Ho Chi Minh trailblazers of taste
HO CHI MINH CITY - By the door stand piles of rice from several provinces, some with large grains, some with small grains, some
darker, some lighter, each with a wholly different aroma. Down the aisle are banks of vividly green herbs and vegetables, with their
hyperintense Asian scents and tastes, stunningly fresh despite the lack of refrigeration because they arrive direct from their growers
in the middle of the night. Many of the vegetables are Asian natives - bumpy bitter melons, lotus stems, long beans, banana flowers,
luffa squashes and pungent Chinese celery. But others are European transplants - delicacies like baby cress, escarole, miniature
artichokes and exquisite asparagus.
Over there is a cauliflower the size of a basketball. Over here are mounds of delectable, unfamiliar fruit - enormous knobby durians,
which smell like rotting cheese but taste like rich custard, and spiny little soursops, which yield a sweet-and-tart juice that makes
an unforgettable sorbet, and lipstick-pink dragon fruit. Breadfruit. Jackfruit. Custard apples. Tamarind pods. On the other side of a
partition are caged chickens and other fowl, squawking noisily, and all kinds of sea creatures - iced squid, crabs tied with red ropes,
clams the size of silver dollars with ridged shells, carp swimming in basins and tiger prawns that look as ferocious as their
namesakes, all overseen by a raucous corps of vendors in rubber boots.
This is the tumultuous Ben Thanh market, which faces Quach Thi Trang Square in the heart of Ho Chi Minh City. A shedlike building
with four entrances, it attests to this country's peacetime bounty. Restaurant cooking of real excellence has evolved in the last 10
years, and particularly in the last three, with bright young chefs innovating and adapting like their brethren in other major Asian
capitals. French and Chinese and Indian influences remain, of course, the legacy of a long and clamorous history, but something
new and manifestly Vietnamese is emerging.
Spring rolls and salad rolls on white tablecloths? Absolutely, and in Ho Chi Minh City's better places they might be filled with squid
or grilled fish or chicken instead of crab or shrimp and pork. Chefs have no qualms about serving the traditional alongside the
inventive: a plate of fat rosy shrimp with satisfyingly sour tamarind pulp, for instance, together with a plate of tiny quail glazed with
star anise and grilled with garlic and paprika.
My wife, Betsey, and I ate those two dishes, among others, at Nam Phan, a luxurious villa decorated with antique ceramics and
scrolls. On our table, a single orchid floated in a silver and black lacquer box.
Nothing so deluxe could ever have been found in Ho Chi Minh City's former incarnation, wartime Saigon, where I was based for
almost three years as a correspondent. It would have been easier to unearth a truffle. The ingredients weren't available (too many
roadblocks), nor were the cooks (in the army). So we hung out in a series of joints that flourished in a world of low expectations and
minimal competition.
Nam Phan, which is the latest venture of Hoang Khai, a young entrepreneur who has assembled a group of a dozen Khai Silk
shops, as notable for their decor (a goldfish pond graces the interior of one of them) as for the chic clothes they sell. His restaurant,
like his silk business, is aimed not only at well-off travelers and expatriates but also at the growing coterie of high-living Vietnamese.
With dinner checks averaging $100 or so a couple, without wine, it is the town's costliest place to eat.
The villa housing Nam Phan stands at the center of a walled garden on the busy corner of Le Thanh Ton and Hai Ba Trung, two of
the city's main streets. Inside, though, all is quiet. The high-ceilinged rooms are painted in grays, taupes and whites, and furnished
with a modern refinement rare in Vietnam.
"Ravishing," said Betsey, who is not easily swept off her feet.
I would say the same about the food, especially the salads. One was made from grilled dried beef and the tender leaves and
crunchy stems of water spinach, a relative of the morning glory. It was light and refreshing, just the thing on a warm day. Another,
more elaborate and more assertive but as appealing, included lotus stems, bits of pork and tiny shrimp, fried shallots, chilies, mint,
Vietnamese coriander and fish sauce. Tangy, fishy, sweet all at once, it had the layers of flavor the Vietnamese love.
Nothing, for me, matched the shrimp with tamarind sauce. The pulp inside the tamarind pods, which look like giant brown beans,
had been sweetened just enough to balance its sourness, and gobs of black pepper added a contrasting punch. The combination
was fabulous.
The only jarring note, to us, was the flag that we could see out the window - a yellow star on a red field. It was hard to believe we
were in a Communist nation.
Two of the other choice spots in town, Mandarin and Hoi An, are located around the corner from each other. Both are owned by
another Vietnamese businessman, Pham Quang Minh, and ably managed by an Australian, Frank Jones, a former actor.
Hoi An specializes in the cooking of the central coast town of that name, a photogenic little port whose food and architecture were
influenced by the Chinese, Japanese, Dutch and Portuguese merchants who settled there in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.
In a typical example of central Vietnamese delicacy, the flavor palette in Hoi An's spring rolls is limited to shrimp and pork paste,
black sesame seeds and Chinese coriander, and the paper in which they are wrapped, made from rice and cassava flour, is more
brittle than most. The salad rolls, which are just as elegant, arrive with a miniature pagoda carved from a carrot.
Shrimp grilled in a banana leaf, another specialty, emerge rich and buttery. Dipped in a concoct-it-yourself sauce of lime juice and
salt, they spoil you forever for shrimp cocktails. Sumptuous, chili-laced beef and onions, served inside a coconut, is vaguely South
Indian in style; could that be the influence of the Portuguese?
Though the rice noodles are not authentic (only those made with water from a particular Hoi An well get the nod from the purists),
the ca lau here is luscious all the same: thin slices of baconlike pork, butterflied shrimp and crushed bits of crunchy sesame cake
are piled onto the broad noodles, and a bowl of clear, fragrant marrow-bone broth is served on the side. The dish reminded me again
of the Vietnamese genius for making a lot from a little.
Mandarin brims with class. A pianist, a cellist and a violinist play downstairs; dinner is served on big, handsome blue-and-white
plates; and shellfish, the house specialty, are delivered directly from Nha Trang on the South China Sea. Premium ingredients like
abalone and shark's fin dot the menu, at a price.
We managed to work our way through creamy, juicy bay scallops grilled in their shells and dressed with chopped scallions, peanuts
and herbs; a tuna salad, served in a green mango, to be spread on rice crackers with a chili sauce - that familiar Vietnamese blend
of spicy, fishy, salty, sour and caramelized tastes again, with so much ginger that it left a stinging sensation on the lips; a few
pickles and other tidbits; and then a pair of gargantuan crabs steamed in beer.
The crabs left a lasting impression, to say the least. They had thick shells and big claws, like stone crabs, and they gave up firm,
moist, glacier-white lumps of meat, as big as cherries, as sweet as you could ask.
They used to call Saigon the Paris of the Orient because of its lovely, tree-lined boulevards. The way things are going, with eating
out here becoming the kind of preoccupation it already is in Hong Kong, Bangkok and Singapore, they may one day call Ho Chi
Minh City the Paris of the Orient because of the quality of its restaurants.
By R.W. Apple Jr - The New York Times - September 5, 2003
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