Soup And Sandwich, Please, Vietnamese Style

I'll be the first to admit it, I love Vietnamese food. I can't exactly remember when I had my first taste of it, certainly it wasn't until I was into my early twenties. But from that first moment, the food from this nation has taken hold of my taste buds and never let go. Even bad Vietnamese food still manages to hit some gastronomic nerve center in my brain that just makes me sigh and say, "ahhhhh!"

While there are actually quite a few places in Cleveland to get Vietnamese, the most talked about rivalry is between Superior Pho and #1 Pho, each just across the street from the other. While some speculate that they are somehow related, I can assure you that they are not. If you spend any amount of time reading the local Cleveland food boards, you will begin to understand that each eatery has its own proponents. Having never tried either restaurant, I jumped at the chance to go there for lunch with good foodie friends Nancy and Edsel.

Superior Pho was located at 3030 Superior Avenue, Cleveland, OH 44114 and can be reached at 216-781-7462. Not surprisingly, there was no website associated directly with the restaurant at the time of this writing. Now that I've told you the official address, here's how to actually FIND the restaurant, as the front door does not face Superior Avenue. Find the corner of Superior and East 31st and make the turn onto 31st going south (it's a one way street, you can only go south). As soon as you make the turn, the parking lot for Superior Pho (and Ha Ahn, too) will be on your right. The entrance to the building is adjacent to the parking lot.

Here was what the backside entrance to the building looked like:


To go to Superior Pho, enter the door on the left side inside the entrance. If instead you wanted to go to Ha Ahn, you would continue down the hall and enter the door on the right side of the hall.

Here was the door I would be entering for lunch today:


I got there slightly before noon and there were plenty of tables. Within about fifteen minutes, however, the place was packed with hungry Clevelanders looking for a filling meal. As I sat down at the table, my server left us with menus:






Seeing that the Vietnamese soup, or pho, was available in both a small and large size, I decided instead of getting one item off the menu that I would split a second one with Edsel. And having heard how good the banh mi sandwiches were, I knew that today would be a soup and sandwich kind of day, Vietnamese style.

Not realizing how quickly the kitchen turned out orders, I went to use the restroom and was gone for maybe three or four minutes. As I walked back into the dining room, our entire meal was being served up. When I thought about it, it made sense since the key to making money during lunchtime was turning tables as often as possible.

First up was a shot of my sandwich, a banh mi thit:


And here was a shot of the inside of the crusty French roll on which it had been served:


Finally, an end shot showing you the layers of meat, pate, and vegetables:


The phrase "banh mi" more or less describes a generic sandwich of this style. Often banh mi are offered with various toppings which changes the name from something generic to more specific. Today's sandwich, with its layers of homemade pate, roasted pork, cucumber, jalapeños, cilantro and mayonnaise, epitomized a great sandwich, Vietnamese or not. The French roll was crusty on the outside and the crumb had a wonderful chew to it. Of course, the bread was wonderfully fresh. The ingredients themselves were also very tasty and nothing overpowered anything else. The last time I had a banh mi was during my trip to the North Market in Columbus while I was there during Linuxfest 2009. That sandwich was good, but this one was better.

In addition to my banh mi, I also ordered a small bowl of pho. The nice thing about Superior Pho's menu was that all the pho were the same price (small or large). You order by simply telling the waiter which type of meat you would like in it. Today I got the #3, which had a mixture of well done brisket and eye round steak.

Here was a shot of my bowl of soup:


With every bowl of pho, you get an additional plate of vegetables that you can optionally add to enhance it:


Present on today's plate were fresh bean sprouts, jalapeño slices, basil, and wedges of fresh lime. Each table had the obligatory bottle of Sriracha as well as hoisin sauce and a jar of vinegar. I normally don't bother with the hoisin or vinegar, but I am a Sriracha freak. I absolutely love the stuff. While none of my other tablemates used the fiery condiment, I loaded up; not so much that I lost the delicate flavors of the soup, but enough that a thorough cleaning of my sinuses was required by the end of the meal.

