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Orange County

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To help commemorate the launch of my new Orange County portal, I'm posting an old trip I took with my brother down to Pho Thanh Lich so that he could try their famed filet mignon pho. Once you find a pho shop that you like, try asking for tai rieng and dip the meat in yourself like a Japanese shabu shabu. It keeps the meat from getting overcooked, and that sort of interactivity definitely makes a bowl of soup more fun.

9 Feb 08

On The Manhunt For Bun Bo Hue

Bun bo Hue has attained an almost mythic status amongst fans of Vietnamese cuisine and Asian noodles in general. Hot, spicy, oily, funky, meaty, slippery, all of this conspires in what has got to be the Perigord truffle of soups, a concoction that seems to tap into our psyche not via our taste buds, but via pheromones. The relationship between a diner and his bowl is so elemental and so close that it becomes primal. It's the kind of dish that's worth traveling to the ends of the Earth to find. Or at the very least, Orange County.

19 Jan 08

Driving All Over For Vietnamese Noodles

I had been driving around so much lately that I didn't notice that my laptop was slowly dying. And so by the time I actually got around to uploading and trying to talk about the things I'd done, the digital powers that be decided that a little bit of delay would be in order. No matter, it just allows me to take a step back and assess things, like why is it that I only ever talk about pho and not any other Vietnamese noodle. Well, time to correct that.

17 Dec 07

Thai Me Down

Mee Krob

I spent Father's Day in Oceanside to take my dad out to dinner at a neighborhood Thai joint. He'd just recently discovered Thai food, and I'm happy that he's extending beyond his usual repertoire. The place we went wasn't all that great, so I made a mental note to one day take my father to Thai Nakorn in Stanton to expand his understanding of Thai cuisine. Even if he still insists on pronouncing it "thigh".

18 Jun 07