Nuits Saint George 1er Cru 2003 and Farr Rising Berry's Creek 2010

he says: 

Ok so time to get back on that shifty looking horse and bash out another wine post. We recently visited friends in Ballarat and in what has now become a bit of a tradition I brought a couple of bottles of nice wine for us to taste and wax on about to each other. Although none of us is even close to considering ourselves an expert when it comes to wine tasting (drinking is another matter entirely) we all really enjoyed the process last time and I think we may have even learnt a thing or two... maybe. You can decide for yourself by checking out my post of our last tasting here. 

As usual I am continuing with my process of putting a Victorian Pinot up against a French Burgundy. Some may consider this an unfair battle but I personally think Victorian Pinot stands up quite well against their French counterparts. Actually they are often so different that comparison yields some quite interesting and stark differences. 

As the Victorian candidate this time I chose one of my personal favourites, Farr Rising Berry's Creek Gippsland Pinot Noir 2010. It's very well priced at $45 and to me is pure funk funk funk which I just love love love! The Farr Rising winemaker is Nick Farr, son of Gary Farr of By Farr wines. Nick's wines are a lower price bracket which obviously makes them much more attainable. I reckon they are great wines and great value. I'd love to purchase Victorian Pinots at the $100 mark but its so hard to justify when they are sold so young. I mean, I just can't wait 5 years. I want to drink it now!

So now to the hard part, here goes. The Farr Rising showed a dull clarity with a pale to medium intensity. We decided the colour was garnet and the condition clean. The wine displayed a pronounced intensity with an aroma that was predominately strawberry fruit and a sweetness that you could almost smell. The acidity was quite concentrated with a balanced chewiness. Flavourwise the Berry's Creek was mildly floral and mostly fruit with a distinct strawberry sweetness that was complimented perfectly by a musky forrest floor funkiness that has me pursing my cheeks in delight. Medium in body and length this wine showed no identifiable faults and a maturity of palate that belied its young age. The Berry's Creek is mid range Gippsland Pinot par excellence, a classic fruit and funk driven Victorian Pinot. I rated this wine good/great. It isn't an easy one to find and is definitely worth hunting down, I purchased this bottle from Blackhearts & Sparrows in East Brunswick. I can only imagine how good this wine will be in 5 years time. Come to think of it, I really should grab a half dozen and put them down for a few years.

In a completely different weight (and price) division is the Nuits-Saint-Georges 1er Cru Les Chaignots 2003. This bad boy was $105 from my local wine store Parkhill Cellars on Errol Street. These guys usually annoy me with their pretty shallow range of pinot under $30. Sure they have some very good expensive Pinot but I judge a wine store across all price brackets and Parkhill fails on this measure. In saying that, they do have a premium wine cabinet that I am only now developing the skills to full understand and therefore consider purchasing from. I spotted this bottle of Premier Cru sitting there dustily on the shelves and immediately recognised the Nuits-Saint-Georges from my evening of Burgundy Debauchery at our Sommelier friends house a few weeks earlier. I have learnt enough lately to identify that at $105 for a 2003 bottle of premier cru this was a bargain. I love the idea of 'shelf gleaning' (to borrow a term from Lauren) at wine stores to find those older bottles that have been sitting on the shelves for years maturing in quality yet still have the price tag they were given when they were stocked many years earlier. My suspicion was confirmed a few weeks later when I saw a 2009 vintage of the exact same wine for $131 at City Wine Store. 

The Les Chaignots was contrastingly different in appearance to the Berry's Creek. It displayed a crystal clarity with a deep intensity to its clean condition and mahogany colour. Unlike the 2008 Nuits Saint George Bourgogne I enjoyed a few weeks earlier there was no pungency to the initial nose, just a gorgeous pronounced smoky oak aroma with touches of peppery spice. On entry the Les Chaignots showed a medium level of acidity with a tightness that easily and smoothly dissipates into the palate. Much longer and fuller bodied than most Australian Pinot, it delivered a medium dry sweetness that perfectly complemented the smooth velvety tannins. I attribute these fine qualities to age and am once again left lamenting the scarcity of mature Australian Pinot. As I have come to expect from French Burgundy, the flavour was heavily spice driven, which after some discussion we agreed tended toward toasted cardamom. With its intense spice and smooth tannins I rated this wine outstanding. It is easily my benchmark for classic well aged Burgundy.  Now to save my pennies for a bottle of Grand Cru...

