Flavor Boulevard

My love for these will never cease.

I’ve written way too much about banh cuon (Vietnamese steamed rice rolls) over the years, and if we’re friends, it’s highly probable that I have made or will make you try them the first chance I get. How much you like them kinda determines how much I like you.

Bánh Cuốn Thiên Thanh focuses on the northern-style(*) bánh cuốn Thanh Trì, where small, flat steamed squares (banh uot) are served with cha lua (silk sausage) and/or shrimp flakes on the side. They also serve 2 other types: rolls with pork and mushroom – banh cuon thit (pictured above), and rolls with grilled pork – banh cuon thit nuong. The owner told my mom that the younger kids (pointing at me) often liked the third type the most. I always stick to the second.

Compared to Tay Ho (which is inarguably the best places to get banh cuon in America – just what In ‘n Out’s fans claim about their favorite burger, only more factual), Thien Thanh’s rolls are much bigger, have more stuffings, taste just as good, and because they’re so big and flat, they can be rolled again (doubly rolled!) for easier handling. The only (personal) downside: the dipping sauce (mixed nuoc mam) has too much chili pepper. My lips were burning.

Address: Bánh Cuốn Thiên Thanh
11210 Bellaire Blvd. Suite 140
Houston, TX 77072
(281) 564-0419
Dinner for one: $7

Foodnote:
(*) – Technically, all banh cuon are northern. Banh cuon originates from the North.

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. 😉

Ever wonder why Banh Cuon Tay Ho has the best steamed roll of all places? Thin like a veil, never too chewy or oily, the flour never tastes sour, and the mixed fish sauce never has the bitter hint of lime. Their secrets are mysteries to me. By chance, the Lưu family who operates Tay Ho 18 in Houston stumbled on my blog post of 4 years ago and invited me to the opening week after the relocation early April, which would feature a new item: crawfish banh cuon. I couldn’t come then due to a minor distraction called school, but a month later the place is stilled packed to the rim like an Apple store the day of a new iPhone release. I managed to snatch Mr. James Lưu aside for a brief chat during lunch rush, wonder if his staff liked me or hated me for it.

Leaving Vietnam in ’79, getting attacked by pirates, rescued ashore but later tricked and stranded by the natives in the Malaysian jungle, rescued by an American helicpopter after a month in the jungle, immigrated to the US as an orphan (Mr. Lưu was then 16 years old, any child refugee under 18 without parent supervision was categorized as an orphan in US immigration rules), living with foster parents in New York until the age of 18, moving out to California to be independent, studying and later working as a legal administrator for many years, Mr. Lưu’s life journey had all the drama to constitute a movie. In 2007, the Lưu family moved from Southern California to Houston, and after surveying the restaurant scene, Mr. Lưu set up his steamed roll business as part of the Bánh Cuốn Tây Hồ franchise.

Last time I came, the restaurant stood inside the Hong Kong Market (HKM) complex, but according to Mr. Lưu, because the main patronage was customers of the market, the number peaked at lunch time and on the weekends but stayed flaccid otherwise, they closed at 7 pm, parking was difficult (the HKM parking lot is always crowded), and “it didn’t really feel like a restaurant”. At the end of the 3-year contract, he moved out next to Kim Son this spring, and business takes off.

The new crawfish banh cuon, accompanied by a special terracotta butter sauce with a zing, receives warm attention, but the Number 1 special combo, bánh cuốn đặc biệt, remains the most popular choice among the patrons because it has a bit of everything: some porky rolls (bánh cuốn nhân thịt), some flat rolls with shrimp flakes (bánh cuốn tôm chấy), some old-styled Thanh Trì sheet noodle (bánh ướt) to eat with the sausage, a hefty shrimp-and-sweet-potato deep-fried. But just between you and me, I told Mr. Lưu that I’m loyal to Number 7 – bánh cuốn nhân thịt, that has everything Number 1 has except the banh uot, and he laughed in agreement.

