Under the Harvest Moon

Have you noticed how big and round the moon is at this time of year?  She is eerily beautiful - the moon! It is also the time of year where ghouls and goblins roam the streets (or at least installed at the front doors as decorations).  As a Viet American, I've never understood the celebration of the macabre at this time of year. Here in Little Saigon, we celebrate the season by eating Moon Cake.

Moon Cake is one of the best Asian delicacies but the least well-known.  It is work-intensive to make and oh so delish!  A box of 4 moon cakes goes for $20 in Little Saigon; and if you buy them individually it would be $6 per cake.  Yeah, ouchie on the pocket book!  My favourite place to go is Sun Moon Bakery in the TK Shopping complex.  Not only does the proprietress makes the bestest moon cakes ever... she sells one box for $20 and the second box is free!

Moon cakes come in a variety of flavours:  combination would have a mix of egg yolks, nuts and meats in the center;  lotus or taro flavours would be sweet, balanced out by a slightly salty egg yolk;  same with green beans and red beans flavours  - which are sweet bean pastes surrounding a salty egg yolk;  and recently the Sun Moon proprietress began making the exotics such as green tea ice cream flavour as well.


While Westerners adore the sun (symbolized by "yang" or male element), people in the Far East admire the moon for its beauty and elegance.  The moon is "ying" and is the perfect female counterpart.  Eating moon cake with jasmine tea is heavenly.  Life would only get better if you do so, while in the company of great friends!

Children really enjoy the Harvest Moon Festival because they "harvest" money, candies and brightly-lit lanterns during this special occasion.  Vietnamese lengends have it that a pair of long lost lovers,  she - the daughter of an emperor,  he - a poor farmer's boy, fell in love but were forbidden to be together in life.  In death, on one special night of the year, under the brightest Autumn moon, a bridge is made in heaven to release all in the spirit world to roam the earth.  Under this harvest moon, the lovers are re-united once more to rekindle their romance, one night out of the year.  The children's brightly-lit lanterns are said to guide the way for the lovers to find each other.  Vietnamese families also throw candies onto the street to "placate" grumpy spirits!  As I'm writing this, I'm struck by how similar it is to the legends of All Hallow's Eve.  Wow! did I say earlier that I don't understand the celebration of the macabre?

So, as the chill in the air is nipping at my heels, I am going to put up strawmen and autumn leaves as decorations all over the house.  No ghouls or goblins for my family.  But I do hope that lovers all over the world re-unite, and enjoy this season. As autumn will surely stretch into winter, let me go and enjoy my moon cakes before packing on the pounds and feeling too guilty for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Until next time friends.... stay young, stay romantic, stay delightful!

-Joie DeVire

Phở - Holly Cow Noodles Soup!

The rising popularity of this Vietnamese Noodle Soup all over Southern California has spawned some interesting restaurant names lately:   Pho Sure in Valencia;  PhoShow in Culver City;  Pho4You in Cerritos...

Phở is a Viet person's soul food.  It is our cure for cancer!  ... well, not quite... but it certainly is our cure for everything else:  the common cold, the hangover, or even a bad breakup.  Like the song says: "there's a tear in my beer cos i'm crying for you dear", there are plenty of nights when we Saigonese go to the local Phở joint, inhale the aroma of beef noodles to forget about a heart-ache!

In reality, the concept of Pho is quite simple:  rice noodles steeped in beef broth, added with condiments such as green onions, basil and cilantro, along with a few squirts of hoisin and sriracha sauce and ... voila!  a soup that smells (and tastes) like nirvana.

Have you driven down Bolsa Ave lately?  Notice how many Pho Restaurants there are?  (a crude search on Yahoo Local!  gives 174 results just for Westminster, 178 for Garden Grove and 169 for Santa Ana).  Check my math folks but that's over 500 restaurants with Pho in its name within a 25miles radius of the area defined as Little Saigon. Each restaurant, I can assure you, has its own recipe for how to make pho.



As the result, the epicurious will have a hard time visiting them all - but it's a task worth undertaking.  Somebody has to do the hard work, right?  A Vietnamese living in this area also has what I call phonitis when travelling outside of the area (even if "outside" means well within the borders of Southern California).  Phonitis is a disease whereby the person searches aimlessly for a pho restaurant whenever they are in a strange land.  With today's technology, they would search desperately for pho in its name on the GPS, and yell at the hubby to take sharp turns in order to get there before closing time.  After all, restaurants outside of Little Saigon are not used to being open past 10pm.  Once inside the doors, the person settles happily at a table to order the largest bowl, only to start criticizing everything even before the waiter puts the soup on the table:  where is my plate of bean sprouts?  can I have a few more sprigs of basil please?  no, not that type of Thai basil, the Viet type!  what? you don't have it?  ok - fine, give me more cilantro please.  You have that don't you?  and lime!  lime please, not lemon but lime for my soup!