In conclusion, both wines were incredibly enjoyable and I felt the musky fruit driven Gippsland Pinot was the perfect lead in to the classically complex French 1er Cru Burgundy. You can read more about Domaine Robert Chevillon here. 

Mae Khong River

he says:

Mae Khong River is a newcomer to the Victoria Street Thai scene having only opened about month ago, however I am very confident they will make a big impact. Mae Khong is possibly suffering a bit of an identity crisis due to the similar named CBD Vietnamese restaurant Pho Bo Ga Mekong (Bill Clinton had two bowls). The Mae Khong river is associated with Vietnam by most people however it actually originates in Tibet and flows though China, Burma, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. The northern Thai have a special affinity with the Mae Khong river and affectionately refer to it as Mother Khong. The section of the river that flows though Thailand is also famous for a natural annual phenomenon called Bung Fai Paya Naka or ‘Naka Fireball’. It’s a visual spectacle steeped in traditional folklore where fireballs appear to rise from the river and ascend into the sky. It is believed that the fireballs belong to the great serpent of the underwater world Phaya Nak and a festival is held each year in October to celebrate the event. You can see some images and more information here.

 
Mae Khong is the sister restaurant of another popular Victoria Street Thai establishment Tom Toon and is affectionately referred to by some as Tom Toon Too. I haven’t yet dined at Tom Toon so I can’t give a comparison of the two. Our two very friendly hosts and part owners khun Jeab and khun Khem explained that Mae Khong has mostly the same menu as Tom Toon with additional seafood specialty dishes that reflect the Isan background of the group of four owners.

Chicken Satay $7.90

To start things off we sampled a selection of delicious dishes from the Mae Khong appetizers starting with the Chicken Satay (Sateh Gai). I can vividly remember the first time I tasted satay way back at Expo 88 in Brisbane. Coming from a fairly sheltered food background in North Queensland it rocked my world! In those days the closest we came to international cuisine was our regular visit to the Sun Doo or Hong Kong Chinese restaurants for the standard order of Lemon Chicken, Honey King Prawns, Beef Black Bean etc… You get the idea. The satay chicken at Mae Khong was the Thai version, as you would expect, and much sweeter and stickier than what you find at Indonesian establishments. I love it, the Thai are so generous with their use of sugar in so many dishes and being a bit of a sugar junkie I think this is one of the reasons I love Thai food.

Stuffed Calamari $14.90

The next offering was another of my favourites, Stuffed Calamari. The stuffing is a mix of pork, carrot, glass noodles, lemongrass, pepper, garlic and the usual secret mix of spices. The blackened charring of the calamari is mouth-wateringly appetizing and maintaining the balance between achieving the scorched exterior while not overcooking the calamari is quite difficult to achieve. I find that the firmer texture of Thai chargrilled calamari takes a little getting used to as the flesh is not melt in the mouth tender like deep fried calamari however it certainly isn’t chewy, it’s just different. The wonderful limey salty seafood dipping sauce (Nahm Jim) is made fresh daily and really gives this dish a free kick right in front of the posts.

Gai Ping $9.90

Ribs are probably my favourite cut of chicken, and for me no visit to the Footscray Market is complete with purchasing at least a kilo. This is Mae Khong’s take on Gai Ping and it’s a great one. Gai Ping is usually cooked over charcoal but given the beautiful crunchy texture of the ribs I’m pretty sure it spent at least part of its cooking time in the deep fryer. Succulent tender crispy chicken and a tamarind chilli sauce with hint of plummy sourness, just sublime.

Som Tum Mee Krob $15.90

This impressive looking dish is Som Tum Mee Krob and is a Mae Khong specialty that I’ve never seen nor heard of previously. Khun Khem proudly informed me that Mae Khong chef and part owner khun Chuma is a past winner of a best som tum competition back in Thailand. I’m not sure if the award was for this particular variation of som tum but if I were a judge in such a competition this dish would be very difficult to go past for the top honour. I loved the flavours but also loved the creativity of combining crispy fried rice noodles with the crunchy fresh green papaya. The usual som tum suspects were also present, chewy dried prawns, acidic tomato, cashews, snake beans and Mae Khong’s specially made and very popular fried pork crisps (Khaep Moo) which make a decadent salty snack and are also available for take-away. 