FB: Your menu spans all popular dishes of the 3 regions, with rice, bun, and noodle soups. Why don’t you limit it to only the rolls, the way specialty eating establishments in Vietnam limit to one or two dishes and their names become practically synonymous with the dish? After all, Tây Hồ is known for bánh cuốn like Ánh Hồng for 7-course beef or 46A Đinh Công Tráng St. for sizzling crepes…
Mr. Lưu: It’s precisely because we’re known for banh cuon that we have to have other dishes too. If we had only banh cuon, it’d be sold out by 2, then we’d have to apologize to the later customers and people would ask how come a banh cuon place doesn’t have banh cuon. Besides, everyone in a family would like something different and we’d want to accomodate that.
FB: So you make your batter fresh everyday? You don’t have some in storage in case of sold-outs?
Mr. Lưu: Yes and no. The batter is made daily and processed for a few days before it’s ready, so it’s not like we can make it on the spot.
FB: Is that the secret to your quality? Can you reveal a little more? *puppy eyes of Puss-in-Boots*
Mr. Lưu: Well, I can’t tell you the exact proportion, but the water for the mixed flour is changed daily in a fermentation period. Tay Ho standard requires the batter to be used between 3-7 days after the first mix.
FB: So that’s why the rolls taste a bit sour at some places, they left their batter sit too long?
Mr. Lưu: Yes, longer than 7 days would result in a sour batter. But shorter than 3 days and your rolls would fall apart, you need the fermentation to give the sheet its elasticity. Actually here we only use 5- to 6-day-old batter to render the right chew.
FB: What about the fish sauce?
Mr. Lưu: Can’t tell you that. *grin* The two deciding factors in a plate of steamed rolls are the fish sauce and the batter, and I make them both myself everyday. There’s a lot to balance between taste and cost, the quality of pure fish sauce you put in, the kind of water to mix. You want it to taste sweet and fresh, and you don’t want the bitterness from the lime. We also avoid using MSG.
FB: So I just have to buy your fish sauce then *grin*
Mr. Lưu: *grin* Yes, we do have mixed fish sauce for sale, and it stays good for a month in the fridge.

Between fragments of our conversation, Mr. Lưu was also waving at customers, directing his staff, printing the checks and exchanging handshakes with the regulars. The lunch rush was a spectacular sight. I thanked him for the meal and the conversation; had I lived closer, I’d relive my middle school dream: a plate of porky steamed rolls everyday for breakfast.

Address: Bánh Cuốn Tây Hồ 18
10613 Bellaire Blvd. #A168
Houston, TX 77072
(281) 495-8346

Like with most Asian eating establishments, it’s virtually impossible to answer the question “what is the best Vietnamese restaurant in [name of city]?” Let me stay there for about half a year, and I can tell you where to get the best pho, the best cha gio, the best bun thit nuong, the best banh mi, but not the best Vietnamese. Assuming you would agree that I can’t compare a place that specializes in noodle to another that specializes in beef, I would admit: I don’t know what you mean by “the best Vietnamese”. Do you mean everything on the menu is the best of its kind? Everything is good? Everything is cheap and good? Everything is cheap and good and the service is the best? Everything is cheap and good, the service is good, and the ambiance is the best? You see, there are more variables in your generic question than I could possibly control with my subjectivity. And that is not to consider the possibility of you asking that question just because I’m Vietnamese, which doesn’t bother me at all, but I’m usually not sure of how much detail you’d like to receive. (I’ve included the preferred question at the end of this post.)

That said, if you ask me, what is the best Vietnamese restaurant in Houston, which I take that you’ve given me the full freedom to interpret your meaning and exert my subjectivity, I’d say Banh Cuon Hoa. Why? Because they serve the best of my favorite Vietnamese dish, and as I’ve discovered, the “best Vietnamese” shops are those with the best steamed rolls. Steamed rolls are hard to get right, so when they get them right, everything else they have is good. 😉

The flour skin is super thin, cool but not sour, and not oily. The pork-and-mushroom stuffing is well seasoned, not too much to bore, and not too little to bore. This banh cuon is better than banh cuon from Tay Ho’s. Ask any Vietnamese person, and they’d agree that that statement is not to be precariously thrown around unless the banh cuon is very good.

The mi Quang tastes as good as it looks (the yellow noodle). So does the bun chao tom tau hu ky, a shrimp and tofu variant of bun thit nuong. The price? Students can afford this.

Address: Banh Cuon Hoa
11106 Veterans Memorial Dr
Houston, TX 77067
(281) 820-3388

They have another business near Hong Kong Market IV: Banh Cuon Hoa II, but this Hoa is not as good as its sister shop.
Anyway, the question I usually ask my friends is: “Where do you usually go for [type of food]?”

