Todd is a photographer who has worked on several stories with me. He is adventurous, curious, savvy and intrepid. That applies to both his shooting technique (standing in the middle of a street for a better angle of a building) and eating philosophy (trying everything at least once). The first time he ate pho, he squeezed at least a tablespoon of hot sauce into his broth. My male cousin, who's also named Khanh, and I were impressed. His gastronomical fearlessness convinced me to forgive him when he made a bunch of inappropriate comments that insulted my religion and culture (i.e., "Why does Buddha have man-boobs?"). Today he tested a restaurant called Huong Giang in Garden Grove, Calif., the center of Southern California's Vietnamese-American community, with me. The eatery specializes in cuisine from Vietnam's ancient capital of Hue, including bun bo Hue, or a spicy noodle soup topped with pig's feet, blood bouillons and beef brisket, and sweet and savory dumplings steamed in banana leaves.
The soup wasn't to Todd's liking because it wasn't spicy enough and the meats were too weird. He said he liked pho better. He insisted on ordering the most intriguing salad on the menu, which was served with grilled beef, tarty pink ham, rectangular noodles and boiled bean sprouts.
Neither of us liked the homemade ham, but the grilled beef paired nicely with the lettuce and herbs. I loved the dumplings stuffed with shrimp and pork.
It was a chore peeling the aromatic leaves off the sticky dumplings.
But they were yummy.
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