Som tum is traditionally served with sticky rice (Khao Niaw) which is eaten by pinching small clumps in the fingertips and rolling it into little balls them dipping the chewy clumps into the som tam dressing. Mae Khong serve their own special version that was imparted with an earthy nuttiness thanks once again to the addition of secret ingredients.

Guay Jub Moo $11.90

The next two dishes are where things got very exciting for me. I am obsessed with Thai noodle soups, to me they are something of an enigma. The powerfully flavoured clear broths just send my taste buds into a dizzying frenzy. Spooning a mouthful of the exotic elixir triggers a heavenly sensation where my eyes involuntarily close and my head rolls back in rapture. 

The first of the two masterpieces of Thai cuisine that I sampled that evening was Guay Jub Moo. The magnificent pork broth is complemented by tender stewed pieces of fatty pork chops, sliced fish cake (Luk Chin Pla), morning glory (Pak Boong) and boiled quail eggs that when bitten burst their creamy yolk and send this dish to another dimension.

Yes, I really loved this dish but I am completely mad for Thai noodle soups and this was easily one of the best I have enjoyed in Melbourne. Guay Jab is typically eaten for breakfast in Thailand and traditionally it also contains various kinds of offal. OK now I love a noodle soup and like to think of myself as a food traditionalist but offal for breakfast, even I have to draw the line at that one! Thankfully the Mae Khong version didn’t contain any of those suspicious looking giblets. Another point of interest with Guay Jub is the use of curly flat rice noodles. This was yet another ingredient I’d never seen or read about before, yes the whole evening was quite a learning experience for me and I loved it! The noodles were texturally quite different with a buttery creaminess unlike any rice noodles I’ve previously eaten. I don’t remember seeing this dish on any Thai menu in Melbourne and for that reason alone it is worth the visit to Mae Khong.

Kuay Tiau Gai Sen Lek $9.90

I thought that the amazing Guaj Jub was going to be a hard act to follow and was tempering my expectations so as not to unfairly judge the next dish. I needn’t have bothered. Up next was Kuay Tiau Gai which immediately took up where the Guay Jub left off. This time the broth was chicken based and equally sublime with notes of cinnamon and five spice. Khun Khem advised me that the soup had already been seasoned by the chef and no further additions were necessary. The Thai custom as I understand it is to use a circle of seasonings (Kreuang Puang) consisting of fish sauce (Nahm Pla), chilli flakes (Prik Pom), chillies in vinegar (Prik Dong) and white sugar to season their noodle soups to each individual's personal taste in a similar way to the western use of salt and pepper. After the fantastic experience to that point I was more than willing to eat as instructed and did not attempt to adjust my broth with any seasonings. In addition to the perfectly seasoned chicken broth, further flavour was delivered by shredded chicken and spongy chicken balls. In Thailand most soup noodle vendors will allow you to select your preference of noodles from thin vermicelli rice noodles (Sen Mee), medium rice noodles as used in Pad Thai (Sen Lek), wide rice noodles as used in Pad See Euw (Sen Yai) or my personal favourite thin egg noodles (Bamee). Chef Chuma selected sen lek for this dish which is not what I normally choose but once again I was more than happy with his decision.

I rarely fault Thai food and my rating scale usually starts with ‘ok’ at the lower end and then heads north from there and I have been pretty open about the bias induced by my love of Thai noodle soups but I have to rate both these dishes as absolutely outstanding! Even more exciting is that Mae Khong also serve an Egg Noodle Soup with Duck (Kuay Tiau Ped Bamee) that I will be returning for very soon.

