maybe.
when i was nyc 10 years ago the vietnamese food sucked and you bascially only find it in chinatown. fast forward and now you have hanoi house, di an di, madame vo, madame vo bbq,saigon dep, soup shop by hanoi house, saigon social (soon!) and even a new vietnamese coffee only spot…
Little Saigon will probably have more Vox kitchens fusiony types and more modern places like those in NYC is having now. Thats my prediction.
Noooo hopefully Trieu Chau will still be around!!
A few things
Cantonese sweet and sour pork: Hawthorn is common to an extent, but easy/traditional and tried and true. Then again easiest is the shortcut ketchup + vinegar. Any additions beyond ketchup create more layers, structures, and nuanced flavors (the more created that generates a balance, the better, but it takes a lot of skill to get that right). Luk Yu Teahouse in Central would add ketchup, hawthorn flakes, a very small amount of dried (and rehydrated) sour plum, rice vinegar, amongst other ingredients, and the rest of the nuance comes from either fresh pineapple or pickled young ginger (pineapple would reflect warmer seasons of the month, and pickled young ginger for winter). I think The Chairman went in a different direction once and used a high end black vinegar for the sour.
The defunct Tak Lung in Sun Po Kong whose rendition was legendary, used three variations of hawthorn … fresh, blocks, and dried flakes/wafers…but they also revived the old school recipe of using pork belly instead of pork shoulder commonly used for cha siu. I was lucky enough to try this once 4 to 5 years ago.
I tried a strawberry version once up here in NorCal…didn’t like it. Some bits were too sweet and others too sour. In some ways Panda Express Orange Chicken is more consistent, lol, but that’s a very different beast…
Younger people in Hong Kong don’t give a smell about local traditional food, because it is not trendy, not as photogenic, not sexy, doesn’t score you hot dates, and doesn’t get anywhere near as many likes on social media. Then again a lot of these people will never become like us because they are so fixated on chasing fame and McChelin to fuel their fragile egos, and not for the passion of enjoying food and/or food and drink. These are the exact kind of customer demographic that will facilitate the downfall and extinction of their own food culture and traditions, and allow fusion and expensive mediocrity to flourish. By the time they grow out of it, it will be too late and their kids will have nothing to enjoy it by. (Then again it’s not entirely their fault…it’s geo political and economic as well)
Kobe beef pho will be a thing of the past.
Organic fair trade Cafe Sua Da “hand dripped” served in a Burgundy glass with a boba straw
A5 Miyazaki Bo Luc Lac with umami soy sauce imported from France
A6 Kagoshima Bo Kho with organic heirloom tomatoes and micro baby carrots
Bouchon baguette banh mi sliders with faux gras, Jamon Iberico De Bellota, house cured Kosher pickles, “jidori fried sunny egg” with a dash of caviar and gold flakes, umami soy sauce, with a splash of organic sweet potato yam fermented chili sauce served on a pizza oar.
Omi beef Bun Bo Hue with spicy miso sauce and Berkshire chashu.
Consider me scared. You’ve fine-dining-ed the food of my childhood perhaps too much.
Maybe start filming my cooking sessions with my Mom on a more regular basis now.
Before even talk of how the sauce can be improved, we need to discuss the balancing act of saucing the dish (reads skills) just enough so the sauce clings to the crispy batter on each piece of pork but not so much so that the batter will turn soggy fast (hello Chinese food that are catered to Americans). There shouldn’t be any sauce pooling on the plate.
Example of a failed sweet and sour pork at Mr Chow. Photo courtesy of Yelp.
Here’s an example of a perfectly executed sweet and sour pork at Man Wah in Hong Kong. Photo courtesy of Tiny Urban Kitchen.
#thatshadeofreddoesnotexistinnature
Have you had said SSP at Man Wah?
Anything close like that in SGV? Maybe Sea Harbour?
So lucky to try that SSP at Tak Lung.
I really need to get my ass to Hong Kong before it’s too late (it already is)
Correct.
I actually like sweet and sour spareribs HK style more.
