Vietnamese cuisine

Authentic, Meticulous Vietnamese Street Food at Casual Tayho Restaurants

Comments Off on Authentic, Meticulous Vietnamese Street Food at Casual Tayho Restaurants

(Gerry Furth-Sides) We welcome Tay Ho Restaurant Chino Hills, the second restaurant Vietname restaurant, lovingly named after the Tay Ho District located in Vietnam’s capital Hanoi.  Like the flagship restaurant in San Gabriel, it serves authentic, delicious Vietnamese street food and eclectic Asian dishes. Here, casual street food is meticulously prepared in the kitchen, some dishes taking days.

Tay Ho Restaurant Food (photo courtesy of Tay Ho Restaurant)

Tay Ho Restaurant’s love of Vietnamese cuisine is for its rich history and versatility. Tay Ho’s prepares of each dish utilizing handcrafted techniques, slow cooked broths, and steamed vegetables to create the most elevated takeout food made from the finest ingredients and fresh locally sourced herbs.  Drinks are also special.

Tay Ho Restaurant Special drinks (photo courtesy of Tay Ho Restaurant)

Tay Ho’s signature Bánh Cuốn (pronounced bun kuon) is a premier example as their Specialty Rice Crepes take upward of five full days to prepare. It all starts with the rice. 

The Tay Ho culinary team grinds the rice grains with fresh water and then they let the rice sit for twenty-four hours. The next day the rice flour settles towards the bottom of the water and a milky water rises to the top. The water is then discarded as are the impurities, in which to make the cleanest batter possible. 

Tay Ho continues repeating this process for approximately five days until the water is completely clear.  Next, a thin cotton cloth is pulled tautly over a pot of steaming water and the rice batter is very carefully spread over the cloth. 

Once the batter set, Tay Ho’s crepes are cooked to delicate perfection, by removing each crepe in the pan after just a few seconds with a bamboo stick.  Tay Ho Bánh Cuốn Set features classicrice crepes, pork and mushroom rolls, Vietnamese ham, and a shrimp and sweet potato fritter. 

Tay Ho Restaurant  Family Business Director Vivian Yenson, (photo courtesy of Tay Ho Restaurant)

Pork & Mushroom Roll Set, star pork and mushroom rolls, Vietnamese ham, and a shrimp and sweet potato fritter are also available to-go at Tay Ho restaurants .

The Khai Vi (pronounced khai vee) section offers up six sublimely savory Appetizers including Crispy Egg Rolls, Shrimp & Sweet Potato Fritters, Viet Style Chicken Wings, Shrimp Spring Rolls and Vegetarian Spring Rolls.

Tay Ho’s Banh Xeo (pronounced bun seo) is a Vietnamese Crispy Crepe and a staple in Vietnamese cuisine. Banh Xeo is a mix of potato flour, rice flour, salt, steamed mung bean, and turmeric to achieve its vibrant look. 

Each Banh Xeo is cooked-to-order offering a choice of either Pork & Shrimp or Mushroom & Tofu, each served with a fresh vegetable basket of mint leaves, lettuce, sliced cucumbers, and daikon, as well as Tay Ho’s Famous House Dipping Sauce.

Mi Xao (pronounced mee saow) showcases Tay Ho’s house-made Garlic Noodles.  They pair with Garlic Seasoned Filet Mignon  Steak, Lemongrass Marinated Chicken, Garlic Shrimp, and Tofu & Varietal Mushrooms.

Chay (pronounced CH-ai) Vegetarian Options including the Vegetarian featuring a classic rice crepe, served with a sweet potato fritter and fried tofu, Beyond Roll Set with rice crepe rolls filled with Beyond Meat and served with a sweet potato fritter and fried tofu,Vegetarian Spring Rolls, a varietal of mushrooms with vermicelli rice noodles and fresh herbs wrapped in rice paper and served with Tay Ho’s vegetarian dipping sauce, Vegetarian Banh Xeo, Vegetarian Rice Plate, or Vegetarian Garlic Noodles.