Pla Yum $30.90

By this stage we were completely full but out of some kind of extreme hospitality that khun Khem insisted was the Thai way she appeared with yet another dish! And not just any dish, a whole deep fried Barramundi served with a mint and coriander salad (Pla Yum). I had joked to friends that this reviewing game was a tough job and at that point I felt like I was literally eating my words! The deep fried fish was cooked in what I have come to accept as the Thai style, meaning that it was cooked until quite crispy which leaves the flesh not as moist as you typically expect. I’ve become accustomed to this style of preparation and have learned to enjoy the crunchiness of the fried skin and find that the dipping sauce imparts a moistness that offsets the slight dryness of the flesh. The accompanying salad is wonderfully Thai with freshness delivered by the aromatic herbs and a wonderful lingering flavour imbued by the lime, chilli and fish sauce dressing.

Deep Fried Pastry with Banana Dumplings and Ice Cream $9.90

Khun Khem is a wonderful host who I felt really treats her customers like they were guests in her own home. I witnessed her friendly affable interactions with other tables as well as our own. She is very hospitable but also very persuasive, although given our weakness for Thai desserts her rebuff of our somewhat half-hearted calls for ‘no more please’ was not completely her fault. After her cheeky offer of ‘just one more small dessert’ we succumbed and were brought a delicious creation of Deep Fried Pastry with Banana Dumplings (Khao Tom Mud) and Ice Cream drizzled in sweet condensed milk. Like our dining experience that evening, this post seems like it has gone on and on so I will attempt to wrap it up. The dessert was excellent, not too heavy with a myriad of textures ranging from chewy to crunchy to creamy, just wonderful! I particularly liked the banana dumping and if you have never tried the Thai preparation of banana with sticky rice I strongly suggest that you remedy that omission.

In conclusion, I’ll keep it brief. If you love authentic Thai food get to Mae Khong at your first opportunity, I’m very sure you won’t be disappointed.

This review was conducted in my capacity as restaurant reviewer for ‘Thailiciouz’. I dined as a guest of the restaurant who knew in advance that I would be dining there, and selected the dishes they wanted to showcase. This review is reproduced on www.thailiciouz.com.au Please visit the ‘Thailiciouz’ website for information on how you can receive hot deals from various Thai eateries, massage parlours and other contemporary Thai businesses.

Tom Phat

she says:

Saturday morning we were excited to wake up and go out for breakfast to a place in Carlton that we had been told about called Middle Fish.  It is a rarity for us to go out for breakfast on the weekend so we were really looking forward to it.  Charlie wakes with the birds so we were out very early only to discover that Middle Fish didn't open until 10am.  Ouch.........but disappointment only lasted a few minutes as Andy of course had a back up plan!  Enter Tom Phat.........

After a short drive to Sydney Rd we arrived at Tom Phat.  Upon arrival I was immediately excited!  The fit out was very cool and the front window seat was a lounge with cushions - perfect seating for a lazy Saturday morning.

After ordering coffees (which were excellent by the way) we ordered Black Sticky Rice with Mango, Coconut and Jaggery Yoghurt and Viet Eggs with Hanoi Baguette (we also ordered good old poached eggs and toast for Charlie and she was suitably impressed - well the eggs ended up all over her which is a sign of a very satisfied toddler).

They were out of Hanoi Baguettes for the Viet eggs so they served it with roti instead which we thought was a master stroke.  We love roti and it is not as filling as a baguette.  The fried eggs were nice and crunchy on the outside and soft in the middle which is just how we like them and the chilli soy dressing added a really nice flavour to the dish.  I will leave it to Andy to explain more on the Viet eggs as I did only have a taste - I was hanging to dive into my Sticky rice!

The Black Sticky Rice with Mango and Yoghurt was unbelievable!  The black sticky rice was lovely and plump and the yoghurt had a sharp sourness to it which I really enjoyed.  My favourite part of the dish was the placement of the mango.  There was a sort of mashed mango on top which was cool in temperature and then on the bottom there was chunks of warm mango!  When I first dipped my spoon into the bottom and tasted a piece of the warm mango I was in heaven!  This is a dish that starts off great and ends up amazing!  A perfect (and a bit indulgent) breaky!

We really enjoyed our morning at Tom Phat and I know we will be back soon.  It looks like it would be a great place to go for dinner and a few drinks....they have another room next door to the room we were in and again it has an interesting fit out with a what looks to be a well stocked bar.  This room was not really open when we were there in the morning (lights were off) but I couldn't help taking a few pics.