The biggest surprise was how tender the meats were. I expected the eye round steak to be tender because they put it in raw and the heat of the soup cooks it to around medium. The brisket, however, was also incredibly tender and not stringy at all. The broth was flavorful and the noodles were cooked perfectly, having just the right amount of chew to them. The only real criticism was that I wasn't getting very much of the warming spices from the star anise or clove, spices traditionally used in making the soup stock.

The cost of my soup and sandwich with tax and tip came to a meager $11 which I happily paid. I am looking forward to returning so that I can try some of the other menu delicacies that I've come to love such as the cold rice noodle vermicelli dishes and Bun Bo Hue, an already spicy soup that sounded quite good on the menu. I know I plan on adding Superior Pho on my places to return to often and take people visiting from out of town.

It has been rumored that the restaurant will be expanding into the space next door, thus increasing the number of guests they can take care of in a single seating. As long as the kitchen continues to turn out quality, tasty food like I experienced today, I don't think they'll ever have a problem filling the place up. I highly recommend you take the time to look this hidden restaurant up in order to try the food.

Two For The Price Of One: Siamone's Double Header

Visit The First

After a long week at work, I decided to treat myself and return to a small restaurant I had discovered several months ago, Siamone's Thai Pub. I had been so impressed with the quality of the food that when I wrote up my last entry covering my experience there, I actually fast tracked it to the front of my publishing queue. Since then, I had returned one other time in order to try the Phnom Penh noodles in soup, or what in most Vietnamese restaurants would simply be called Pho. I knew it was time to return to try another item that had caught my eye the first time I went.

I was slightly surprised to see that the restaurant was only half-way full when I arrived at 6:30 PM on a Friday night. I suppose I was relieved that I would be able to get a seat right away, but a little shocked that they weren't busier. Regardless, I picked out a two-top table in the moderately lit bar and ordered a water from my server. While I knew what I would be having for my entree, I hadn't quite worked out what I wanted as a starter.

As I scanned the list of possibilities, I decided to give the Coconut Chicken soup (which would be Tom Kha Gai in the original Thai) a shot, seeing that it was only $3.99. After only a few short minutes, my server returned with a large bowl of creamy soup:


Filled with mushrooms, scallions, lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, red bell pepper, chicken, and most surprising of all, diced tomato, the soup was incredibly well done. It was creamy, tart, sweet, spicy and earthy all at the same time. The chicken and vegetables were cooked perfectly and the broth ... oh my gosh, the broth! Honestly, as good as the solid ingredients were in the soup, when I realized that I had eaten most of them and only broth remained, I literally picked up the bowl and held it close to my face so that the distance from the bowl to my mouth was as small as possible. The broth was absolutely divine. In an interesting twist, the tomatoes worked well because the acidity of the diced tomato, not the sweetness, actually helped cut through the fattiness from the coconut milk. The spice level was just enough to make it interesting, but not overpowering in the least. I actually thought about ordering a second bowl of this soup and just skipping the entree entirely.

After nearly licking the bowl clean after finishing the soup, I was left with this:


A lone piece of lemongrass and a single kaffir lime leaf now sat at the bottom of the bowl waiting for my server to come and take away the dirty dish to the kitchen. If you like Thai flavors, you will LOVE this soup. I was already looking forward to returning to Siamone's just for this soup.

But, I had come tonight to try something else on the menu, the Beef Bulgogi in Stone Hot Pot, or as those more familiar with Korean dishes would know it, Dolsot Bibimbap. I have eaten bibimbap at other restaurants, but only rarely been served in the stone hot pot that was infamous for creating that nice crusty rice layer at the bottom of the bowl. Bibimbap, for those who don't know, is actually two words, bibim or "stirred" and bap or "rice". The concept of bibimbap is that cooked rice is placed in the bottom of a bowl and various raw and cooked items are placed on top of it. When the diner receives her bowl, additional accoutrement called banchan are added to taste and the entire affair is stirred around with the chopsticks, thus blending the flavors before eating it. Banchan can be anything from kimchi (fermented cabbage) to gochuzhang (chili pepper paste). The word dolsot actually refers to the fact the bibimbap is served in a heated stone bowl.

