A Better Bowl



I first had Vietnamese food about 8 years ago. Like a girl, I wanted to ask it where it had been all of my life. The restaurant was a small place across from the movie theatre where a church was meeting up in Harrisburg. I generally like all Asian food...Korean, Thai, Japanese (sushi), Cambodian, and authentic Chinese (especially Szechuan), yet find Vietnamese my favorite. Although I had a Malaysian dish down in Philly one time, a deep fried yam stuffed with beef and peanuts, that was food fit for a god. One of the guys I was eating dinner with kept moaning, in a low almost inaudible tone, his pleasure with his dish.   

Vietnamese cuisine is fresh and non-greasy, not sugared up like American Chinese. Through the resettlement of Vietnamese people by churches in Central Pennsylvania a couple of decades ago, some Vietnamese people decided to stay rather than head west to California to places like Little Saigon in Southern Cal. I am so glad they stayed. It adds color and culture and cuisine to the local community. Like a flower, Vietnamese food is a blossom--gentle, beautiful, colorful. And delicious. Not that I have ever eaten a blossom.

Two Sundays I faced a choice of whether I would continue my "March Through The Menu" at a Vietnamese place up from my present Church, or go home and watch the Philadelphia Eagles. Fortunately, I decided to bag the Eagles game (they lost, I found out later) and continued to eat down the menu. Here is a listing of what I have enjoyed so far with my grades (on a 100% scale):

Vietnamese:

# 10 Bun Rieu 100
# 4 Bun Bo Hue 100
# 5 Mi Hoanh Thanh 87
# 6 Pho Dac Biet 90
# 7 Pho Tai Bo Vien 80
# 8 Pho Tai 95
# 1 Goi Cuon (Spring Rolls) 97
# 11 Bo Kho 100. This is what I had most recently and it rivaled the Malaysian Dish.

Football, what football? I got me a better Super Bowl, man.  See picture above...I have really enjoyed getting to know the proprietors of the place and they seem amused that a big white guy comes in and treats their food like the adventure it is. You know what dull  is? Watching the same old TV on the same old Sunday.

I hope to ask my Church community to join me one of these Sundays...and skip the football.
 

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