Tom Phat
184 Sydney Rd
Brunswick
Ph. 9381 2374

Speedy Banh Mi

he says:

Most readers will already know about my love of Vietnamese Banh Mi, on a weekend I can often be found negotiating the masses at Nhu Lan in Footscray. I often lament the lack of a decent CBD Banh Mi option. Actually I lament the fact that my office isn't located in Footscray! Imagine the lunch options.... N Lee are the standard CBD banh mi provider and they do a pretty good job of the simple sliced pork roll banh mi and also quite a good meatball option and I don't mind paying the $6.50 which many see as an exorbitant price for banh mi but I justify it that it stacks up pretty well against the price of a standard meat and salad roll and punches out about 10 times the flavour.

I was recently tipped off (Thanks Amy!) about a new CBD banh mi player in a little foodcourt at the Spencer Street end of Collins street (546 Collins to be exact). The day after receiving the recommendation I headed down there to check it out.

The place is called Speedy's and they offer 6 different choices of banh mi but the special players for me are the grilled chicken and grilled pork. You can't get these anywhere else in the CBD so it's worth a visit just to try them out. All rolls are $4.90 which is pretty competitive and they also have a combo can of drink deal for $6.50. There is also a smoothie combo deal for $9.95.

I opted for the grilled pork and was very pleased that I did. My roll was packed full of pork which is a nice change from Nhu Lan where they are a bit more traditionally skimpy with the meat. I say traditionally I as I must have eaten a dozen different versions of banh mi when we were in Vietnam and all of them were totally wonderful but light on the meat. I also really liked that Speedy used a Nuoc Mam sauce rather than the N Lee style Maggi seasoning compromise. It just doesn't cut it for me and given that Nuoc Mam is so easy to make and really sets off a banh mi the use of Maggi seasoning doesn't make sense.

The only downside to the Speedy Banh Mi offering was the roll, it was not quite as good as N Lee and therefore even further short of the high quality crispy and crunchy but still soft inside offering of Nhu Lan. This isn't a deterrent though, the Speedy product is of a high standard and definitely worth the $4.90. I have a feeling that on a different day the roll might have more freshness and the banh mi would  be that much better for it. Nhu Lan rolls are the benchmark in my opinion so its tough to make the comparison, especially as Speedy's clearly don't have the room or scale of operation to bake their own. As I don't work in Footscray and often crave banh mi I'm more than happy to make this small compromise.

Oriental Spirit

he says: 

Oriental Spirit is one of a number of excellent Thai restaurants in the Hoddle street end of Victoria Street, Richmond. This area contains one of the highest concentrations of Thai restaurants in Melbourne and is a must visit for any foodie who takes their Thai food seriously. If you use a bit of imagination this stretch of Victoria Street could be any of the Sois off Sukhumvit Road in Bangkok. Only the frequent tram’s constantly rumbling past remind you that you are still in glorious Melbourne.

Before opening Oriental Spirit over 7 years ago, owner and chef Krisada ran his own restaurant back in the Isan region capital of Chiang Mai in northern Thailand. Although Oriental Spirit specialises in Thai cuisine, khun Krisada also offers an interesting selection of non-Thai dishes including Curry Laksa, Peking Duck and Fish Chilli Sambal. That said, it is his Thai offerings that he is most proud of.

For our visit he recommended a delightful selection of dishes starting with Oysters with Lemongrass which is his take on Modern Thai cuisine, a cooking style that I broadly define as a blend of western food styling and traditional Thai flavours and cooking techniques.  The Oysters in Lemongrass are an excellent showcase of chef Krisada’s interpretation of these cultural combinations, served in a traditional clay kanom krok cooking implement, the immaculate presentation would not be out of place at any of Melbourne’s high end south east asian restaurants.

Oysters with Lemongrass $11.90

The oysters are served partially heated leaving them not quite raw and not quite cooked. I found this quite an interesting decision however I felt that the subtle heating assisted to bring out the flavour of the wonderfully spicy sweet lemongrass and ginger scented sauce in which they were served. The sweetness was offset nicely by the saltiness of the oysters and the accompanying kick of chilli gave a casual (and I suspect unintentional) hat tip to an oyster bloody mary.