Traditionally, bibimbap is topped with an egg, authentically served raw in Korea and more commonly fried in America. Unfortunately, due to Americans' wariness of eating raw eggs, most Korean cooks not only fry the egg, but cook it until the yolk is cooked all the way through. Every place I've ordered this dish, I've had to really work at making sure not only my server, but also the cook knows that while I don't mind the egg being fried, I want the yolk runny. Most cooks making this dish aren't usually American natives and don't understand the concept of "sunny-side up" or "over easy" eggs. At one place in Massillon, Ohio, I finally was able to break the language barrier by saying, "Only cook the egg on one side."

With great trepidation I waited to see what came out of the kitchen. I could actually hear my dish arriving from around the corner before I saw it. As the tray containing my bowl approached the table, I could hear and more importantly smell the rice sizzling at the bottom of the bowl. This was what was set down in front of me:


The rice was hard to see in the above photo because of all of the wonderful ingredients on top. My server mentioned that she thought the cook might have cooked the egg too long, but when she picked up the tray, the yolk jiggled so she figured it would be just fine. While the whites were a little crispier than I like, the yolk was definitely runny. In Siamone's version, none of the banchan were brought to the table. The kimchi had already been added to the bowl for me as well as a little bit of the Korean chili paste. Knowing my penchant for spicy food, I asked the waitress if she could bring me the spice condiment "caddy" that they had at the restaurant. She began to explain that the cook had added some chili paste to the dish already and I gently stopped her mid-sentence and responded, "Trust me, I'll be needing more spice than that."

While I waited, I looked at the bowl of thick darn brown sauce accompanying my dolsot bibimbap:


This was the teriyaki sauce, which was essentially soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, and corn starch to thicken it. I knew that the dish came with it, but was reluctant to use it. I tasted it anyway, just to be sure. As much as I've loved Siamone's food up to this point, there was no place on that tray for this sauce. It was just a bad pairing. And for all of the tasty authenticity that Siamone's had worked so hard on promoting, I have no idea why you would pair a classically Korean dish with a Japanese sauce. Actually, not even so Japanese as the thickening of the sauce with cornstarch was more of a Chinese technique. Either way, I put the sauce to the side and waited for the condiment caddy to arrive.

Once it did, I chose to apply several heaping tablespoons of sambal, which in this case was a chunky combination of chilies, garlic, vinegar, and salt. I then broke the egg yolk with my chopsticks and stirred the entire mixture around, careful not to touch the still hot stone bowl. As I dug in, every mouthful would be different because of the stirring. One bite would contain the grilled marinated beef and some kimchi, the next bite would contain some of the crispy rice from the bottom of the bowl and the next I would get some of the shredded carrots and bean sprouts. It was an incredibly good version of bibimbap. The sambal added a nice bit of heat without overwhelming the dish entirely. I was a little worried about the kimchi already being added to bowl as it can have quite a strong flavor, but this kimchi was mild and delicious and added only the slightest bit of tang. I actually only managed to eat half of my entree and ended up bringing the rest home for a delicious lunch the next day.

Other than the really odd teriyaki sauce pairing with my entree, my entire experience just goes to underscore how really wonderful the food at Siamone's Thai Pub is. If you love these flavors or just want to learn what these flavors are, I implore you to seek out Siamone's and give them a try for yourself. While Siamone's does use local ingredients from time to time (e.g., the diced tomato in my Tom Kha Gai), she also understands the balance that the dishes from this region of the world need to have. Should you decide to order the dolsot bibimbap, I suggest you skip the teriyaki and go right for the more authentic flavor of the sambal. If you're a chili-head like me, you won't be sorry that you did. I'm looking forward to returning soon.


