Flavor Boulevard

Yesterday was Flavor Boulevard’s 3rd birthday. Today is my nth birthday. Back in 2010, a good friend of mine used to give me a ride to San Jose at least once every other month, sometimes more, when I got cravings for Vietnamese food, and especially when the Lunar New Year approached. When Flavor Boulevard was about one year old, things got complicated. Long story short, I hadn’t been back to San Jose for two years. – Why? You couldn’t rent a car? – Well… you know the stereotype that Asian girls can’t drive? It’s true for this one. It’s embarrassing. People, even those who don’t like driving, feel much more relaxed when they drive me than when I drive them. I’m also used to driving in Houston, where signs are helpful and people are friendly. Driving in California scares me. I’ve been here for 4 years, driven here twice, and both times reaffirmed my scare. So Vietnamese food cravings are satiated with the places in Oakland, where I can reach by bus. I don’t remember what I did for the 2012 Tet (Vietnamese lunar new year), and there seems to be no record of it on Flavor Boulevard.

Then one day Mom decided: “Rent a car and go with Kristen to San Jose. It’ll be good for you to drive, and I wouldn’t worry as much as if you drive alone.” I asked Kristen, she agreed to join me (brave girl). I felt nervous and excited. I reserved a car. Step 1 complete.

I signed the paperwork and got the key. I turned on the engine. Yes! Step 2 complete.

I drove from Enterprise to Kristen‘s house. Minus the two times people honked at me and one strange male voice “where are you going baby?” that came from nowhere (there was no green light to turn left, I got confused and stopped at the intersection for god knows how long), I’d say it went smoothly. I parked across the street from her place. The phone call “I’m here” to her was the most accomplishing moment I felt last week. Step 3 complete.

There is a huge difference between driving alone and driving with another person. It’s more huge than the difference between I-880 from Oakland to San Jose and US-59 in Houston. We arrived at the Lion Supermarket. Step 4 complete.

We ate.

Cold-cuts bánh mì (silk sausage and pate).
Grilled pork bánh mì (also with pate).
A wider-than-my-hand ice cream bar with frozen banana, jackfruit, coconut shavings and peanuts that sent both of us back into the car to rest. (While resting, we sipped on sugar cane juice (with a salted kumquat) and tried to figure out the flavors of two frozen treats that tasted durian one minute, passion fruit the next, and jackfruit the next next. Those were weird.)
A giganmongous plate of bánh cuốn (steamed rice roll), where the rolls (quite a few of them too) were completely buried underneath a thousand other things: an eggroll, an infinite amount of chả lụa (silk sausage), fried shrimp sausage on sugar cane stick, bánh cống (fried mung bean bread), and a shrimp wafer. (We couldn’t finish this plate. A mere $10, not the best banh cuon I’ve ever had, but the leftover was enough for my dinner.)

We bought.

Bánh chưng for Tet.
Chewy sesame candy (mè xửng) and candied coconut strips, also for Tet.
Cha lua.
Pickled mustard greens.
Banana bread pudding.
Bánh xu xê.
Some fermented tofu cookies (I haven’t tried them yet, but Kristen said she likes them, so I think I’d like them too…)
Eleven green waffles at the Century Bakery, because when you buy 10 you get 1 free.
And other food things…

We drove back.

Minus one tiny tiny incident where stupid me forgot the key inside the car, locked us out, had to call Roadside Assistance and waited 30 minutes for the rescue, I’d say Step 5 was wildly successful.

I dropped Kristen off. Refilled the tank. Drove to Enterprise. Tried to park between a gargantuan 12-seat van (or maybe 17?) and a car. Got myself halfway into the spot and literally one inch away from the van before realizing that I could either stop or crash into the van. This was 7 pm, dark enough that the pedestrians who were pointing and laughing at my ridiculous situation couldn’t really see my face (I hope). Step 6 very far from complete. I called Kristen for rescue. She and her boyfriend rushed over. It was one of those moments when your friends seem to appear with a shining halo and white wings. I felt forever indebted to them.

When that car got into the spot (Kristen‘s boyfriend moved it like nothing at all), I sighed in relief, and strangely, my fear of driving in California also evaporated. The last barrier between me and food removed. I thought about the next trip to San Jose with ease. Now I can go there any time I want. Now I can have banh chung for Tet again. Now I can go everywhere.

Step 7 complete.

Step 8: learn how to park.

