The Bloggomist: Table of Content
Food Opinion

One spring afternoon about three years ago, I spent a good while driving up and down Hyperion Ave., scowling as much about my inability to locate my destination as I was at my empty, audibly indignant stomach. Both hungry and fed up with the crooked, U-turn unfriendliness of the street, I’d just about abandoned my search when, finally, I spotted Viet Soy Café.

The difficulty of finding the tiny spot was ultimately worth it. Over the next few months, Soy Café’s lemongrass chicken and freshly pickled vegetables were the only thing I’d eat between bread (and believe me: when you teach, sandwich discrimination’s no joke). Viet’s delicately jicama-crunched spring rolls had me pretty sprung, too. Other menu items definitely looked very promising, but as anyone who knows me well will confirm, I can’t handle much more than a half-serving of any dish at one sitting. And there was this thing, something elusive about Soy Café that made it wrong to take leftovers home. Was it its almost hidden location? its actual spatial economy? its pensiveness, borne of thoughtfully, quietly handmade food? Perhaps it was that Wong Kar Wai-esque temporality of mundane activity (assisted, in no small part, by the In the Mood for Love OST oft played from portable stereo) so very singular that imagining resumption or replication of the experience elsewhere, in either time or space, was a sort of affront….?

Whatever it was, it made even the notion of a doggy bag a grave offense. For this reason – and because I actually loved to eat there alone – I contented myself with VSC’s nevertheless splendid banh mi and stiff Vietnamese iced coffee. Because, I’m not joking, that was all my damnable stomach could manage. More than once I’d glanced furtively, longingly at others’ generous bowls. I coveted my neighbours’ rice (-noodles, that is); and I confess, unabashed, that I did so on very many, ungodly occasions.

Viet Soy Café ended up shutting its doors by the end of 2007, when its proprietor and loyal clientele moved, a few miles away, to Atwater Village. Viet Noodle Bar, Soy Café’s arguably chic-er and certainly more capacious sibling, has a different feel from its elder/smaller. The majority of its seating is communal, and one of its mostly-white walls is lined with all manner of tasteful used books. Its menu has also expanded to include some beef along with its standard soy, chicken, and fish. But what’s stayed the same is what’s key for me, and one particular dish – the soyskin noodle – has drawn me back to Viet Noodle Bar at least once every week for the last month.

As I’m loath to kill your appetite with overwrought description of the dish’s components, suffice it to say that these ingredients:
- custom-ordered, fresh from-rice (not dried from-rice flour) bun
- savoury fried soyskin
- warm stewed tomato
- juicy chunked shiitake
- oil-crisped spring onion
- roughly chopped cilantro
come together to form a most satisfying, satiating meal that I’ll wager you’ll like more with every serving.

When you sample this, do yourself the great favour of going solo: a dish like this – pillowy, chewy, earthy, crispy and fresh, subtle yet substantive and unassumingly good – deserves full attention. Allot ample time, too. Eat without haste. Consider bites more consciously than you would a semolina pasta or brothy noodle. Arranged mouthsful enjoyed unhurriedly will taste deeper than those shoveled into your maw — this isn’t pretension, folks, it’s due respect for simple ingredients — and since these noodles won’t blow up Stay-Puft steez if you take your time, resist rushing and slow yo’ roll. If eating alone is neither customary nor completely comfortable for you, pull down something uncomplicated from the shelf so you can maintain a focus on the food. That one Dan Brown book should expect a half-eye/mind, and Trondheim probably wouldn’t mind your just looking at his pictures.

Before I left my last visit, Viet asked, “Do you take chicken?” and added, with characteristic aplomb, that his O.G. Northern-style pho ga (chicken pho; his done with organic bird) had made Bon Appetit’s nationwide list of “Top Ten Asian Noodles”. The Polite Girl in me smiled, “Yes, yes… I’ll definitely try it…”; the Contrarian within intoned, “Away from the bandwagon!” While I’m fairly certain the Curious will sometime win that argument and celebrate with poultry reward, I’m even surer I’ll choose the soyskin at least nine more times before I go for the ga. It’s really that good.

For hours and directions, visit: http://www.vietnoodlebar.com/

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For more from E. Tae Cha, visit: www.evilmonito.com/author/elaine

Published on 10 November 2009 | 2 |