On the way out, the person would complain about the 15% tip that most non-Viet waitstaff would certainly be expecting.  Within minutes of leaving, the person would whip out their smart phone and Yelp! about how bad the Pho was, even as they were enjoying the lingering taste of beef noodles on their tongue.



Until next time friends... eat well and stay curious!
-Joie DeVivre



  

Fruits... Glorious Fruits!

          As  a Viet Epicurist (not to be confused with a pedicurist -- who is more than likely a Viet also), I am proud of the variety of fruits South East Asia produces. What's even more amazing is the wide variety of offerings right here at the local supermarkets in Westminster -- aka Little Saigon.

I will highlight my top 5 favourite picks of all time.  My hope is for you will get out there and get a taste of Little Saigon!

Dragon Fruit:

The Spanish version of this is the pitaya or the pitahaya fruit of the cactus plant.  The most common form you will find is called las tunas which turn yellow then red atop fearsome cacti fences along  the southern California desert, down to Mexicali.  However, the Vietnamese version of this -- affectionately called the dragon druit, is round, nice, fat and juicy, with edible seeds the size of sesame seeds.  Thanks to my friend Phoenix, last month I was introduced to the purple variety of the dragon fruit.  Normally, this fruit comes in pink skin, white meat, and black sesame seeds with a light sweet taste.

Tell me... where's the best place you've ever had the dragon fruit?  As for me, the first time I visited Nha Trang where most of these fruits are cultivated, I was out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, in a dinghy tour boat, and the captain split open one of these dragon fruits to share.  Tasting the sweetness on my tongue, the salty air and the ocean breeze playing with my hair, I was close to heaven!

For more images of dragon fruit, click here
How to eat a dragon fruit, click here

Lychee Fruit:

This fruit was rumored to be the favourite of Emperor Li Longji's favoured concubine Yang Guifei.  She had demanded the fruit to be transported from the province of Guangdong to the Capital at great expense. What can I say...... the woman had GREAT taste!!!

The lychee fruit can look like a nut when slightly dried on the outside;  hence one often hear non-Asian people calling it lychee nut.  However, that would be a misnomer as this fruit is as non-nut as one can get!  Inside, the meat is white and juicy, with a perfumed sweet taste.  Lychees are canned in syrup.  However, the perfume flavor cannot be captured in the canning process.  For that reason, I highly recommend that you eat lychees fresh to truly appreciate how delightful this little fruit is to the epicurist's tongue.

For more images of lychee fruit, click here

Longan Fruit:

As a child, every summer I would soooo look forward to spending time in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam, where my grandmother lived.  The Delta was blessed with silt that was rich in nutrients. As a result, this region produces some of the richest, sweetest, most delightful fruits in all of South East Asia.  To be let loose in a longan orchard to climb the trees, and harvest the fruits from its source... I felt like a squirrel that got the nut!

Speaking of nuts, like lychee - I often hear non-Asian people calling longans nuts also.  That would be wrong. I even heard one guy calling it his dragon balls :)....    not sure where he got the name from but if dragons do exist, I would imagine their balls be the size of the aforementioned dragon fruits, and not tiny like these longans!

For more images of longan fruit, click here

Dates:

Ah... to me, the date is an enigma.
Grown from the palm tree, the fruit when unripe looks hard and unforgiving, inedible.  Though as a brave epicurist, I am tempted to eat anything at least once.  Biting into the yellow unripe date, I was pleasantly surprised by its sweet meaty taste, if somewhat tangy flavour.  The unripe date really reminds me of the areca nut (also from the palm tree) that my great-grandmother used to chew instead of tobacco back home in Vietnam  -- but that's a story for another day!

Like rice to Asia, dates have been a part of the Middle East for thousands of years.  Dates were mentioned more than 50 times in the Bible.  When ripe, dates are syrupy sweet and high in nutritional content as well as fiber.  Its meat can be used in yogurt, baking, or eaten raw pitted or unpitted.

   For more images of dates, click here

Rambutans:

To me, Rambutans have a ferocious look.  I mean, just look at it:  spines covering the entire fruit, and it's red and angry looking!  Luckily, looks can be deceptive.  Once you break open the peel, the meat inside is white and inviting to the lips as a lover's kiss.

It is thought that rambutan is derived from a Malay word for "hairy".  In Vietnamese, it is called chôm chôm which, funnily enough, also means messy hair.

Completely peeled, a naked rambutan can look just like a naked lychee, or a naked longan.  For this reason, it is thought that the three are from the same family. Their tastes are similar too but distinctively different.  If I must rank them along a scale from sweet to sour, I would say longan first, then lychee, then rambutan can be almost citrusy in flavor.

How to eat Rambutan, click here
For more images of rambutans, click here


Until next time friends.... eat well ... stay delightful!
-Joie DeVivre