The next dish to arrive was the beautifully presented Pineapple Fried Rice (khao pad siparot). The presentation of this dish will be familiar to most who have visited Thailand, a hollowed out pineapple stuffed full of sumptuous fried rice with sweet chunks of pineapple. On feasting my eyes on this wonderful creation I was immediately scouring the table for my pina colada! Khao pad is a staple for the Thai however most will not take their daily dose of khao pad presented with such splendour.

Pineapple Fried Rice $17.90

Aside from the presentation, this flashed up version of khao pad definitely delivers on taste with juicy whole king prawns and moist pieces of chicken thighs providing the substance to partner the gorgeously wok smoky fried rice. Khun Krisada’s version of khao pad is not particularly spicy but rather more on the sweet side thanks to the addition of sultanas and of course pineapple. The use of lovely nutty salty cashews, sweet shredded pork and crunchy textural snake beans make this version of fried rice unmistakably Thai. In additional to providing visual appeal, the pineapple also serves as a very functional serving vessel that seemed to have no end. I found this dish deceptively large and had to return to it a number of times until I finally caught a few glimpses of pineapple flesh beneath the rice that indicated the end was nigh.

Our final dish for the evening (or so we thought) was the one that we were most excited about, Crispy Papaya Salad (som tum thod). Som tum is definitely as Isan specialty and it is very common in Bangkok to see groups of construction workers from the north enjoying fierily hot bowls of this for their lunch. Aside from it being a traditional favourite of the Isan people its inexpensiveness makes it very accessible to the lower income workers. Street food vendors who serve som tum will almost always also sell grilled chicken (gai yang) and those with means will eat the two together while those without receive their protein from the dried shrimps that add a contrasting chewy texture to the crunchy shredded green papaya.

Som Tum Thod $13.90

I love a good som tum as much as the next person but what got me salivating in excitement was chef Krisada’s version of this traditional Isan dish. The word ‘thod’ in Thai means fried which confused me a bit at first as I though that ‘pad’ meant fried as in khao pad where khao is rice and pad is fried. I’m still not completely sure but I have decided that pad is for food that is wok fried and thod for food fried in any other cooking implement.

In the thod version of som tum the shredded green papaya and carrot is deep fried to achieve a wonderfully crisp crunchy texture and divine flavour that is even further enhanced by the zesty, sweet and very spicy dressing. Thai chefs guard their dressing recipes very zealously and I was unable to pry much information from khun Krisada as to its construction. My palate detected lime juice, palm sugar and fish sauce but there’s no great revelation there as these three ingredients are used in almost all Thai dressings and dipping sauces. Earthy peanuts, acidic tomatoes, chewy dried shrimps and spicy chillies added further complexity to this very special variant of som tum. 

Thai Bitter Leaf $2.50 each

Perhaps our host felt our excitement for his efforts or perhaps he was just feeling generous as even though our appetites were well and truly satiated he brought forward one last wonderful creation from his kitchen. The Oriental Spirit menu lists this magnificent snack as Thai Bitter Leaf (miang kham). Typically in my experience a betel leaf is used for wrapping up the contents of this little parcel of goodness. The Oriental Spirit version uses a pak kana (Chinese broccoli) leaf, which I felt was an interesting variation. In any case, the wrapping is merely a support act for the symphony of flavour and texture contained within its folds. The myriad of ingredients make identifying any individual element very difficult however chef Krisada very kindly informed me that I was enjoying a blend of galangal, ginger, palm sugar, chilli, lime, shallots, cashews, toasted shredded coconut, chilli and a sublime sticky sweet sauce of gapi (shrimp paste), tamarind, sugar and I’m sure a few more secret ingredients.

While I had noticed Oriental Spirit on previous visits to Richmond I hadn’t identified it as a Thai restaurant, perhaps that’s due to the name Oriental Spirit which doesn’t leap out at you as sounding particularly Thai or maybe its just that I’m not very observant. I’m sometimes a bit averse to restaurants that try and combine multiple cuisines. Personally, I preference specialisation over diversification. In saying that, Oriental Spirit has given me cause to reassess. I’m still not sure it would be my choice if I had a craving for Laksa but after meeting khun Krisada and tasting some of his food I am comfortable recommending Oriental Spirit to those wanting to try a modern take on Thai cuisine without the high prices of some of the high end CBD southeast asian restaurants. 