Not many Vietnamese diners roll out steamed rice leaves stuffed with pork and mushroom, and among those that do, not many actually do it right. A good roll of banh cuon must be slick but not oily, delicate but not crumbly, the flour leaf thin but springy, the stuffing visible, almost poking through, on one side and hidden on the other, served warm. A good nuoc cham must be more sweet than salty, with a little zest of lime, and spicy is not necessary. You then pour as much of that honey-colored dipping sauce as you want all over the plate, soaking the cucumber, the bean sprout, the cha lua, and especially the rolls. You then savour. When it comes to banh cuon, Tay Ho rules, from Vietnam to America. But among the Tay Ho’s of the Bay, Tay Ho #9 in Oakland makes it best.

After taking over the business from her aunt, Duyên transforms Tay Ho Oakland into an all-American restaurant with fluent-English-speaking staff (herself on weekdays and with another girl on weekends), attentive service, credit card accepting, and a list of common herbs on the last page of the menu, something I haven’t seen at any other Vietnamese restaurant. It helps me at least, finally after 24 years I know which name goes with which plant. (Click on image for full-sized version). The food authenticity, of course, is preserved.

The menu features four types of banh cuon. The first, order #8, is the definitive authentic unadulterated version of steamed rolls that the Northerners had created and the whole country has fallen in love with: bánh cuốn nhân thịt (steamed rolls with meat). The more I eat it the more I crave it. The best part: flat, slick, crunchy pieces of wood-ear mushroom that accidentally fall out of the rolls.

The second type of banh cuon, for non-meat-lovers like my mother, is bánh cuốn tôm chấy (rolls with dry-fried shrimp). The shrimps, peeled and fried without oil or any liquid, get dried up and broken into a flossy powdery entanglement. That’s if you make it at home. Here I suspect the kitchen uses some prepackaged shrimp powder for efficiency, which has a beautiful scarlet hue but little texture and flavor. The rolls, though practically just steamed rice leaves, are still savourastic when soaked and glossed in that honey-colored sweet and salty nước chấm.

The third type is a modern spinoff with thicker rice leaf, bigger rolls, stockier stuffing that features grilled pork, bean sprout, and cucumber all in one, also at a heftier price (4 rolls for $6.95). Bánh cuốn thịt nướng is more of a filler than a delighter, but who says it can’t lift your mood while settling your stomach. Instead of grilled pork, shredded pork skin is also used, making the fourth type: bánh cuốn bì.

If banh cuon thit nuong‘s savoriness from grilled pork saves it from getting drowned in nuoc cham, the shredded pork skin (with some meat) in banh cuon bi are merely for textural pleasure, leaving chilipeppered peanut sauce to dress up the rolls. I have faith that nuoc cham would be a better roll-dresser though.

Occasionally I like to fool around with these variations, but in the end banh cuon nhan thit is still the winner in taste, just as Tay Ho Oakland is the winner in reliability.

Address: Tây Hồ Restaurant – Bánh Cuốn Tây Hồ #9
344B 12th Street
Oakland, CA 94607
(510) 836-6388

Must have been at least seven years since I had a bánh mì ốp-la (bánh mì with sunny-side-up egg). Most Vietnamese sandwich stores in the States don’t put eggs in their breads, but ốp la (probably a strayed pronunciation of “omelette” in French colonial days) is the most common type of bánh mì stuffing you can find on the streets in Vietnam.

This store contains as much variety as twenty street food stalls: about 15 kinds of banh mi, with meats, pate, vegetarian, and even sardines (cá mòi), ranging from $2.50-$3 each. Then there are bò kho, bún bò, bánh cuốn, rice plates, bánh dầy, bánh tét, and a thousand other things. Thank god there is no phở here.

Ba Lẹ’s bánh cuốn comes with a garden, finger-thick cuts of chả lụa, and cubes of deep fried mung bean batter named bánh cóng. It’s not as good as the shrimp-and-sweet-potato tempura accompanying Tây Hồ‘s bánh cuốn, but it has a lot more rolls than Tây Hồ’s for a lower price. Tây Hồ still has the best rolls, but these are good too. Except they aren’t pre-halved in length. Oh well. Sloppiness is street-foodieness.

The location is less than appetizing to the eye. On rainy days, you see worn down bricked alleys with puddles. On dry day, you see worn down brick alleys with unkempt people. The buildings are old, the paints have faded. But the steady flow of customers even on rainy days confirms that Ba Lẹ isn’t just a name from the pre-1975 Saigon. It’s one of those real banh mi’s.