Visit The Second

And return I did. In doing this double header, I wanted to share even more of Siamone's wonderful menu with you, gentle reader. While I have noted before that a lot of the appetizers are fairly expensive, today I decided to try and keep the balance of the overall bill in check by choosing one of the more inexpensive entrees. In the past I have tried the chicken and coconut soup and the Cambodian spring rolls. This time around, I went with an old Thai stand-by, chicken satay:


All of the elements of a typical chicken satay were on the plate, however, there were a few differences. For starters, the normal sweet and sour sauce with a few pickled vegetables were replaced by it's opposite, a lot of pickled vegetables with just a little bit of sauce. While the flavor was most familiar, the use of the the condiment as a "dipping" sauce was obviously lost. I had to eat or move most of the vegetables so I could get at the meager amount in the bottom of the cup. The second deviation was in the peanut sauce. While the sauce did have peanuts in it, it tasted much more strongly of butter, to the point of reminding me of a buerre blanc. The remarkably yellow sauce even made it look like it had been mounted with quite a bit of butter, too.

The chicken was nicely grilled and given the unusual flavor of the peanut sauce, overall the dish was very good. Still a bit pricey at $8, but it definitely was filling and could easily serve as a single appetizer for 2-3 adults.

For dinner tonight I decided to have a bowl of the Phnom Penh noodles in soup, or in the more Vietnamese vernacular, Pho. Even though it was one of the more inexpensive items on the restaurant's menu, it certainly wasn't lacking in flavor or portion size:


With my pho came the obligatory bean sprout and lime garnishes:


And the condiment caddy, the "box of hot":


I added a few bean sprouts, a nice squirt of lime juice and a healthy amount of one of my favorite condiments in the world, sriracha. I stirred it all into the broth and took my first spoonful. Absolute heaven. The richness from the broth, the spiciness from the sriracha, and the acid from the lime juice all played so nicely with each other. Oddly, one flavor I detected this time that I didn't the last time I enjoyed this dish at Siamone's was a gentle sweetness. It wasn't a predominant flavor, but rather subtly sitting in the background. I greedily slurped up soup, noodles, tender cuts of beef, scallion, and red pepper. Because I had finished my chicken satay appetizer, I was only able to get through about half of this bowl of soup. Fortunately, I was able to take the remainder home with me for lunch the next day. Not quite as good as fresh out of the kitchen, but still pretty darn tasty.

Overall, Siamone's Thai Pub continues to impress me with its fantastic menu and spot-on flavors. The somewhat unappealing teriyaki sauce and the rather unusual peanut sauce from my two visits here really were anomalies in the overall Asian flavor profile I have been enjoying since I discovered the restaurant. The fact that Siamone's is local to Akron just makes me that much happier. I strongly encourage you to check them out if you live anywhere in the Akron area. If you are from out-of-town and like good Thai, Vietnamese, Korean, or Cambodian food, make it a point to add a stop in your journey to try them out. You won't be disappointed that you did.

The Only One In All Of Fort Wayne

On our rather short drive from our hotel to Casa D'Angelo for dinner on Friday night, the car just happened to pass a Thai / Chinese / Vietnamese / American eatery called Saigon Restaurant. The odd thing about it wasn't that it was an amalgamation of cuisines, but that it had very odd hours, open every day at 9 am and closed by 7 pm. Knowing that I already had my lunch planned out for Saturday, I just let it drop when I came to the sad conclusion that I wouldn't be able to visit the restaurant while I was here in Fort Wayne.

Located at 2006 South Calhoun Street, Fort Wayne, IN 46802, they can also be reached at 260-456-8550. As is typical with very small mom and pop restaurants, there is currently no website available.

As you will no doubt learn in my next post on Powers Hamburgers, fate intervened in a strange way and I found myself falling back on a Plan B for lunch. Gee? Have lunch at a little Vietnamese mom and pop place or McDonalds? The decision was excruciatingly easy to make. I hopped in the car and before you knew it, I was sitting inside the cozy little restaurant that was a cross between a diner and a more traditionally decorated Asian eatery.

As soon as I saw the menu,


I began to understand the reason for the plethora of cuisines. Apparently the breakfast they served was of the American variety. Eggs, toast, bacon, you name it. However, everything else was pure Asian goodness. Wanting to maximize my exposure to the menu, I decided that I would get an appetizer and a cold rice noodle dish. Having had goi cuon before at other Vietnamese restaurants, I wanted to see how Saigon's version fared. Unfortunately, the menu listed them at 4 rolls for $6. Knowing that this was way more than I needed, I asked my server if I could do a half-order and she dutifully complied with my request.

