Tag Archives: vietnamese

Asian Popcorn

October 14, 2015 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

Nothing too crazy about this “recipe.” It’s just a great, simple way to take your couch potato movie nights and Netflix binge weekends to the next level.

The most basic form of this would be to just add some sesame oil and soy sauce to your melted butter, and then sprinkle generously on your popcorn with a little bit of Chinese five spice, garlic powder, salt and toasted sesame seeds (regular seeds are fine too). Add or remove ingredients as you see fit, but this general set of shit will give your snack a distinct Asian flavor profile, chock full of earthy goodness. I love it, and it beats the movie theater version by miles.

I usually make popcorn with a hot air popper and then add my seasonings, but you can simmer your kernels in the sesame oil if that’s your thing. The addition of pots and pans into my popcorn snacking is just too much clean up for my blood! Worst case, just add the additional seasonings to a bag of microwave popcorn.

If you like spicy heat, then add some chili flakes or cayenne pepper as well. Feel free to get creative with this. For example, I’m generally not a huge fan of nori, but I would imagine that those who do like it might want to crunch up some dried seaweed paper into flakes and shake that up with the mixture as well. Shit, I may try some fish sauce and cilantro on my next batch for a Vietnamese/Thai kick.

Chelsea, Flash Deals, Restaurant Reviews, Vietnamese

CoBa

September 28, 2015 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

My wife and I went to this Chelsea location with a Groupon deal. While the food doesn’t really look pretty, we both agreed that it was good. We started with lemongrass crusted fried tofu. The texture was similar to a silken tofu style that you might find in a miso soup, but a bit more structured.

We also had a duck salad. I was hoping the duck would be more crispy. It felt at times that the bits of duck were chewy or overcooked, but the salad was a nice crisp cabbage base that was dressed with a sour fish sauce.

For me, the star of the meal was this clay pot pork belly stew with potato, tofu and egg. Sometimes these can get too salty, but this was just right. The broth was nice with rice as well.

Last, we tried a noodle dish that ended up being similar to banh cuon, even though it was called something completely different on the menu. It had grilled pork, bologna style ham, cucumbers, bean sprouts, cilantro and flat, wide noodles. It was dressed in fish sauce. The meats were excellent and the noodles were perfectly cooked:

COBA
110 9th Ave.
New York, NY 10011

Jerky, Product Reviews

Vua Kho Bo Jerky

June 11, 2015 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

This stuff is nothing shy of amazing. So far this might be the best tasting jerky that I’ve ever had. The only down-side is that it is messy as fuck to eat. This isn’t ideal for laying on the couch and popping into your mouth while you watch a movie of flip through the TV channels. Who does that anymore, anyway? We fucking scroll through the on-screen guide looking for something better than whatever channel the TV happens to be on, or we comb our DVR’s for a show we can finally start to binge-watch, now that there are more than five of six of them recorded. Anyway… Back to business. You need a plate and several napkins when you eat this stuff. It’s fucking crazy messy. You’ll be shocked when you see how far some of the bits and pieces of tasty shit fly when you pull it apart for smaller, more manageable-sized pieces. Pictured below are the regular and spicy beef versions, but they have tons of variety to choose from. The spicy is VERY spicy. I love it.

You can score this shit in most Asian markets, or dry goods stores around Chinatown. The wording on the package is Vietnamese, and roughly translates to something like King Beef Jerky, according to my wife.

Here are some close-ups.

Spicy:

Regular:

Banh Mi, Fusion, Midtown East, Restaurant Reviews, Vietnamese

Num Pang

April 1, 2015 Johnny Prime 4 Comments

My wife recently “brought home the bacon” a few times with some delicious sandwiches from this joint.

First was the special Ad Rock (from the Beastie Boys) sandwich, which had pastrami and all the typical SE Asian sandwich fixings. This was pretty awesome, and came with cream soda and a bag of chips:

Then she came home tonight with a trio of hard, pipe-hittin’ niggaz that would bring even Marsellus Wallace to his knees:

Catfish: my favorite of the three, I think. Oddly enough. This was light, flavorful and really well balanced between spicy, sweet, hot, cold, soft and crunchy.