But for the SSP, you are right. No excess sauce coating the exterior, crispy exterior fluffy interior and the crispiness is retained even after some time. It’s all in the wok stir fry, and temperature control (supposedly you actually have to turn the flame up and down at the right moments). Luk Yu’s cooking prep is in 3 stages: 1) First batter deep fry the pork, drain oil and set aside 2) Create and cook the sauce and 3) Toss in the pork from 1) and then do wok and heat magic to sear and blend the two together.
But this is the USA. I’ll take Orange Chicken from PanEx over Mr Chow’s.
I have not.
No idea since my family doesn’t do Chinese family style dinner much. But looking at these two pictures on Yelp, Sea Harbour seems like they did a decent job on saucing but the shape of the pork pieces don’t seem very consistent with some pieces being really tiny.
Here’s Happy Family in Monterey Park courtesy of Yelp: 
Here’s New Lucky in Monterey Park courtesy of Yelp:
We are already seeing future vietnamese restauranteurs of tomorrow: afters ice cream, red envelope, dos chinos, vox kitchen, burnted ends, bite mi, the kroft, pop bar, Nguyen’s kitchen, ritters sk,
not passing any judgement whatsoever on the food—but none are traditional vnmese in any sense. And these are just the top of my head all the young 2nd gen viet am restauranteurs in oc/la.
Garlic and chives and oc and lau are more 1.5 generation, slightly older.
The end of the specialists, essentially and sadly
Fusion-y restaurants usually get a free pass from me when it comes to their creative exploits. I think when it’s the more traditional dishes get too high-end/chef-ified that raises my eyebrow a bit…it makes me think are you trying to gild the lily or are you really pushing the envelope.
I’m foreseeing a lot more of those types of fusiony restaurants for future of little Saigon than traditional ones for sure, but I hope I’m wrong.
I think you’re right. And then in 2 generations the kids will realize “what the hell did we do” and then try to bring back the traditional stuff.
But that is the problem if they realize it too late it will be difficult to reach back to grab their heritage. That’s why I’m interested in it now despite my language deficiencies. Chinese cuisine has already suffered great setbacks from the effects of the cultural revolution, if it wasn’t for the fact chefs escaped to Taiwan, Hong Kong, or practiced in secret then many more dishes would have been lost to history.
Another problem I see at least in America is many young Chinese-American chefs are focusing alot of Western techniques. IMO if you are going to use Asian ingredients but apply western, such as French, techniques then doesn’t that just make it French food? Rather if you adapt western ingredients and apply Chinese cooking techniques wouldn’t that be more spiritually Chinese food? That is one of my personal gripes about places like Kato, NIghtshade or Mr. Jiu’s. All seem to execute good food but it does often appear like alot of Western technique and plating ideas. I’m not knocking on the chefs abilities but I often feel it reflects their lack of training or experience with Chinese techniques due to how Americanized they are (which I’ve been guilty of in the past as well). For example Mr. Jiu’s roast duck comes with a confit duck leg which I find a bit polarizing because Chinese roasting techniques have perfected duck cooking. The typical roasting method has the heat source (the fire) at the bottom of the cooking area and you hang the ducks with the legs facing the most exposure to the fire so that it will cook faster than the breast so that you should arrive at a point where both breast and leg are perfectly cooked. To confit the leg seems like relying on Western technique as a safe fallback rather than trying to master the Chinese techniques.
Kind of a grey area with Vietnamese cuisine…
@moonboy403 @beefnoguy When I was in Japan, I ran into a couple from Hong Kong at both Nanba and Kimoto. They mentioned they had also gone to Ginza Shinohara and Sugalabo on that trip and go to Japan once a quarter. So they clearly don’t have a problem paying for food. Curious, I asked them about their favorite Chinese restaurants. They mentioned they like “local, low key” and basically said they didn’t think the likes of Lung King Heen were worth it.
@JLee I have had the good fortune of having been to a lot of highly regarded western restaurants, and maybe it’s my own tastes from growing up, but I have not found any duck dish that can surpass well-executed Chinese roast or peking duck (or, for that matter Chinese suckling pig!)
+1