This review was conducted in my capacity as restaurant reviewer for ‘Thailiciouz’. I dined as a guest of the restaurant who knew in advance that I would be dining there, and selected the dishes they wanted to showcase. This review is reproduced on www.thailiciouz.com.au. Please visit the ‘Thailiciouz’ website for information on how you can receive hot deals from various Thai eateries, massage parlours and other contemporary Thai businesses. 

Quan Viet

he says:

A few months ago I learned about Quan Viet in Braybrook thanks again to Lauren from Footscray Food Blog. Aside from Lauren's glowing review, my interest was particularly piqued by their Banh Khot. I was obsessed with with dish ever since we returned from Hoi An in Vietnam where I had tried it at a little hawker stall in the Old Town district. One of the great things about travelling overseas is of course all the wonderful new food that you get to try, however I also really enjoy the challenge of seeking to find those same meals locally when I get back home. Banh Khot was one of those dishes and I had spent hours trying to find either a local restaurant that made them or even better a recipe that I could use to try and make them myself. For a long time I really struggled to find anything other than a passing reference and certainly nothing substantial enough to get excited about. I got a small breakthough when chatting with the Vietnamese barrista at my local morning coffee haunt. You see I had been looking for Banh Can (Nem Cha) which was how the dish was advertised on the vendor's sign in Hoi An. You can image that it was quite diffuclt as google kept replacing Banh Can with Banh Canh which is an entirely different dish of crab soup! 

This is a photo I took at the time and you can see some better photos, one that shows the sign with banh can nem cha and a few other better close up shots here, here and here. The dish is very similar to banh khot however in this version pork sausage is used hence the nem cha which roughly translates to grilled pork sausage. They were so delicious I couldn't get them out of mind! Closure was desperately needed! So I showed the picture to my barista who immediately recognised them as Banh Khot and gave me a whole new line of inquiry to follow up. I got my first lead via Almost Always Ravenous which directed me to Than Ha 2 in Richmond. I was over there in a flash and in quick time had scoffed down two plates (just to be sure) as well as a few other great Thanh Ha 2 offerings. They left me satisfied in that I had at least been able to scratch the itch that had been nagging at me for so long but I also felt that they weren't quite right, somehow they were a bit biscuity and not quite crispy and light like I remembered them. I had also purchased a Banh Kan/Khot pan from a grocer in Hoi An which after my visit to Thanh Ha 2 I was inspired to dig out of the cupboard and see if I could get any closer to the Banh Can I so desperately craved. I took a pretty simple approach and used a bag of pre mix Banh Xeo batter and for a first go I was pretty happy with my efforts. 

Then one day Lauren posted about a little place in Braybrook called Quan Viet and I finally got my closure, well close enough anyway. So I have decided that Banh Khot is probably regional variation of Banh Can as the latter is usually served with grilled pork balls similar to Nem Nuong and also often comes with crunchy shredded green papaya along with of course nuoc mam. Now I'd never even heard of Braybook let along been there so we checked it out on the map and headed out there at the first opportunity. It was to be the first of many visits...

Quan Viet is a lovely and very friendly little restaurant on a local suburban shopping strip that you wouldn't expect to house a little gem like Quan Viet. This is the case for many of the great little local restaurants that Lauren has located and certainly makes me stop and look a bit harder every time I pass a quiet little suburban shopping strip. (Sweet Rice in Altona also comes to mind, but that's another obsession for another time). The Quan Viet Banh Khot are really something special and definitely worth the drive to Braybrook. The even better news is that Quan Viet also have  lots of other fantastic dishes on offer, not least of which is their awesome custard apple smoothies (again, another obsession was triggered).

One of the other dishes worth travelling west for is the Banh Xeo. Yes I know what you're saying, you can get that in Footscray, Richmond, the city etc. The thing is, Quan Viet's version is really quite different from what you get in the places I just listed. I have a suspicion that Quan Viet is more of a regional specific restaurant, they also serve another very obscure rice paper roll dish called Nem Cuon Nha Trang so that makes me think their dishes have a Nha Trang regional spin. The Banh Xeo is not huge like a lot of other places but you get two pancakes and they are a lot fatter than most. More interestingly the batter is crispy and crunchy but with a wonderful chewiness that I have never experienced before. They don't peel the prawns either which can be confronting for some but I reckon it adds a nice extra texture to the dish.