Address: Bánh Mì Ba Lẹ (East Oakland)
1909 International Blvd
Oakland, CA 94606
(510) 261-9800

If I had to pick one Vietnamese dish made from rice flour and eat it everyday for the rest of my life (whole grain white rice doesn’t count), then bánh cuốn would be it. These rolls of thin rice sheet, filled with minced pork and woodear mushroom, gently dipped in nước mắm, make the perfect warm breakfast, light lunch, and quirky dinner. The question is where to find them. Bánh Cuốn Tây Hồ tops the chart everywhere from Texas to Cali, but does Bánh Cuốn Hoa II come close? Maybe rival? Miss by a long shot?

I cheated a bit at the beginning. The first picture isn’t bánh cuốn, but bánh bèo, a rice flour spinoff drafted in the shape and size of waterferns, hence its name. Flooded with nước mắm, they make great appetizers while we were waiting for bánh cuốn.

Bánh bèo comes with a few toppings: fried shallot, chopped green onions, and tôm chấy (dry fried shrimp). The tôm chấy I usually have are totally desiccant, ranging anywhere between flaky and powdery, but these (I’m guessing homemade) shrimps are still plump, and more sweet than salty. It’s not a bad twist from the usual though. The flour part is a bit tired, they broke easily into pieces the moment my chopsticks pinched them. Bánh Hỏi Châu Đốc does it better.

Because it is very hard to go wrong with grilled meat, it’s always safe to get bún thịt nướng on first try at a new restaurant, also a friendly choice for those who have not had Vietnamese cooking before, want to try, but are still cautious. There’s no weird stuff, just rice noodle, crushed peanuts, vegetable and honest grilled pork. Nước mắm seasoned with a tidbit chili paste, a lot of sugar, and a squeeze of lemon juice would spike the taste to infinite pleasure. Bánh Cuốn Hoa II nailed it with a supertender juicy marinated pork.

As much as my dad is a fan of grilled meat, my mom is loyal to noodle soups. She ordered bún măng vịt (vermicelli soup with duck and bamboo shoot), which actually comes in two parts: the duck salad (gỏi vịt) and the bamboo shoot soup (bún măng) with no duck. Dunk the duck into the soup and you get duck soup :-).

The broth is quite pure and slender, free of fatty bubbles floating on the surface, not as heavily seasoned as pho or hu tiu broth, simply refreshing. As for the bamboo shoots, there were both the fresh kind and the re-hydrated dried kind. The dried kind is a tad firmer and more squid-like than the fresh kind. A lovely texture. Boiled duck is also very tender and flavorful.

Bánh Cuốn Hoa II has a pretty clean look. Varnished wooden chairs and tables, high ceiling, humble paintings of Vietnamese countryside sceneries on the walls. I took a peek into their kitchen to capture the banh cuon production line.

Clockwise from bottom left: 1. stirring the liquid batter (rice flour with water); 2. spreading a laddle of batter on a hot flat surface; 3. making a roll; 4. 3 kinds of final products: normal bánh cuốn (with minced pork and mushroom), bánh cuốn tôm chấy (dry fried shrimp), and bánh cuốn thịt nướng (grilled pork).

The lady was just too fast for my camera, I missed capturing the crucial step where she gently used a long chopstick to take the thin rice veil off the cooking surface and whip it aside for the rolling chef.

So here it is, the restaurant’s signature plate: bánh cuốn topped with cha lua, bean sprouts, greens, and fried shallots. The filling is good. The sheet is thin and not oily. But the flour has a sour hint. Bánh Cuốn Tây Hồ is still the champion of bánh cuốn.

Price: a very reasonable lunch for 3:
1 bánh bèo + 1 bún thịt nướng + 1 bún măng vịt + 1 bánh cuốn = $24.57

Address: Banh cuon Hoa II
11169 Beechnut St. #K
Houston, TX 77072

Take a look at RavenousCouple’s recipe for bún măng vịt, it’s my new fav noodle soup.

Update: the amazing pictures and recipe for homemade banh cuon, also from RavenousCouple.

My roommate is eating dinner, I haven’t had anything since 9am, and I’ve vowed to stay on this chair until I get a plot to show my advisor, so I can’t grab anything to eat yet (except the cookies within reach). The best solution to satisfy the saddened tummy is to blog about food. Above is a bottle of nuoc mam pha, and a jar of chilly sauce if you’re in the mood for crying.

