A pedestrian take on imperial cuisine

Tag : Korean Red Ginseng Tea

(11-05-2008)
A pedestrian take on imperial cuisine
Nestled in the midst of the capitals bustling Tho Nhuom, LittleHue offers a taste of Central Viet Nam. Jacob O Gold steps inside.
At the far northwest corner of Hoan Kiem District, just below thetrain tracks, sits the most convoluted stretch of pavement in thecity. Too chaotic to be called an intersection, It resemblesnothing so much as one those subatomic snapshots captured in aparticle accelerator (for reference, see the cover art of the album Is This It by The Strokes). The collision of two streets, like the collisionof two protons, sends out a shower of lesser pathways that curveand angle in every direction: Hang Bong, Dien Bien Phu, Trang Thi,Phan Boi Chau and, shooting across the grid, the narrow,tree-shaded equivalent of a quantum wormhole, Tho Nhuom St.
This convenient little one-way lane, perennially crowded withmotorists, cuts diagonally south and east across a number of HoanKiems major throughways until it finally empties out onto TranHung Dao, across from the mouth of Ba Trieu St. It is lined almostentirely by storefront clothing boutiques, a few smart-lookingcafes, two excellent cake shops, and a place that sells liquor,tea, beauty products, and a handful of other consumables, all madefrom Red Korean Ginseng. Anyone whos seen Guillermo Del TorosPans Labyrinth will recognise the "ginseng baby" on thesignboard above the entrance, and again floating in each of thesizeable jugs of ruou sam that sell for upwards of a million dong.
One wishes that the eccentricity of Tho Nhuom, a mood that would beso well served by the streets odd, secluded trajectory, was notconfined to this unexpected emporium of ginseng. That is why I wasso excited to come across Little Hue, a restaurant in the uppermostblock of Tho Nhuom St, which runs  in keeping with the exoticphysics described above  one way in the opposite direction of therest of the street.
Little Hue is a compact one-room eatery whose spare, Hue-themeddecor is dominated by a large screen print of the famous view fromthe Huong (Perfume) River. I already liked how the place seemed tobe in keeping with the overall theme of Tho Nhuom itself: anunassuming little portal to someplace else. I wanted this to be thecase. I really wanted to like Little Hue. Things got off to analright start, but somehow, the chemistry didnt quite work out. Iwent to eat there twice in preparation for writing this review. Inthe end I was left with the feeling that maybe it wasnt them, thatmaybe  as the Seinfeld-immortalised break-up mantra goes  it wasme.
Little Hue ought to be commended on the size and diversity of itsmenu. The menu features about two-dozen mainstays of Hues renownedcuisine, most of them beginning with the word banh. But the menugoes on for pages and pages, taking on a geography of its own.There are ten preparations of turtle made to order, sold at marketprice. Some of the menu is divided by type of meat  beef, chicken,shrimp, pork  while other sections list all kinds of items by noparticular logic. The price of most dishes ranges from the veryreasonable to the downright cheap. Its like an old hall ofcuriosities whose traffic is the food and flavour of Viet Nam.There is "Hmong chicken," prohibitively priced atVND150,000 (US$9). There is even a little "spaghettizone".
Not far from Little Hue, Quan An Ngons similarly extensive menuoffers guests a near-flawless culinary journey through Viet Nam inone sitting. Quan An Ngon, however, is a large restaurant with anequally large understaffed Little Hue (though there was a backtable at which lounged some men who seemed vaguely employed there),the lack of focus in its menu probably contributes to themediocrity of its offerings. And yet the premise of the place is soinviting, the menu so bulky and almost confusing, that uponconcluding a meal one is left with the irritating sense that theright choice, the house specialty, the quirky favourite was justout of reach. If only the someone could have pointed me in theright direction. Its Kafka out to lunch.
The quality of service at Little Hue is also reminiscent ofsomething out of The Castle or The Trial. Placing my orders was aconvoluted operation, and as the ordeal went on I began to feel asthough maybe I was doing something wrong, that I had always beenunclear on the rules and was only now being called to terms.
Most elusive were the special che Hue (Hue-style sweet soups). Atonly VND7,000 per bowl, during my first visit I ordered fourdifferent varieties to round out the dessert end of my review. Atthe end of the meal, my friend and I were each given one bowl ofsweet-bean soup (che hoa cau). It was the best-tasting item of theafternoon and disappeared in an instant. I sat for a while waitingfor the rest. When I finally thought to ask, I was told (through myfriends translation) that they were out of the other kinds, butthat the one we had was "on the house". On my secondvisit, the complimentary bowl arrived again. Not to be give theslip this time, I went over to the manager to order the othervarieties. There was a conversation. Things were pointed to, wordswritten down. But then, suddenly, "we dont have any of these.Come back tomorrow and Ill have them for you". And so itgoes.
For most of the time I sat there eating at Little Hue, the managerwas trying to marry me off, with some degree of seriousness, to therestaurants lone waitress-girl, who all the while continuedtending impassively to the delivering and clearing of plates.
To be fair, some of the Hue specialties were pretty good. Theseincluded: the shrimp-cake on sugar cane, which comes with a spicydipping sauce; the banh tom chay  shrimp rolled in gooey steamedrice-skin, also with a good dipping sauce; salty boiled pork inshrimp sauce; banh beo  thick, chewy rice-pancakes with bits ofshrimp, vegetables, and chicken stock (the best-presented dish ofthe house, with each disc couched in a little woven plate-let, allof them served on a woven-bamboo platter); and a host of otherdishes that experiment with combining shrimp, pork, vegetables,spicy sauces, and the gelatinous properties of cooked rice invarying proportions.
Little Hue is worth a visit. The Hue specialties, priced cheaply atbetween VND15-30,000, come in ample-enough portions. And you justmight find something hidden in that menu that knocks your socksoff. And they just might have those che. And who knows  Tho Nhuomis, if nothing else, a great place to take your new wife shopping. VNS