New York: Bo La Lot
With apologies to Vietnamese speakers or readers, I've made no attempt to preserve accents in rendering names of dishes here...
Thai Son is a bustling Vietnamese restaurant in the heart of New York's Chinatown (89 Baxter - a few steps from the Canal St station on the Lexington Ave subway line). The diverse clientele includes a reassuring plurality of Asian faces and people who look like they know their Pho. The food seemed to us to justify the confidence.
Our meal included a mixture of standard dishes that would feature in the Australian equivalent. Hungry, we started with the unadventurous but appealling cha gio Vietnamese spring rolls), which were served (like almost everything else) with huge hunks of cos lettuce for a distinctive hot-cold and crisp-soft combination.
One "entreé" was a special, Tom hap la ve steamed prawns (shrimp) in beer. These were fresh and sweet prawns, simply cooked and presented. Given the dish it was appropriate we accompanied the meal with Vietnamese '33' beer...
The other was the more distinctive Banh hoi bo la lot, also drawn from a decent list of daily specials on wall posters. Although this was described as "grilled ground beef in vine leaves" Banh hoi refers to the accompanying mats or squares of fine rice vermicelli, and the bo la lot were the beef parcels.
These could be called a sort of Indochinese dolmades, but the leaves that the meat is wrapped in are not grape leaves. They supposed to be betel or a near relative from the pepper family, but we didn't pry. In New York who knows what they can get hold of? The marinated beef is grilled in the leaves, and the diner assembles a further parcel out of this first one, wrapping the bo la lot in banh trang rice paper and lettuce with mint leaves, incorporating a sweetish sauce resembling hoi sin.
Thai Son's food was fresh, appetizing and reasonably priced. I'd go again if I were any closer and there weren't a hundred other restaurants in Chinatown to try first when I get back.
Thai Son is a bustling Vietnamese restaurant in the heart of New York's Chinatown (89 Baxter - a few steps from the Canal St station on the Lexington Ave subway line). The diverse clientele includes a reassuring plurality of Asian faces and people who look like they know their Pho. The food seemed to us to justify the confidence.
Our meal included a mixture of standard dishes that would feature in the Australian equivalent. Hungry, we started with the unadventurous but appealling cha gio Vietnamese spring rolls), which were served (like almost everything else) with huge hunks of cos lettuce for a distinctive hot-cold and crisp-soft combination.
One "entreé" was a special, Tom hap la ve steamed prawns (shrimp) in beer. These were fresh and sweet prawns, simply cooked and presented. Given the dish it was appropriate we accompanied the meal with Vietnamese '33' beer...
The other was the more distinctive Banh hoi bo la lot, also drawn from a decent list of daily specials on wall posters. Although this was described as "grilled ground beef in vine leaves" Banh hoi refers to the accompanying mats or squares of fine rice vermicelli, and the bo la lot were the beef parcels.
These could be called a sort of Indochinese dolmades, but the leaves that the meat is wrapped in are not grape leaves. They supposed to be betel or a near relative from the pepper family, but we didn't pry. In New York who knows what they can get hold of? The marinated beef is grilled in the leaves, and the diner assembles a further parcel out of this first one, wrapping the bo la lot in banh trang rice paper and lettuce with mint leaves, incorporating a sweetish sauce resembling hoi sin.
Thai Son's food was fresh, appetizing and reasonably priced. I'd go again if I were any closer and there weren't a hundred other restaurants in Chinatown to try first when I get back.
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