We come here frequently when I’m in Houston. It’s Banh Cuon Tay Ho #18, belonging to the franchise Banh Cuon Tay Ho (but apparently not on the website, which is good, because the website, oddly enough, is quite Chinese influenced, when banh cuon is as Vietnamese as it can get). I’ve blogged about this chain before, in San Jose, but the restaurant in Houston is quite different. It’s a lot more spacious (you don’t have to worry about accidentally flicking your chopstick, or worse, nuoc mam, over to the other table). In all fairness, it’s Texas. You can’t blame California for being mostly inhabitable. It’s also a lot less Vietnamese-looking, minus the fact that the staff and all customers are Vietnamese. Nicer tables, less noisy, doesn’t have the smell of food, doesn’t have a TV with some beauty contest going on. Anyway, just go to the one in San Jose, then come here, then you’ll like it here better.

Asians like fish, don’t they? I never understand why…

Most of the time I get the to-go box. It’s just more comfortable slurping at home. The plastic box may look flimsy, but I admire it for not spilling out anything during the long drive (with various sudden hitting-the-brake instants).

Three pieces of shrimp tempura, a lone deep-fried shrimp (recall there was no such thing at the San Jose place), a small cup of nuoc mam pha, a bag of quick-boiled bean sprouts and greens whose names I have no clue, slices of cha lua (the ones with yellow curd are cha chien, or fried cha lua). Digging through the jungle, and the heart of goodness is…

…5 rolls of banh cuon. Five! Who can be full after 5 rolls of steamed carbon paper thin rice flour sheet gently stuffed with ground pork and finely chopped wood-ear mushroom? Each was just a little longer than my index finger. They’d make nice body pillows for a mouse. I dipped the rolls into the nuoc mam and they went down too quickly. Perhaps 10 rolls would have sufficed. (That’s why it’s breakfast food in Vietnam.) But making these flimsy pieces of woot requires a bit of skill. With a little less than $6 (cash only), it is a much healthier, more customer-cared meal than a burger or the bully version of a roll, a burrito. The wait was also fairly quick.

Address: Banh Cuon Tay Ho #18 (inside Hong Kong Mall, near Ocean Palace)
11209 Bellaire Blvd
Houston, TX 77072

It’s always interesting to read reviews online. A good place always has some reviews that smash them down mercilessly as if all those reviewers were served was a piece of wood with splinters and a side of mud. One thing people should keep in mind when they go to Vietnamese restaurants: order the house specialties. It’s in their name. It’s something they started out with and have earned a living from. It’s what they know best. It’s the difference between an authentic Vietnamese restaurant and a mass-production Chinese buffet. Try something else on the menu only if the specialty satisfies you, and if you want to be adventurous, well, keep your complaints to yourself. Adventures rarely bring satisfaction.

If you ate at Banh Cuon Tay Ho in Bellaire, Houston before, Banh Cuon Tay Ho in San Jose will satisfy your craving, but will not give you the oomph and aaahhhh. Small tables under a small roof, equipped with the usual tray of bottles of rooster chili sauce, soy sauce, some other kind of chili sauce I’m not sure if my tongue would allow me to try, and a huge bottle/vase of nuoc mam mixed with sugar, lime juice, water, and a moderate amount of chili pepper. Pictured above is the house specialty: banh cuon nhan thit (rice rolls stuffed with ground pork and minced wood ear mushroom), served on flowery melamine plate, with bean sprout and sliced cucumber for the bedding, one piece of unknown tempura, and 5 thin slices of cha lua. (Now if you had it in Bellaire, you’d have gotten 3 pieces of shrimp tempura.) Nonetheless it is good.

Also ordered is a serving of banh cuon thit nuong (banh cuon with barbecued pork stuffing). No bean sprout visible on the plate, no cucumber, lots of cilantro and fried shallots atop.

Embarrassingly I must admit I did toss a chunk of the banh cuon roll into the spoon of nuoc mam then into my mouth before I remembered to take a picture. It was very good. Bean sprouts were inside the rolls, so no funky chopstick pickups required. The meat was well seasoned enough that you don’t really need a pool of nuoc mam to buff up the taste. I’ll remember to order it again when I go to Banh Cuon Tay Ho in Bellaire, for comparison.
The TV in the small corner was speaking in Vietnamese. The people around us were speaking in Vietnamese. The waiters were speaking to us half in Vietnamese and half in English. Minus the food carts and woven baskets of goodies on the streets, it’s just so Vietnamese in San Jose.
Lunch for two plus tip was $16.
One more thing, Vietnamese restaurants don’t like to have a website for themselves, and if they do, it doesn’t seem very well updated. Either that, or the Banh Cuon Tay Ho #18 in Bellaire isn’t part of the corporation. And what’s up with the Chinese characters?

Address: Bánh Cuốn Tây Hồ #8
2895 Senter Rd
San Jose, CA 95111
(408) 629-5229