Slurp du Jour: Pho Bo Dac Biet (Hold The Ngau Pin) At Quan Bac

Pho Bo Dac Biet at Quan Bac

As I pondered the (hopefully imminent) re-opening of Turtle Tower in its new digs, I recalled some Chowhound.com posts about inner Richmond restaurant Quon Bac, which I'd never visited, also being a Northern-style Vietnamese restaurant of some repute. To add to my interest, Quan Bac's pho menu led off with Pho Bo Ngau Pin Dac Biet, or "combination beef noodle soup with bull 'pudendum'," an ingredient I've never caught up with in a bowl of noodle soup.

Settling into a seat at the comfortably appointed Quan Bac at Geary and 5th, I confidently ordered #38, Pho Bo Ngau Pin Dac Biet.  "We don't have that today," said the server, steering me to #41, Pho Bo Dac Biet, "combination of well-done, rare beef and beef ball noodle soup." Dac Biet is a term familiar to pho-goers, basically meaning house special, though to me today it meant "hold the ngau pin" and I wondered if they would have had it if I were not Caucasian. To accompany my noodles, I ordered an appetizer Cha Ca Chien,  or deep fried fish cake.

I've read comments in some quarters (which shall remain nameless) about Quan Bac being a little "pricey" but that's a canard, or in this case, bull bleep. My huge "regular" size bowl was $7.50. Imagine a bowl of, say, ramen anywhere at that price, especially one as huge as my bowl of pho, with as great a richness of animal flesh, residing in a delicately fragrant broth that you don't get mugged by. The fish cake appetizer might seem a dollar or two high in price at $7.25, but it came beautifully plated with a small mountain of vermicelli and enough shrubbery to feed a hungry rabbit; by itself, it would have made a light lunch for a finicky eater.

I thought both my pho (bull pecker or not) and my fish cakes were excellent. The pho's broth seemed perfectly balanced with no need for adding flavor-enhancing condiments (though I can never resist throwing in all the jalapeno slices), the meats were fresh and tender, and the flat rice noodles done just right. The fish cakes, though described as deep fried, were entirely greaseless and delicately flavored, and I much preferred them to the Thai version I had recently at House of Thai.

Quan Bac is a notch "nicer"in ambience and marginally pricier than the proletarian hole-in-the-wall Vietnamese restaurants in the Tenderloin that occupy a special place in my scheme of things; combining this with Quan Bac's value and authenticity, another question comes to mind: who needs places like The Slanted Door?

Where slurped: Quan Bac, 4112 Geary Boulevard at 5th Street, San Francisco

Bowled and Beautiful: Yen Ta Fo From House of Thai

I headed for the Tenderloin today, intending to check out the mi quang at Ngoc Mai, the only place in town I know of that reputedly makes a good version, but Ngoc Mai had closed for vacation for the next two months, and I soon found myself at the door of House of Thai, née Thai House Express on Larkin. After some head-scratching, I decided on a go at House of Thai's yen ta fo.

It was an appreciation of yen ta fo at Lers Ros Thai that inaugurated this blog nearly three years ago, and I was eager to revisit this pink marvel once again, to compare HOT's version with LRT's, insofar as my memory (and initial blog post's assessment) allowed. I won't belabor the dish with excessive explanation again, except to say it's a seafood (and sometimes pork) intensive rice noodle dish with a pinkish red broth derived from fermented, red rice colored tofu, sometimes with an assist from tomato sauce.

House of Thai's menu describes their yen ta fo as "Shrimps, squid, tofu, fish balls and shrimp balls and spinach in secret bean curd sauce soup." Greenery is added in the form of both water spinach and cilantro. In comparison with Lers Ros Thai's version, I'd have to say I was bowled over (so to speak) by the quantity of fishy matter delivered by House of Thai. Elsewhere in this blog I described a chao ma mian I reviewed as a "Chinese cioppino;" the bowl I had today could be called a "Thai cioppino," even down to its color. Not itemized on the menu were a couple of masses of white fungus, which had little flavor other than what they absorbed from the broth, and added a verticality to the presentation which enhanced the dish's overall attractiveness. The fish balls, shrimp balls, fried tofu and the one solitary large shrimp in the soup were tasty and not overcooked. The broth, compared to what I recall of Lers Ros Thai's version, was less spicy (always remediable via the condiment tray), slightly sweeter and more tomato-ey. It's a fair bet one of the ingredients in the house "secret sauce" is either tomato sauce or Thai ketchup.

In sum, I'd say House of Thai wins with the toppings, but Lers Ros Thai wins with the soup, so I'd call it a draw. Both versions are bowls of noodles worth returning to.

Where slurped: House of Thai, 901 Larkin St., San Francico

A Noodle Trifecta At The Burmese Water Festival, And Yes, That's a Thingyan

Khauk Swe Thoke at the Burmese Water Festival

I headed out to Union City today for the first time in my 50+ years in San Francisco, attracted by the expectation of good home-style Burmese food at the San Francisco Bay Area Thingyan Festival, a. k. a.  the Burmese Water Festival, a. k. a. the Myanmar New Year Festival. It took place at Kennedy Park, which fortunately is adjacent to the Union City BART station.

A Thoke Sone

It took seemingly forever to get to Union City on BART, and by the time I got there, cased a long string of food booths, bought the tickets that were legal tender for food, and returned to the food booths, some items were already selling out and I felt fortunate to grab a cold noodle salad (called a thoke sone, according to the man who took my tickets and a fork and napkins).  It was a (literally) hand-mixed salad of broad rice noodles, rice vermicelli noodles, green papaya shreds, cabbage, and a host of condiments that I probably cannot pronounce.  One gets the choice of mixing it oneself with ones own bare hands (and eating it with the same bare hands, in traditional fashion) or having the expert hands of the preparer mix it. Since I had already been handed a fork, I chose the latter. After I devoured it,  I returned and another cold noodle salad caught my eye (see the photo at the top). This one (if I understood the server correctly) is called khauk swe thoke and is made with egg noodles and dried shrimp.   By default it's served not spicy, but they had some crushed dried chilis at hand to remedy that.

Mohinga

After my second helping of noodles went down as easily as the first, I returned to the tents and finally found some protein in an attractive form: a  Shan tofu salad, strips of yellow tofu made from chickpea flour colored with turmeric, topped with a savory sauce and plenty of crushed peanuts and cilantro. It was soothing mix of the sharp and the bland, the crunchy an the smooth. Belly full, I proceeded to walk off my lunch by exploring the rest of the event, and was shocked to discover another bank of food stalls I had overlooked on the opposite side of the park, with more substantial meat and seafood fare, still serving long lines of hungry people. A mohinga stand anchored the far end of this pod of food stalls, and I decided it would be a sin to leave without sampling the signature Burmese catfish and rice noodle chowder, full belly or not  It was as good as any restaurant mohinga I have had, and just as I was waiting to order, their production line paused while they were pretended with an award certificate.

As unprepared as I was, I managed to pick three noodle winners. Next year I'll come early, forewarned, and with a plan of attack in place.

Where slurped: San Francisco Bay Area Thingyan Festive, Union City.