![]() ![]() Enjoyable as the dumplings are, the real palate-pleasing aspect of this starter is the dipping sauce, a wonderful departure from the seemingly de rigueur soy-based dipping sauces served ad-nauseum with dumplings. ![]() Served six per order, the dumplings are engorged with minced chicken which is seasoned well. Both our server and the perpetually smiling Mindy answered all our questions about the menu, exercising great patience when we (mostly Deanell and I) couldn’t decide what to order.ģ August 2016: We continued to peruse the menu as we enjoyed our appetizer, listed on the menu in both Vietnamese (Wonton Ga Chien) and English ( chicken fried dumplings). Seating–tables and booths–is as comfortable as it is functional with good spacing between tables. Tables are adorned with white tablecloths, a centerpiece of which is a condiment caddy with such Asian food ameliorants as Sriracha and soy sauces. The restaurant side of the complex is inviting and beautiful Framed photograph-quality paintings of pulchritudinous Vietnamese women festoon the walls. A brightly illuminated menu board complete with food porn quality photos lists some ten banh mi, the incomparable Vietnamese sandwiches that are taking America by storm. It’s the bakery side of the 4,500 square-foot edifice you’ll step into and where you’ll immediately be enveloped by addictive aromas. As the marquee notes, Le Bistro is a bakery as much as it is a restaurant. One whiff will trigger wonderful memories for those of us who grew up with moms baking the staff of life. Even though Le Bistro offers the pungently potent fruit in smoothie form, the most prevalent bouquet–even before you enter the bistro–is that of baking bread. If there’s one trait most Vietnamese restaurants share, it’s that the aromas emanating from the kitchen are absolutely alluring. He was stunned that I not only didn’t gag at being in the proximity of durian, but genuinely enjoyed it. My first experience with durian occurred in Massachusetts when my friend Fred, an Air Force veteran who had served in Vietnam and was married to a beautiful Vietnamese woman, essentially dared me to try it. In a spirit of full disclosure, durian shakes and smoothies are rather tame compared to extricating the pulpy flesh from its spiky host and eating that yellowish flesh unadulterated. We all received hugs from Mindy who must have marveled at our intrepidity (or foolhardiness) for even trying the durian smoothie, much less enjoying it so much. Now Larry and Deanell join me in a rather exclusive club. For years I’d proudly worn a badge of honor as the “only white boy” to enjoy durian. Much to my own surprise, Larry and Deanell both loved the fusty flavored drink, neither of them finding it especially malodorous. When I ordered a durian smoothie, shock and awe registered in the face of proprietor Mindy Nguyen who proceeded to warn me that durian has a very strong flavor, a flavor my well-traveled friends had never before experienced. It was deja vu all over again (as Yogi Berra once said) when I visited Le Bistro Bakery & Vietnamese Cuisine with my good friends Larry “the professor with the perspicacious palate” McGoldrick and the Dazzling Deanell. Its sulfurous emanations have been likened to body odor, smelly feet, rotten onions, garbage and even decomposing corpse. When she witnessed my enjoyment of the cold pungent fruit beverage, she gave me a big hug and told me I was the “only white boy” she ever saw who delighted in the odoriferous nuances of what is known widely as “the world’s stinkiest fruit.” Indeed, durian is one of the very few things in the world Travel Network celebrity chef Andrew Zimmern cannot eat. She proceeded to caution me that durian has a very powerful aroma and flavor many people find off-putting. Several years ago and much to the surprise of the proprietor, I ordered a durian shake at a Vietnamese restaurant. Le Bistro Bakery & Vietnamese Cuisine on San Pedro
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