Tay Ho Drinks signature Vietnamese Iced Coffee, everyone’s favorite, including me. Vivian’s secret ingredient – a touch of chocolate! Other authentic beverages includes Tay Ho’s slow dripped Vietnamese Black Coffee, Thai Tea, Strawberry Peach Black Tea, Lychee Green Tea, Taro Milk Tea, and Lychee Lemonade. 

Tay Ho Restaurant, 3410 Grand Avenue, STE C, Chino Hills, CA 91709, 909.978.2946 (909.97.TAYHO)

Tay Ho Restaurant Chino Hills hours: Thursday through Tuesday from 11:00 am to 6:00 pm. For more information, please visit www.TayHo.com or call Tay Ho Restaurant Chino Hills directly at 909.978.2946.

Che Kimmy Tang of Bistro Mon Cheri, A Los Angeles Culinary Treasure

Comments Off on Che Kimmy Tang of Bistro Mon Cheri, A Los Angeles Culinary Treasure

(Gerry Furth-Sides) It’s not enough that Chef has a long menu of appealing, intensely flavored, fined dishes.  She also offers her customers a Chef’s Tasting Table menu for $55 that changes weekly.  Dining groups, one a table of eight young ladies, are offered original dinner menus for their regular get-togethers.  To ensure that the dishes are never repeated for this or other guests, Chef Kimmy keeps a notebook to ensure this, a la N/NAKA. ( //bistromoncheri.com)

She is, as my mother would say, as “big as a minute” but her energy fills a room. So Chef Kimmy Tang, owner-chef of Bistro Mon Ami in Pasadena always “had me” just with her radiant smile and bear hug.  But that would downplay her exquisite Asian Fusion Vietnamese-centric menu with a French and California influence, and most recently a Romanian twist.

Asian Dolmas

In fact, Bistro Mon Ami is named after her favorite restaurant in Romania.  And now, Pasadena diners can judge for themselves how they feel about Kimmy ’s refined comfort food dishes.   For an unexplainable reason, Kimmy has made the connection between Greek-Turkish food (dolmades, breiks,) and Eastern European dishes (stuffed cabbage) in a totally original way. 

Below are three of Kimmy’s updated classical  Vietnamese dishes she created for a Southern California Culinary Historian’s lunch last season.  It was a packed house with tables pulled together for communal dining and family-style servings.

Kimmy’s glorious energy feels as though it is infused into the food and homey service.  Selections ($8.95- $13.95) are hearty and generous enough to serve two.  Below is the Lemongrass Chicken in a bed of Onion, Bell Pepper, Mushroom, Snap Peas.  Oh, would you like it spicier? Chef Kimmy steps away and brings a pot of hot chili paste to the table.

Lemongrass Chicken

Lemongrass Chicken at Bistro Mon Cheri

Chef Kimmy Tang’s Grilled Chicken on Rice

Chef Kimmy’s family is Chinese but she was born and raised in Saigon. After a harrowing family story of escape and relocation to California after Saigon fell, Chef Tang first followed her artistic bent in the fashion world, then became widely considered a pioneering visionary in the Asian food market with her formal but pleasing Michelia restaurant just outside of Beverly Hills.

Even her pork meatballs with Lemongrass and Garlic have an artistic, whimsical bent. ($9.95).  You don’t even need a bun because there are veggies and greens with them.

 

In 2008 Kimmy packed up Michelia and set out to explore the world.  She revisited her birthplace, Vietnam, and Europe. It was in Romania that Chef Tang became a culinary consultant for the largest film studio and a very popular local TV cooking show host.

Chef Kimmy Tang’s Pork Meatball

It was as a volunteer in the Romanian orphanages that ignited in Chef Kimmy a heartfelt desire to help children. Kimmy currently aids Romanian orphan immigrants and sells the artwork of Children’s Hospital patients on her restaurant walls to benefit the Healing Arts Reaching Kids (H.A.R.K.) program of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.

Chef Kimmy opens her doors to all student interns and works with them on both how a dish tastes but how the flavors are layered to make it taste a certain way.  She is a kind but firm “hands-on” teacher.   Kimmy is a frequent welcome sight at most of the community food events.  It is all part of her personal goal to “make a deposit in the universal bank of good.”

Bistro Mon Cheri,  950 E. Colorado Blvd # 204 Pasadena. CA, 626-787-1323.

Cuisines

Authors