Happy Lunar New Year! Happy birthday to me. 🙂

Addresses:
Kim’s Sandwiches
1816 Tully Rd, San Jose, CA 95122
(408) 270-8903
CD Bakery
1816 Tully Road, Store #198, San Jose, CA 95122
(408) 238-1484
Thien Huong Banh Cuon Trang Hoi
1818 Tully Rd, San Jose, CA 95122
(408) 238-8485
Century Bakery (inside Grand Century Mall)
1111 Story Rd, San Jose, CA 95122
(408) 287-9188

P.S. Check out Kristen’s post about our adventure on her blog, she described the food in details. 😉

…1. The kumquat branches bear their multitudes of gold baubles, the tangerines and pomelos swell and shine, the dragon fruits and rambutans are happily sought for because of their festive shapes and colors;

…2. The white grey front patio of Grand Century Mall and its adjacents is blushed with firecracker remnants, and if you’re there at the right moment, your ears would be blasted by the continuous loud popping of an ignited long Chinese squib, its color matched only by the ruby peach blossoms in full bloom;

…3. The usually dormant stores that sell Vietnamese beef jerkies and dried plums awakens in a sudden selling frenzy: tasting, weighing, packaging, paying, people queuing…

… mostly for the dried candied fruits known as mứt Tết.

…4. It takes 30 minutes to get in and out of the mall and market parking lots in San Jose and then park on the neighborhood street, because parts of the lot are reserved for Chinese chess, fruit stalls, music stalls, peach blossom trees,…

… cotton candy and green waffles, sunshine orchid corners, still, everybody is in a good mood;

…5. The Buddhist nuns and pious pagoda goers gather to wrap and steam hundreds of banh chung banh tet, pickle jars of cucumber, carrot, củ kiệu, cabbage, daikon…

… all of which are vegetarian, in small quantity, usually tasty, and always more expensive than anywhere else.

As independent of religions and politics as the mark of spring is, you know it’s Tet where the flag still flies.

Given how often my family comes here, I feel obliged to give this store a proper post. About every other week or so, my parents make the hour-long drive to get a loaf or two of cha lua (silk sausage) and maybe a few Vietnamese between-a-snack-and-a-meal goodies. The affable owner lady knows our usual grabs, and we know her trustworthy provision. Whether it’s wrapped in banana leaves, aluminum foil, or cling wrap, Giò Chả Đức Hương has the best of its kind in Bellaire.

The shelves of nem (fermented pounded pork sausage), bánh tét (sticky rice log), and bánh ít (sticky rice pyramid). These small bánh tét are sold all year round, they are only about 4 inches long, usually with vegan filling (mung bean paste or banana). They make an appropriate snack for a teenager, but usually a little too much for me. Unwrapped below, left-right-down: bánh giò – bánh ít – bánh tét:

Bánh giò always reside on the front counter, next to loads of chả (sausages). There are chả chiên (fried), chả lụa (lean pork), chả Huế (spicy), chả bò (beef), chả gà nấm hương (chicken and shiitake), and boxes of chà bông (also known as  ruốc in the North, pork floss in English, and similar to rousong in Chinese).

A few more pictures of bánh tét just to do partial justice of how many kinds they have there:

Black bean mixed with sticky rice, disrupting the usual smooth glutinous texture by nutty bites.

Sticky rice mixed with pandan leaf extract for flavor and color. A sweet touch.

Plain white sticky rice, usual fatty pork and mung bean paste filling. The classic.

Address: Đức Hương Giò Chả in Bellaire, Houston
11369 Bellaire Blvd, Ste 950
Houston, TX 77072
(near the Vietnam War Memorial)
(281) 988-6155

This sausage store sets their price a knuckle higher than the Asian markets, but the care, the freshness, and the family touch are unbeatable.

Bánh chưng and bánh tét to the Vietnamese Tết are like turkey and ham to the American Thanksgiving. The holiday feast just wouldn’t feel right without them. Although I have blogged about these sticky rice squares and logs before, the lunar new year has come back, and so are they. Sticky rice can be uberfilling in large quantity, and like all festive food, it’s not recommended that you feast on these dense beasts day after day, as satisfaction would turn into tiresomeness. But once a year, or maybe twice, a couple slices of banh tet sound so much more interesting than cereal, rice, even noodle soup.