Pork belly: my second favorite. Deliciously soft thick-cut pork belly that was braised to a jerk worthy flavor level. I took three pics of this bitch.

Brisket: my least favorite of the three, probably because it had too much western style BBQ flavor going on. Otherwise this was a killer sandwich as well. LOTS of meat here too.

These ain’t your typical banh mi sandwiches, but they are fucking awesome.

NUM PANG
148 W 48th St
New York, NY 10036

Banh Mi, Lower East Side/Chinatown, Pho, Restaurant Reviews, Vietnamese

Pho Vietnam

February 7, 2015 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

This little spot is currently my new favorite Vietnamese food joint. It’s nice and clean inside, new-looking, and the food is really tasty. My wife and I tried a few items as a base level test run to decide if we would come back.

The pho: very flavorful, a good size, fresh ingredients. In fact they keep a jar of sliced jalapeños right there on the table next to the chopsticks, spoons, napkins, hoisin and sri racha.

The banh mi sandwich: nice and traditional, great bread, lots of filling and at least a foot long.

Next, one of my wife’s favorites: banh cuon. Really good quality shit here. Nicely cooked noodles, ample filling inside, and good slices meats and herbs.

Last was my noodle dish that had cut up spring rolls and sliced lemongrass BBQ pork chop on top. Simple and delicious.

We will definitely be coming back for more. Sit tight until then, when I can supplement the review with more deliciousness.

Okay so here’s the update as of 2/7/15:

Unfortunately this trip was not as good as the last. The avocado shake was less avocado-et, the banh cuon had grainy noodles.

The other two dishes we ordered contained meat that was a bit chewy.

I grabbed the bun bo hue, wanting to sample the more authentic flavors of this dish as opposed to the more fusion style of Obao.

For $7.50 you get a shitload of food. The bowl is huge:

The unfortunate thing about my order, however, was that the noodles were too soft (perhaps overcooked) and most of the meat was very chewy. For a stewed type dish I was hopping for softer meats.

I had the same issue with the pork casserole, or clay pot pork. The meat was pretty chewy, but the flavor was good.

Egg rolls are decent.

The avocado shake was not as sweet or rich/flavorful as other times I’ve had it:

But my wife had a decent cup of Vietnamese coffee:

PHO VIETNAM
87 Chrystie St.
New York, NY 10002

Midtown West, Pho, Restaurant Reviews, Thai

Obao

January 23, 2015 Johnny Prime 2 Comments

I’ll definitely be heading back to this part-Thai, part-Vietnamese joint VERY soon. My wife and I dropped in to sample some of their noodle soups. We were greeted by a gigantic bar.

But we first stated with an app of fried tofu.

These were awesome. If this is what being a loser vegetarian is like, then I’m in! They were coated with a nice and tangy lime-fish sauce, but still retained their great crisp coating.

The soups were all amazing. I had heard great things about the pho here, so I had to give that a try.

This baby was LOADED with beef brisket and eye round. You can add meatballs for an extra $2.

The pho was good, but the noodles were a bit busted up and not the best quality. When tasting it side-by-side to the bun bo hue, there was just no comparison.

This “Vietnamese ramen” was jammed up with generous portions of thick-cut, soft, juicy pork belly AND thin sliced beef brisket. The noodles were a soft, thick buckwheat style.

The tangy bun bo hue broth was contrasted with the milky-white, creamy laksa broth.

This, too, was PACKED with meat. This soup came with thick sliced pork belly and jumbo shrimp – both of which were cooked to perfection.

It’s tough for me to choose a favorite between the bun bo hue and the laksa. Regardless of which you choose, you will be a happy eater.

UPDATE 1/31/15

As promised, I returned to try some more shit. First, a pair of really nice apps.

Sambal spiced fried squid. These were really tasty. Perfectly cooked, although the breading was a little soggy due to the drizzle of fish sauce.

