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Tue, 04 Oct 2005

Idée fixe

I was in San Francisco today, and after shopping for athletic shoes and walking around the Inner Sunset in gloriously non-foggy weather, I developed a terrific jones for one specific dish: a Vietnamese savory crepe, sometimes called a Vietnamese pancake. It's rice flour and potato flour made into a crepe, and stuffed with shrimp, ground pork, chicken, bean sprouts, and other stuff, and you eat it with romaine lettuce, pickled carrots, mint leaf, and fish sauce. When you have to have one, you really have to have one.

I tried to put it out of my mind, and went shopping at Andronico's. I came up with the idea of making cioppino for dinner, and found an plausible pre-packaged seafood medley that I could toss in a pot with some sauce (I get it in quarts) and it would be fine. But that just did not appeal. So I left with merely two kinds of boconccini (one with dried herbs and roasted garlic; the other with tomato and fresh basil), stuffed grape leaves, caramelized onion dip, a couple of Ritter's Sport chocolate bars, a bottle of pinot noir, and some croissants. (I love Andronico's.)

But back to the idée fixe. I had to find that crepe. I headed to Yummy Yummy, which has a silly name but is one of the best Vietnamese restaurants in the city (and it's a block from Andronico's, at 12th & Irving). Alas! Closed Tuesday!

The other Vietnamese places in the Sunset are undistinguished, and mostly pho-centric. Another good place in SF is Vietnam II in the Tenderloin, but I didn't want to go all the way down there and try to find parking, and wasn't sure if they made the crepe, anyway (although they seem to make every other dish in existence). Since I was heading home, I got on the bridge and headed for Le Cheval in Oakland. I'd never had a crepe there, but it's a great place. Parked right in front. Alas... they do not make the crepe. Aaaagh.

So. Time to hit the GPS navi, conveniently built into the dashboard of the car. Thankfully, I was in a dense region of Vietnamese restaurants (Chinatown/downtown Oakland), and "Sort by Nearest" worked well. The first one was Cam Huong, but it turned out to be a bakery which had already closed. Next -- Thanh Lan, but it was a sandwich shop, no hot food. Grrr. What next? Da Quang? Saigon? Phuong Lan? I followed the navi to each one, and finally stopped at Saigon, which is across the little plaza from Oakland City Hall. I grabbed the menu, and... no crepe. Well, the place was pretty empty, being only 5:30, so I asked the guy if they could make me a Vietnamese crepe. He said, "Oh, you mean banh xeo? Sure, no problem." 15 minutes later I was out the door with a crepe (and since I was there, an order of fried fish with hot sauce on general principles).

The crepe itself was no better than average for the course, but it made me happy. The best I've had were at Cafe de Mai in Lincoln, Nebraska (which has a sizeable Vietnamese population), a place called Nam Bistro in Islington, London, and the aforementioned Yummy Yummy. I get the idea that banh xeo is more casual food than restaurant food, so it might be available in places where it's not on the menu, if you ask. I've seen a few recipes on the Net and might give it a try at home.

Posted at 22:22 | permanent link

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