One of the best parts of restaurant life is getting to know the people you work with. Many of my close friendships and failed relationships began while slinging food and beverage. You learn a lot about someone when you’re crammed into a service station trying to get orders in the computer before chef yells, “hot food!” I work at Spoke, which means I spend weekends with Khanh, a junior at Tufts and future titan of industry. Khanh’s job description says food runner but she’s carved out a niche for herself as our in-house ray of sunshine and hug provider. She’s good company. So when Khanh, who’s from Vietnam by way of Oakland, suggested we have an early Vietnamese New Year’s celebration I was all in.
Vietnamese New Year, or Tet, falls on February 8th this year and we’re kicking off the holiday in style with a pair of dinners in Dorchester’s Vietnamese enclave, Fields Corner. Actually, our early party isn’t so out of line with tradition as Tet generally runs for seven days. In the time immediately before and after houses are cleaned, gifts are given, debts are settled and families reunite. New Year’s Eve itself is a reflective night where people go to temple and honor their ancestors.
Whetting Our Appetites
Before dinners (sic), Khanh and I stop in at Ba Le, a takeout restaurant and bakery specializing in banh mi. This is also a Vietnamese specialty shop with pickled vegetables, sausages and banh chung, a glutinous rice and pork patty tightly wrapped in banana leaves. At the center of the shop is a large table jammed full of traditional Tet sweets like candied lotus root, dried fruits and bean cakes. Khanh picks up a few hard-to-come-by snacks and I grab a beef banh mi ($4) for later because who doesn’t like a midnight sandwich?
Khanh asks one of the proprietors where we should eat. Pho Le tops the list so we head south on Dorchester Avenue where Vietnamese restaurants are manifold. We’re early-birding it when we get to Pho Le, so it’s pretty quiet. Servers sit around a table near the kitchen, picking herbs and gossiping (I assume) and we take a comfy booth by the window.
An Abundant Sampling
We’re poured warm tea and order the seven course beef tasting menu for two ($36.95). The waiter brings over a hot plate, melting butter for us to immerse thinly cut slices of sesame beef. As it cooks, we soak rice paper in warm water and lay it flat on our plates. I follow Khanh’s lead, placing down a layer of vermicelli on the thin wrapper. Then we add pickled vegetables and fresh herbs like red shiso, basil and fish mint, which is exactly what it sounds like. Khanh mixes fish sauce, fermented shrimp paste and peanuts in little bowls for dipping as I corral the beef out of the butter. Khanh rolls her food like a pro. I’ll likely go undrafted.
“My little sister never eats any of this stuff,” Khanh says. “She’d take the vermicelli and roll it up and dip it in hoisin and that’s it. But me, I love it.” The rest of the courses flow out at a nice pace. More thin sliced meat now cooked with vinegar and onions, skewers of beef wrapped around scallions or enveloped by betel leaf, a hefty meatball with wood ear mushrooms, lime cured beef salad and a lumpy rice chowder which is comfort food for Khanh. “You eat this when you’re sick,” she says.
Buzzed on beef we mosey out of Pho Le just as it begins to fill up. The streets are quiet in Fields Corner but this stretch of Dot Ave looks healthy. Storefronts are filled and like the rest of Boston, property values are sky high. (Is a food blog the wrong forum to call this a bubble?)
Khanh tells me what it’s like being in college today and how much she enjoys mushroom foraging. I talk about my creative process which goes: snack, Tetris, snack, twitter, snack, Tetris, snack, write for ten minutes, repeat.
Finding Our Finale
We wander around the neighborhood turning onto Adams Street towards the restaurant Anh Hong which sits on the corner of the block. Neon lights in the windows give the restaurant’s interior a moody, violet hue and I imagine the two of us as film noir characters who say things like, With my brains and your looks, we could go places.
But this isn’t a movie, so we say things like I don’t know, what are you in the mood for? Khanh’s torn between two dishes. I tell her to get both. What’s a few hundred extra calories between friends?
First out is the banh canh cua ($8.95). Khanh is excited to taste me on this thick crab-based soup. “There are so many other soups in Vietnamese cuisine,” she say. “Pho, is what you eat at home. Everyone’s mom makes the best pho, y’know what I mean?”
The broth is deep red and creamy with clear wide noodles resembling udon. Finishing the dish is seafood, pork and hunks of congealed pork blood. Khanh’s proud of me for trying the blood but gives me a cockeyed look when I can’t get a grip on the slippery noodles with my chopsticks. “Watch, I bet they bring you a fork.”
“I’m good,” I say even though I’d be ok with a fork.
Next comes banh hoi ($12.95), which is flat formed vermicelli cut into triangle slices topped with fried tofu skin, grilled sausage and shrimp cake accompanied by a pile of herbs and pickled vegetables. Again, we’re meant to roll everything in rice paper and dip it into a sweet vinegar sauce. I further embarrass myself admitting I once ate a bowl of this vinegar sauce thinking it was a chilled soup amuse. My dinner partner is horrified but we move on by sending FOMO inducing pictures of this bounty to our friends at work.
In Vietnam, this party would go all night, spent in a home decorated with kumquat trees and orchids. Family and friends would gather around a generous spread of traditional foods grazing casually between sips of beer as the sounds of bells, drums and fireworks ring outside. Children receive red envelopes of money from the elders and we’d all look for signs of good luck for the new year.
We may be missing a few key elements here in Fields Corner, but Khanh is excited nonetheless. Looking at all the food crowding out the open spaces on our table she says, “Now this is a celebration.”
Banh Mi Ba Le, 1052 Dorchester Ave., 617-265-7171, banhmibaleboston.com
Pho Le, 1356 Dorchester Ave., 617-506-6294, pholedorchester.com
Anh Hong Restaurant, 291 Adams St., Dorchester, 617-265-8889, anhhongrestaurant.com