Banh chung and banh tet have rather similar ingredients, especially when they’re made by Vietnamese Southerners. Both are wrapped in leaves (although slightly different kinds of leaves), and boiled for hours in water that is sometimes spiced with lemongrass. After cooking, a heavy weight is put on banh chung to drain the water, while banh tet are rolled around to perfect the cylindrical shape. I remember we used to hang pairs of banh tet in my grandfather’s kitchen, taking one down everyday during the week of Tet to whip out a nice settling meal with thịt kho trứng (pork and egg stew), dưa giá (pickled bean sprout),  and spring rolls. There are the savory kind with meat and mung bean paste, and the vegan kind for those who want to practice self-control on the first day of Tet. In Houston, my mom usually gets the savory kind from Giò Chả Đức Hương, where we also get our cha lua supply, and the vegan kind from Linh Son pagoda. I branched out this year and tried a meaty log from Huong Lan Sandwiches 4 in Milpitas.

Their banh tet measures about 7 inches long, making eight thick nice slices, each has a chunk of fatty pork in the middle, pink and spiced with pepper. The sticky rice coat here gave its leaf wrapping a bit insecure sliminess when we first unraveled, but all was well. The banh tet smelled great, the sticky rice has a tight but soft texture. The seasoned bean paste is just salty enough to intrigue. In some way, banh tet is better than banh chung because every bite guarantees a bit of everything. No piece will miss the meat completely and no bite will get all the meat, the stuffing is even throughout the whole banh.  It was honestly good by itself without condiments. Huong Lan Sandwiches had not failed me.

And neither did Thao Tien. When we got there last week in our quail quest, Thao Tien’s employees were busy running a small table pyramidized with banh chung and banh tet. They locate nicely in front of the Grand Century mall, passed by hundreds of people Tet shopping that day. Seeing the sale went like hot cakes (the sticky rice cakes were actually still warm), we were too eager to snatch one home that we forgot to check the tiny white sticker on the side. Surprise, we had grabbed a bánh tét chuối (banana banh tet).

It’s solely vegan. The sticky rice coat is made interesting with dots of black beans on shiny green background. The core is sweet, mushy banana in a reddish purple hue. This is just the usual ivory banana that always ripe too soon, but somehow slow cooking in a compact block of sticky rice wrapped by banana leaves makes the fruit change color. Chemical reactions? It still tastes sweet, with a hint of bitter (for lack of a better word) like a guava skin. And it looks beautiful to me.

The banana banh tet also goes well with my rotisserie chicken from Safeway, minus the guilt of defeating the whole vegan purpose thing. Thao Tien’s logs are also shamelessly long, almost two times bigger than Huong Lan’s. I will be eating banh tet every day for the rest of the week. Happy Tết to bánh tét and me!

Address: Hương Lan Sandwiches 4
41 Serra Way, Ste. 108
Milpitas, CA 95035
1 bánh tét with meat: $6

Thảo Tiên restaurant
Grand Century Mall
1111 Story Road #1080
San Jose, CA 95122
1 vegan banana bánh tét: $10

You know how school kids don’t get tired of peanut butter sandwich even if they eat it every day for lunch? Well, every time I catch the BART down to Fremont, it’s hard to pass up the chance to stop by Huong Lan Sandwich in Milpitas for a fresh crusty loaf, or many of those banh mi’s – a week’s supply for lunch.

When in California, be liberal. The store has diversity. Above is packages of bánh bèo (white) and most likely bánh bột lọc (leaf-wrapped). Many kinds of cookies, crackers, shrimp chips, and other snacks unknown to ubercmuc. Below is the real goodies: nice warm bánh bao (steamed pork bun), bánh cốm (the bright green flat thing), bánh giò (leaf-wrapped pyramid), and mini bánh chưng (the squares).

Here’s the square unwrapped and cut in four. The pork is fatty, which is not quite right, but nonetheless it’s well done. So the story goes as follows: in a competition among the princes in ancient Vietnam, the king asked all the princes to find an exceptionally good food. The youngest prince, having no money and little power, couldn’t afford fancy stuff like ginseng and who knows what in the woods, so with the advice of a god in his dream, he took sticky rice, meat, and mung bean to make a bánh, wrapped in lá dong (Phrynium placentarium), and boiled for hours. The bánh is a green square, symbolizing the square Earth, pork – the animal, and mung bean – the plants. So I suppose fatty or lean pork doesn’t really matter to the story. After all, we have some really chubby animal, not just skinny ones. Mung bean seems to be Vietnamese’s favorite legume, just like red bean is to the Japanese. Perhaps because it’s good as a paste (in both sweet and savory bánh), a powder (on xôi), whole beans (in sweet deserts like chè), and as an ice cream flavor.