Here was a shot of my rice paper summer rolls and the hoisin dipping sauce with crushed peanuts:


Filled with cold cooked shrimp, lettuce, cold vermicelli rice noodles, fresh mint and carrots, these were sweet, refreshing, and just a little bit chewy because of the rice paper wrapper. The dipping sauce wasn't anything unique to the Saigon Restaurant, but added a nice bit of tanginess to the overall flavor profile. I'm definitely certain had I eaten an entire order, I would've been completely full. If there was one thing I've learned from watching food-related traveling shows, many times restaurants will give you half-sized portions simply if you ask. The worse thing they can say is "no", right? Fortunately, this time I got to have my summer rolls and eat them, too.

Even before I had finished my goi cuon, the rest of my lunch arrived from the kitchen:


This was pretty standard on most menus that offer Vietnamese food, even if the flavors were slightly different. Essentially you have cooked and cooled vermicelli rice noodles on top of bean sprouts, shredded iceberg lettuce, and julienned cucumber. This layer represented the "base." On top of that you can add a number of additional toppings. Today I decided to do a two-flavor pork. First there was the roasted pork that was in the upper right part of the bowl. On the lower left part of the bowl was a pork egg roll that had been sliced into individual bites.

Here was a side shot of the pork egg roll:


Accompanying every noodle dish was the obligatory nuoc cham:


This liquid combines sweet, sour, salty, and fishy flavors (from Nam Pla, or fish sauce) to make a uniquely aromatic sauce when used in combination with the noodles. I normally use it like a liquid dressing and add as much as I need over the pork and noodles to add some extra flavor. Also, if you were wondering what the light fixtures looked like at Saigon Restaurant, check out the reflection in the surface of the nuoc cham.

Of course, no Vietnamese rice noodle dish would be complete without the globally popular Srirachi garlic chili sauce:


Made with simply garlic, chilies, vinegar and salt, this stuff rocks all on its own. When added to my lunch, it just made the dish explode with flavor and heat. I honestly think that a bottle of this stuff should be in every refrigerator in the country. I do love Tabasco on my eggs, but Sriracha puts it over the top. It turns out I added enough of this spicy elixir to force me to blow my nose twice during the course of the meal; it was so worth it.

I finished up my meal and walked over to the cash register to pay the check. While the young man rang up my change, I asked him if he knew of other good Vietnamese restaurants in Fort Wayne. He looked at me, furrowed his brow for just a moment, and said, "I don't think there are any other Vietnamese places in Fort Wayne." He wasn't kidding either. As soon as I walked outside, I pulled up the location for Saigon Restaurant on my Google phone and kept zooming out waiting for other spots to show up using "Vietnamese restaurants" as my search criteria. None appeared.

I'm particularly glad that a series of happy accidents led me to try Saigon Restaurant today for lunch and I'm fortunate that the one Vietnamese offering that Fort Wayne did have did an excellent job of preparing tasty and authentic food. As with my last post on Casa D'Angelo, if you live in Fort Wayne or are passing through, they are definitely worth looking up, assuming that you are available for lunch or an early dinner. I heartily recommend this restaurant.

Thai Gourmet vs. Pataya: Battle of the Asian Cuisines

Thai Gourmet, located at 3732 Darrow Road in Stow, OH (phone is 330-688-0880, no website) has been a local go-to place if I don't want to drive all the way to Cleveland (although I do think Cleveland does have better Thai restaurants). Out of the blue, I decided to pop in on a Saturday evening around 6 PM. It was definitely busy, although they did have a table available. It had "ok" lighting, but not optimal, so the pictures will appear a bit dark.

First, a shot of the condiments that are on the table. Notice the dried chili in the container in the front; that will be important later on in the meal.


I decided to do soup, an appetizer, and an entree. For my appetizer, I decided on doing the Thai Dumplings. Here is a photo of the dumplings:


This was FANTASTIC! A nice pork and shrimp dumpling in a soft wonton skin, cooked until still tender. It was served in a nice broth that had all the elements of Thai style cooking: sweet, savory, umami, and spicy. Topping the dumplings was scallions and fried shallots, which provided a nice textual contrast. I would order this again in a heartbeat.

