  September 29, 2005

• The Missing Fish Mint

  Nam caters to mainstream palates by keeping the flavors mild and the herbs innocuous

  August 4, 2005

• Chop Sticklers

  Veterans of regular etiquette still can get forked over on ethnic foods

  March 3, 2005

• Eat Mi

  Houston has some of the best Vietnamese noodle houses in the country

  December 2, 2004

• Best Pho

  September 23, 2004

• Best Vietnamese Restaurant

  September 23, 2004

• Best Asian Grocery

  September 23, 2004

• Best Mall Alternative

  Kim Hung Mall

  September 25, 2003

• Best Dim Sum Restaurant

  Kim Son

  September 25, 2003

• Jammin' Jellyfish

  Cuttle up to some tasty fish at this heavenly Vietnamese hideaway

  June 19, 2003

• Sub Text

  Will Ponzo's or Jersey Mike's come out on top in our side-by-side submarine sandwich comparison?

  November 14, 2002

• Roll Your Own

  Saigon Pagolac's DIY Vietnamese fajitas may be a lot of work, but they're worth it

  August 1, 2002

• Best Vietnamese Restaurant

  Vietopia

  September 20, 2001

• Best Pho

  Pho Tau Bay

  September 20, 2001

• The Thais That Bind

  A culinary trip down the Mekong

  June 14, 2001

• Feeder Road Pho

  Dalat Vietnamese Bistro rises high above its concrete surroundings

  March 16, 2000

• Family Affairs

  Mai's and Van Loc revel in large similarities - and small differences

  January 25, 1996

• Out of Vietnam

  The lowly sandwich is elevated to new heights as bnh m" thit

  September 14, 1995

• $13 at Pagoda

  Photo by Robb WalshWhere: Pagoda Vietnamese Bistro & Bar, 4705 Inker St., 832-673-0400 What $13 gets you: A cup of pineapple seafood soup ($5) and a big bowl of vermicelli salad ($8) or a Vietnamese sandwich ($4) and a bowl of pho ($8). Pagoda is an authentic Vietnamese restaurant with a chic modern décor that's close to the Heights and downtown. If you love Vietnamese food but don't get around to driving out to Bellaire Chinatown very often, you need to know about this place. The slightly hi

  July 6, 2009

• Houston: One Tough Town for Noodles

  ​Tho Lam, a waiter at Pho One on Westheimer at Wilcrest, told me his life story the other day. Tho works for his parents Thamh Lam and Kim Oanh Vu who own the place. The name of the restaurant is a wordplay on his mom's middle name. Kim Oanh Vu comes from a famous pho family. Her father and Tho's grandfather, Y Van Vu, opened one of the most famous noodle shops in Saigon in the 1960s -- it was called Pho Tau Bay. In 1975, the year that Saigon fell, Y Van Vu and his six kids moved to the U

  July 31, 2009

• Protest Erupts as Alpha Bakery Suspends "Buy 5, Get 1 Free" Policy

  Photos by Robb Walsh​I was shocked to discover that the price of the banh mi thit at Alpha Bakery in the Hong Kong City Mall had gone up, but my reaction was downright civil compared to the guy in line behind me. Sandwiches were only $1.85 a couple of years ago, with the usual Vietnamese sandwich shop policy of "Buy 5, Get 1 Free." Now the sandwiches are $2.50 each. When an Asian guy in a Longhorns cap ordered five sandwiches and they told him there was no more sixth sandwich free anymore

  August 7, 2009

• Noodles You Need to Know About

  Photos by Robb Walsh​I got a medium pho with steak and brisket at Pho Binh at 10815 Beechnut for lunch the other day. I was coming down with a cold and it worked at least as well as chicken soup. Pho Binh on Beechnut is located in a shopping center. It was the winner of Best Pho in the 2007 Houston Press Best of Houston® edition. But pho fanatics generally prefer the original Pho Binh location in a ramshackle trailer at 10928 Beamer in South Houston. Here's Jay Francis's video tour. There

  August 18, 2009

• Downtown Saigon Soup Stop

  ​When a reader asked me to recommend an excellent pho shop close to downtown where he could get a quick lunch, I sent him to the Pho Saigon location at 2808 Milam. And I told him to remember to put a napkin over his tie. The original Midtown location was opened by Houston's P.B. Tran in 1998. Pho Saigon now has nine locations around the city, and it is one of my favorite noodle chains.