Both dishes come with one of the more generous plates piled with mint and lettuce and the Nuoc Cham is also pretty special. Quan Viet was our go to Vietnamese restaurant for a long time and every so often we get an itch for Banh Khot that can only be scratched by a drive to Quan Viet in Braybrook. 

Bun Rieu at Dinh Son Quan

he says:

OK so another admission, I'm not in love with Pho... It's not that I dislike it, I think maybe it's just a bit too subtle for my taste. In Vietnam, as I understand it, Pho is mostly eaten as a morning meal which  makes more sense to me. If any of the Vietnamese restaurants in the CBD were open early enough I'd happily slurp up a bowl of Pho Bo or Pho Ga for breakfast but sadly they aren't and I can never get organised enough to find my way to Footscray, Sunshine or St Albans on the weekends. While I'm making admissions, I have ordered the 'Dac Biet' variation (with offal and ducks blood etc) a few times but most of the special 'Dac Biet' goodies ended up being left in the bowl for the wait staff to collect...

So maybe I'm missing out, maybe I'm not. I don't feel too bad about it because whenever the weather gets a bit colder, Tina and I almost without a word spoken decide to head to Dinh Son Quan for a bowl of Bun Rieu or Bun Bo Hue. Bun Bo Hue is totally delicious but that's for another time, today is about Bun Rieu! 

Dinh Son Quan have a number of specialties, including the Banh Cuon and Banh Cong dish that Lauren from Footscray Food Blog recently posted about. I also check the bain marie every visit searching (in vain) for the pork stuffed calamari dish that I had there ages ago and am desperately hoping will one day return. My personal discovery of Bun Rieu came from the Dinh Son Quan corkboard that contains a number of dishes listed in Vietnamese that when I first saw it were all a complete mystery to me. I don't have a photo of the mystery board but you can see it in this old post of Lauren's from 2010. It's a bit of a golden rule of mine that if a restaurant had a board with a list of dishes that's separate to the main menu these are the ones to try. Invariably they are the house specialties and more often than not they are the dishes that you're less likely to find anywhere else. The first time I noticed the corkboard I was not an iPhone owner so settled for scribbling down as many of the dishes as possible and returned home to research which ones to try on my next visit. After a quick google I had Bun Rieu at the top of my list. 

Bun Rieu is basically a tomato flavoured chicken or pork broth with my favourite thin rice noodles (thicker than vermicelli), fried tofu, Vietnamese pork loaf (Cha Lua) and the best bit, the crab and pork meatballs. When you eat Bun Rieu you notice that the meatballs aren't particularly well formed but seem to be these random clumps of pork and crab mix that taste awesome and have a particularly delicate texture, far more delicate than you could achieve by forming them with your hands and adding them to the soup. One of the things that makes Bun Rieu so interesting is that cooking it is like a gastronomic science experiment. What I mean is that the pork and crab mince is mixed with a few beaten eggs and forms a very watery, almost sauce like liquid which is certainly nothing like the meatball texture of the finished dish. When the soup has achieved the right balance from the stock, the crab, pork and egg liquid is poured into the soup over a gentle heat where it then magically melds into beautiful tender random clumps. It's actually quite an interesting process and not like anything I've seen before in Western cooking. If you want to have a go at cooking it yourself at home, a few recipe suggestions are gastronomy, Miss Adventure at Home and of course YouTube has a number of videos worth checking out. Check out Miss Adventure's Vietnamese recipe section while you're there, many of my favourite recipes have come from her blog. 

Now if you can't be bothered cooking Bun Rieu yourself then head to Dinh Son Quan, preferably on a colder day. Otherwise, if you're in the city Vietnamese Noodle House does a pretty decent version too. I find the Bun Rieu broth more flavoursome and much richer than Pho and as with most Vietnamese noodle soups adding of lots of sliced chillies only adds to the enjoyment. The crab and pork clumps are like delicious little hidden treasures that I find myself digging around searching for. And personally, I prefer the thin rice noodles over the more cumbersome wide noodles that are used in Pho but that's just me!