Don’t let size tricks you. Half of this mini bánh chưng definitely made a filling breakfast, the whole thing would be too filling. And if you’re too full you wouldn’t be able to eat a nice crusty bánh mì for lunch… uhm hmm…

Look at all that pickled carrots and radish. It’s a balanced meal. I usually get bánh mì thịt nướng (grilled pork), but that is proven quality, so this time gà nướng (grilled chicken) is up for test. I should stress that no matter what the filling is, a banh mi can never go wrong. You can put just soy sauce and a banana in it, and it would still be yummy. Something about the crusty, flaky bread that makes everything better. Back to the chicken. Well, it’s not dark meat, and it’d take some serious brining to make white meat flavorful. So let’s put it gently, I’ll be loyal to grilled pork.

Hương Lan must be a chain, or it’s just a name sandwich-makers like. They’re everywhere in this area, but I believe every store has a different touch to it. Here they put peanuts and nước mắm in the grilled pork bánh mì. The more flavors the merrier. Address: 41 Serra Way #108, Milpitas.

Oh, the end of the story is, the youngest prince, proved to be the wisest, was chosen for the crown. 🙂

Linh Son pagoda, Houston, click on the image to see more pictures of the pagoda.

Linh Son pagoda, Houston. Click on the image to see more pictures of the pagoda.
Although not all Vietnamese living oversea can take a day off to go to the pagodas on the first day of Tet, many manage to keep the tradition. Of course there is no strict requirement that one has to be looking at and praying to the Buddha at a certain day, for a certain amount of time, or with a certain prayer. Tet is not a religious based tradition. But many Buddhist and even non-Buddhists like to go to the pagodas on the first day of Tet to have a peaceful start of the new year, to feel spiritually lightened (hopefully enlightened as well) and pure on the important day. Many also choose to eat no animal product on this day, as it’s the new spring and every creature deserves to be happy and live in peace. Nonetheless, vegan restaurants are somewhat scarce in the conservative town, places with banh chung banh tet for sale don’t generally make the vegan version, and to deprive a Vietnamese of banh chung banh tet on a Tet’s day is somewhat cruel. So the pagodas take on the precious task.

Dua mon is pickled vegetables, here packaged in jars, and apparently on sale for $5? I believe I haven’t had dua mon. I’m not big on veggies in vinegar-sugar-salt mix, the only exception to me is pickled bean sprout (dua gia). But perhaps because every house during Tet is so overabundant with meat and glutinous rice, the dua being a bit tart, a bit sweet, crunchy, and light is a nice change in both taste and texture. In fact, with its economic nature and longevity, a big jar of dua on its own makes Tet in poor households.

Back to the star of Tet food. The square ones are banh chung, the cylindrical ones are banh tet. Banh chung is wrapped in dong leaves, banh tet is wrapped in banana leaves (theoretically). Banh chung declothed:

and quartered:

Mother got to the banh tet before I did, with a knife. I was 5 minutes too late to grab the camera. So here, in all gruesomeness, six “khoanh” of banh tet:

If you’re wondering, yes, their basic structure, except for the shape, is the same. Thick coat of glutinous rice outside, simple mung bean paste inside, since these are vegan banh made and sold at the pagoda. The meaty version of banh chung has lean pork amidst the bean paste, and that of banh tet has fatty pork. The outermost rim of glutinous rice is somewhat greenish yellow, naturally dyed by the leaves wrapping them and the long cooking process, in which they are submerged in water for hours. Banh chung was born in the North of Vietnam over 2000 years before Jesus was born, and especially made for Tet and Tet only. It even has a myth to explain its symbolism. Banh tet was its little brother, made for easy cooking and carrying, more popular in the South, available in one form or another all year long. The rice layer is soft and gummy, the bean paste middle is a little salted and sweetened. It’s vegan, but it doesn’t lack flavor. It’s really really heavy though. One khoanh of banh tet for breakfast and I was full from 10AM until 7PM! I would have been starved otherwise, classes all day, and school cafeterias don’t serve vegan food. That means if you like to keep yourself reasonably full, with 6 bucks you are full for 3-6 days of banh tet, and 4-8 days of banh chung. Pretty good huh?