  October 13, 2009

• Dragging Bowl: Bland Food, Hip Surroundings

  ​The shrimp is perfectly cooked and the pad thai is edible -- if you squirt a whole lot of Sriracha hot sauce in it. I love the giant aquarium and the cool ambiance at Dragon Bowl Asian Bistro at 11th St. in the Heights. Beer by the bottle, good-looking clientele -- what else could you ask for? Oh, the food. Well, it's bland. But this ain't exactly Chinatown, you know. I made the mistake of ordering the he spring rolls. I loved the fact that they were soft and freshly made rather than sti

  October 15, 2009

• Vietnamese Steak and Eggs... Holy Cow!

  ​ Tan Ba Le Baguette on the corner of Beechnut and Boone is an excellent lunch destination. This Vietnamese diner specializes in street vendor dishes at an affordable price. Ordering here is simple: Walk up to the counter and ask for steak and eggs. The steak-and-eggs combo was traditionally sold to day laborers in Vietnam as a fast and hot pick-me-up to satisfy those mid-day lulls.

  October 15, 2009

• Banh Cuon: Tay Ho 18

  ​The barbecued pork in the banh cuon thit nuong at Tay Ho 18 in Hong Kong City Mall isn't as charred and crispy as the barbecued pork in the banh cuon thit nuong at Thien Thanh on Bellaire, but it's still pretty tasty. At Tay Ho 18, you can watch through a glass wall while the woman who makes the banh cuon prepares each roll from a huge stack of rice paper sheets. Banh cuon restaurants are a lot more common in Southern California than they are in Houston. Tay Ho 18 is the 18th franchise

  October 27, 2009

• Banh Cuon: Huynh in EaDo

  ​We sampled the banh cuon nhan thit nuong, or steamed rice rolls with chargrilled pork, at Huynh on Emanuel for lunch the other day. The cute little rolls came crowded in a soup bowl with a vinegar and fish sauce dip on the side. I thought of them as Vietmanese pigs in a blanket. When the waitress saw us dipping each roll, she suggested we just dump the dipping sauce over top of the rolls. I guess that's why they come in a bowl.

  November 5, 2009

• Banh Mi Bo Kho: Soup or Sandwich?

  ​Banh mi means "bread" in Vietnamese and thit means "ham"; banh mi thit is a ham sandwich. So when I saw banh mi bo kho on the menu at Banh Cuon Hoa #2 on Beechnut, the subject of this week's cafe review, I figured bread beef stew = a Vietnamese roast beef sandwich. Ever since I first learned about Vietnamese sandwiches, I have been looking for the banh mi stuffed with curry and saucy meats that I have heard are popular in Vietnam.

  November 11, 2009

• Enough About Mi

  November 12, 2009

• Where You @?

  ​South Houston is home to one of the most culturally diverse neighborhoods in Houston, Sagemont. There is a dense population of Vietnamese in this area, and as a result, a fantastic selection of great Asian food. T@pioca is a little Vietnamese banh mi, yogurt, and bubble tea dive on Fuqua and Sabo that's a good example of a quality small business. The bubble tea drinks are great -- we ordered jasmine milk tea and coffee milk tea with half sugar (they will know). We also ended up trying T@

  November 12, 2009

• $7 BB Donuts

    ​Where: BB Donuts, 515 Westheimer, Ste. B, 713-520-7557 What $7 gets you: Anything you want from the small, fast and easy lunch menu. (Or, because it is a donut shop as well, you could stuff your face with $7 worth of donuts, which we don't recommend.) BB's -- which, per the business card, stands for "Best Breakfast" -- is an indistinct shop in an indistinct strip mall on lower Westheimer. One of our resident foodies picked it for "Best Breakfast Croissant," and we wanted to see ho

  November 16, 2009

• Crispy and Crispier

  November 19, 2009