Vietnamese Food

Two Vietnamese shops have opened up near our home within the past year. My wife and I both love Vietnamese food, and we are really enjoying learning how to cook more than our usual gỏi cuốn (spring rolls), pho (rice noodle soup), and bánh mì (a Vietnamese sandwich).

The first new dish that we learned is bánh cuốn, which is probably my favorite dish to order at restaurants. This dish wraps ground pork, wood ear, and onions in a sheet of steamed rice batter that has the consistency of tapioca! We purchase the powder for the batter at the Vietnamese shop, but it is also available on Amazon. It was challenging to make at first because the sheet would stick to the pan, but we have figured out how to succeed consistently!

We eat the bánh cuốn with nước chấm, an incredibly delicious sauce that goes well with pretty much anything that we try it with. We winged the recipe at first, but we found a Hungry Huy recipe that we love. We now keep a jar of it within easy reach in our fridge.

When we visited a Vietnamese shop last, an employee gave us a suggestion for what to try next. She sold us some bánh hỏi tươi duy anh, fine vermicelli noodles that are woven into small sheets. We ate it for the first time today, with cured pork, cucumber, basil, coriander, and nước chấm, of course! We really enjoyed it and look forward to making it again soon! Our daughter loves it as well, though she prefers to eat the vermicelli sheets separate from the meat and vegetables, which she mixes with her rice.