Next came the Tom Yum Gai (chicken instead of shrimp).


This had a sort of odd "off" flavor. It almost tasted like it had too much of an acidic component to it. The ingredients were cooked properly (nothing was rubbery or tough), but the balance just wasn't there. This was a dish that I didn't finish and didn't take home with me.

Finally, even though it isn't Thai, I saw that the restaurant offered Ma Po Tofu. Although the version on the menu is vegetarian, I asked if they could add some ground pork to it and the waitress indicated that they could. The menu declared that the dish came out "spicy", but I know better and asked my waitress what my spice level options were. She indicated that the hottest they could make it was "Thai spicy". When I asked if "Thai spicy" was American Thai Spicy or Thai Thai Spicy, she indicated that it was the latter. So I ordered my dish "Thai Spicy", not really sure what to expect.

Here is what came out from the kitchen:


My heart dropped almost immediately. If you notice, there are no red flecks at all in the dish. No red flecks means no chilies. Tasting the dish confirmed my worst fear. Either the cook has absolutely no idea what "Thai Spicy" is supposed to actually taste like, or I got the "American" Thai Spicy. *Sigh*

So, I ended up adding about 6 spoonfuls of the crushed chili peppers that were sitting on the table. This helped, but it still wasn't the same thing as cooking with the chili during the dish's preparation. Flavorwise, the dish was fine, but clearly once again, my hope for a properly spiced dish was dashed. I did take the rest of the dish home and had it for lunch the next day.

Several days later, I ended up eating dinner at a Canton restaurant I frequent regularly, Pa Ta Ya (1122 30th Street NW, Canton, OH 44709, no website). It had been closed for a while and when I returned, they had a new menu. The thing I like about this restaurant is that it is one of the few places in Canton that I can get Chinese (admittedly, American Chinese), Thai, and Vietnamese. While their Pho is not the best I've ever had, at least I can get it on a fairly regular basis if I want it.

Seeing Thai Dumplings on the menu brought back the memory of the Thai Dumplings I had at Thai Gourmet several days earlier. So I decided to do a taste comparison between the two. Here is the dish:


While this dish had several of the same elements as the one I experienced at the other restaurant, it was not nearly as harmonious (or tasty). There was absolutely ZERO heat at all. I'm not looking to be blown away with chili heat, but this had none at all. This meant that the sweetness in the sauce was not counterbalanced in any way.

Another concern that I have, and this is not a new concern, is that the knife skills of the chef at Pa Ta Ya is just not very consistent. In the picture above, you'll notice that the knifework on the cucumbers is just not very even. While this doesn't bother me in a dish such as the dumplings, it is often a big factor in other dishes, like the Pho:


Pa Ta Ya's Pho is a decent bowl, with nice tender meat and a nice umami broth. I always add hoisin sauce and sriracha to give it a bit of sweetness and garlic-y heat. This restaurant is unusual in that they bring you out a side of both sauces instead of having the condiments on the table. While I usually only add a little bit of hoisin, I like quite a bit of sriracha and no matter how many times I go back and order the Pho, I always have to ask for extra. Oh bother.

And here is the same Pho, with an onion wedge that has not been properly prepped.


Part of the problem with such huge pieces of onion is that they aren't cooked through in their version. While I love onions, I just can't really do them raw anymore, so I end up having to pick them out.

Just so Thai Gourmet isn't the only one with a chili level issue, the one thing that drives me up the wall at Pa Ta Ya (I've eaten there quite a bit for lunch), is their inconsistency with spicing the dishes. I've tried working with several of the servers there (including the daughter of the owner) to try and understand how I need to order a dish if I want it spiced to the level I require and it is still a hit or miss proposition. If the husband owner is cooking and he sees me, I will generally get it at the spice level I ask for. With the wife owner cooking? Forget it.

Overall, I think I'd have to give the edge to Thai Gourmet. Even though they have no idea what "Thai Spicy" is, at least their dishes were more refined and better balanced.