The other was pork rib wrapped around sugar cane. This was excellent. The meat was similar to a braised belly more than what I expect from rib meat. The sugar cane was not quite as sweet as I had hoped.

For the entrees we tried the Southeast Asian fried rice, which included shrimp, pineapple, tomato, onion, and Chinese sausage. I liked this a lot, though there were too many large pieces of tomato.

The other entree was Pad Kee Mow, or “drunken noodle.” When put up side-by-side to nearby Noodie’s version of this dish, I would shave to choose Noodies. That doesn’t mean this dish isn’t good, however. Quite the contrary – it was delicious. But Noodies has ground shrimp in the dish in addition to the chicken, so that just takes it up a notch over this one.

OBAO
647 9th Ave.
New York, NY 10036

Banh Mi, New Jersey, Pho, Vietnamese

Phu Khang’s

January 2, 2015 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

My wife and I dropped into this joint on our way to Philly, so this isn’t a NYC joint. We were shocked to see an Asian market and two Vietnamese restaurants right in the same strip mall. We had to try the basics.

The soup was great, better than most NYC places for damn sure. Its unfortunate how bad NYC is with Viet food.

The sandwich was kickass too. The bread was correct, and they used a good ratio of the various meats inside.

And my favorite dessert of all time: the avocado shake. Delicious.

Banh Mi, Midtown West, Pho, Restaurant Reviews, Vietnamese

CoBa 53

December 23, 2014 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

NOTE: THIS JOINT IS NOW CLOSED

My wife and I came to this joint to try some of the Vietnamese basics. We started with some drinks. I had “33,” which is a beer from Vietnam, and my wife had a lemonade mixed drink.

The first staple item to order is the spring rolls. These were not a hit for us. They were a little bland.

Next, the banh mi sandwich. This had good flavor, but the bread was all wrong (it needs to be a French baguette), and it needed more pate and another layer of meats to really fill it out. I would have liked some more slices of jalepenos and also less cilantro stems and more leaves.

The next big item to get is the pho. I liked the broth. It needed just a slight more oomph, but otherwise it was pretty enjoyable. It had sliced eye round as well as brisket. I added beef balls for an extra $2.

This next items isn’t necessarily a staple item to order, but my wife and I are fond of clay pot dishes. We got the pork belly version and it was really great. It was packed with lots of great porky and fatty meat, a boiled egg, fried tofu, squash and lemongrass.

For dessert we had the coconut lemongrass ice cream. It was a little gummy in texture, but otherwise was an interesting flavor.

Here’s the Willy:

COBA 53
401 W. 53rd St.
New York, NY 10019

Pho, Queens, Restaurant Reviews, Vietnamese

Pho Bang

December 22, 2014 Johnny Prime 2 Comments

Pho Bang in Elmhurst has been touted as one of the best places to get a bowl of the increasingly popular Vietnamese beef noodle soup. I liked the broth flavor here: it was rich in beefy flavor, though not as light-feeling and aromatic as it should be. Since it was a little bit of a hike for me, I’d probably not go back since I can get a bowl that is on-par if not better downtown.

The main problem for me with this bowl of soup was that I found a piece of thick, food-grade plastic bag in it. When I told the waiter, the manager came over and explained that it was just part of the bag that was snipped off to either unload the pre-packaged broth.

Anyway, I was hungry, so I plucked it out and ate it. But this would probably be a nail in the coffin of “not coming back here again” for most people. Here’s the piece of bag – it was about the size of a fingernail:

PHO BANG
8290 Broadway
Elmhurst, NY 11373

Banh Mi, East Village, Restaurant Reviews, Vietnamese

Sao Mai

December 3, 2014 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

My wife and I stopped in here for some banh mi sandwiches after eating some pizza at Motorino around the corner. We tried a classic sandwich, and a pho sandwich (sliced beef and the toppings you usually get with pho, like bean sprouts, etc). Both were pretty good, but I think I liked the pho sandwich better. Both were pretty spicy without having to ask for it, which I like. Check out the pics: