bun something

After both suffering several days of bad illness (and still recovering), my wife and I decided to get some Vietnamese food at a place in Madison Heights she had been to a long time ago. We had tried Vietnamese at Annam, in Dearborn during the summer, and that was very good (I think my wife’s duck was better than whatever it was I had, because I can’t remember what I had). Anyway, Annam is sort of a high-end Vietnamese place with nice decor (but really spotty service). Today’s excursion was quite the opposite.

After seeing that the place we were actually headed to no longer existed, we saw a place called Que Huong right across the street (it seems that Madison Heights is somewhat of a “Vietnamtown” in the sense that it seems to have a lot of Vietnamese restaurants). A sign in the window advertised Vietnamese Sandwiches. The decor was more minimal than minimal. Bare white tile floor, a few tables, fluorescent lighting, a cheesy lighted display on the wall showcasing some of specialties, Vietnamese music videos on a small TV in the back (the music was mostly sappy sounding ballads sung by passionate young men). But the food was the focus, and the food was very good.

Wife ordered bun cha, a dish of grilled pork, rice noodles and fresh veggies, a dish we learned about from the Vietnam episode of No Reservations.

I opted for a more soupy dish; it too had bun in the name, but I can’t remember the whole thing (it was like 6 words, man). Anyway, it was a big bowl of a very delicious broth (see above pic, though the pic doesn’t make it look as appetizing as it actually was), the same rice noodles, thin slices of beef, green onions, and a side plate of fresh mint, bean sprouts, red cabbage and lime to add at your leisure. The broth was perfect, both savory and sour. The bowl did include something we found out to be “pork roll”* as well, but I didn’t like the consistency of those, so I took those out. But no big deal. The rest was excellent.

I also ordered a BBQ pork sandwich to go, which I just ate. It had BBQ pork, shredded carrot, a couple chilies, a slice of cucumber, on a French roll.** Very good.

* I really dislike things like pate or this so-called “pork roll”. It was sort of a reconstitued patty of meat that was ground finely. I want my meat to taste (and feel) like meat, not have the consistency of bologna.

** It is interesting what kind of influence the French had on Vietnam, culinarily (?) speaking, in that they have sandwiches, and they’re made on really good French bread.