Mother's Day 2018 - Return to Que Huong & MNGO

We took our photos in our nice clothes for Mother's Day.

But now it was back to jeans and a nice shirt so we could be comfortable...

TC and I had our "eating clothes" on, ha ha.   Loose fitting top and stretchy jeans.

Bert was the lucky driver and at my recommendation, parked on an outside spot. The lot in here can get pretty crappy with drivers who don't park within the lines. We'd gone to Que Huong in the past for Mother's Day, but I didn't realize it had been about four years since our last visit! 

They opened at 11 and a line was already there with a big group of women. They had to push together two huge round tables for the whole party.


This is new, a stage/dj area. I hadn't been here since they remodeled.

Unbeknownst to us, they had a special menu just for today. I didn't expect this. I was hoping to have jackfruit salad with shrimp and pork. The server said the menu was only for today and oh, they also didn't have drinks either, so no smoothie for TC.  Bert, however, had a cafe sua da (served in a mason jar mug); I stuck with water.

So yeah, special Mother's Day Menu. We chose four items.


You cannot eat at Que Huong and NOT get these...behold, the Fish Sauce Wings. These kick ass on those overly salty wings from Pok Pok in Portland.  These wings were meaty with a nice caramelization on the skin from the delicious sauce. 

Since they didn't have the jackfrui salad, I chose the green mango salad with surf clam.  This was served with fried shallots, chopped peanuts and a spicy lime based sauce.  This had a kick to it! It went well with the sour green mango and the tender surf clam. Bert and TC hadn't tried surf clam before; I last had it at some crappy VN place off Convoy that has since closed down (they also almost shredded my throat with  $%#& broken glass in their drinks, but that's another story).  Back to the clam...it has an unusual look. The texture was so tender and not rubbery at all. The flavor was also clean, picking up flavors from the citrus chili sauce coating this salad.

Speaking of sauces, whatever was in this little bowl was amazing.  This was the sauce that accompanied the shaken beef (cubed filet mignon) with garlic noodles. This dish was Bert's choice.


The yellow peppers were there for color. I only cared about the beef and noodles. I hardly cook or eat beef at home, so this was a treat. The meat was so flavorful and tender. The garlic noodles were also great, serving as a nice bed for the meat, ha ha.  The cucumbers helped cool down the heat from the salad.

TC's selection was the crab fried rice.  They had another sauce that went with it and that was also quite tasty. Each sauce was distinct and added another dimension to the dishes.  The crab was finely mixed in with the rice. You can't really see it but it was there. Real crab too, not that Krab shit. It was a lot of food and we managed to take home just the rice and a little bit of the noodles. 

The Mother's Day menu was a winner.  Jay even came out to say hello! He is such a nice guy and I'm glad that his restaurant continues to be successful.

Dessert was in this strip mall before visiting Bert's mom...


We were fortunate to snag a prime spot and also a spot inside the dessert place. 



Iced brown sugar cold brew with cream + OMG platter and mango kakigori:

Bert and I shared the OMG (ordered during my first visit, that post linked at the end). This time, the mini scoops of sweet rice were multicolored instead of just purple. This was mango overload in a good way!  Everything was fully enjoyed. TC shared a bit of her mango kakigori. Inside were mango chunks and on the bottom was mango gelatin pudding!  She enjoyed pouring some of the sauces directly on to the finely shaved ice.



My cold brew drink started off okay. but later, the cream kind of solidified and made me feel like it was clogging my arteries, ha ha.  The brown sugar syrup in there was also pretty strong. I liked it but probably would have liked it with less cream. Because lactose. Yeah.

Fun desserts! TC was happy to have gone here.  The place was crowded. We sat near the windows. No normal tables were available. Lots of Asians too. That goes without saying. Convoy you know.  I still want to try some of their other drinks so another visit is in order.

I could make this drink myself with homemade brown sugar syrup and almond milk. That'll be my next challenge.

Previous Mother's Day visit to Que Huong:
May 2014

Previous visit to MNGO:
"KD's Bday Crawl Stop 5 - MNGO Dessert & Coffee Bar to end the day..." January 2018

Last year's post
Mother's Day 2017

TC had given me "beauty products" as her Mother's Day gift. Some sort of seaweed gel mask and a charcoal pore cleaner mask along with liquid makeup remover.  Is there some sort of hidden message going on?What does that mean? Are my pores too big? Do I have bad skin or what? I don't think I do!  Later on, TC plans to put one of those mask products on my face! It will be interesting since I've never done any of those beauty masks before. Sorry, no photos of that! 

I enjoyed Mother's Day with my thoughtful daughter (heh) and husband. It was also nice seeing my mother in law again. We would later have dinner with my side of the family at Pho Hiep Grill Chateau in Eastlake (more VN food!).  My parents, plus both siblings and their kids would all be there. I'm grateful that my mother is still around and is recovering well from her knee replacement surgery from earlier this year. We can't take life for granted.