We saw this sign (sadness), but it made sense since it was Tet...
No wonder there was parking in that plaza! We will just have to go to Hoai Hue another time th en.
Still wanting to have dinner in City Heights, we decided on Saigon since they had their own parking lot and we wouldn't have to worry about crappy street parking.
They sat us in a corner facing outwards to El Cajon Blvd. It was pretty full in here with only a few of the larger round tables empty.
I love the Lunar New Year decorations in VN places. So pretty.
They had their own version of bun rieu here (#103); Bert wanted to try the Bun Suong (#106). No appetizers, just soups for the night.
And here they are...Blood cubes in mine (two) plus a shared garnish plate (shredded cabbage, mint, bean sprouts, jalapenos and limes.
My bun rieu had fine strands of caramelized onion, which gave the soup a really ice flavor. I noticed that their scallions were cut into 1" pieces. There were several pieces of the fried tofu, a couple of pork slices, and quite a bit of the crab/pork/shrimp cake. The pieces were not too big and I liked how it looked in the soup. I read on some other blogs that the "rieu" is supposed to resembles clouds floating in the broth.
The tomato flavor was there, very fresh and light. Not too salty either. Again, I took a few nibbles of the blood cube and yeahhhhh, still don't like it. It has a thick and mineraly flavor (yeah, I know it's blood). I just can't seem to get into the coagulated blood thing. I liked the chopped green onions and cilantro on top as well which made the soup more "fresh" tasting.
I liked this bowl of soup much better than the version at Pho Ca Dao (which is dead last so far). Number one for me is still Phuong Nga 2. That place had it all and I already want to do a revisit.
Wish I had gotten a better photo of the bun suong - the bun refers to the vermicelli noodles while the "suong" or shrimp cake (sometimes even referred to as "shrimp sausages") are rolled to look like worms, specifically the coconut worm. That explained the worm like look. It didn't look quite shrimpy, but was formed into a short wormlike segment. Some other photos of bun suong I've seen online have longer pieces of the suong. We'll get a better photo of the ingredients next time.
Bert liked his soup which was something new that we both hadn't tried before. We may have to try this at other VN places to make comparisons.
Previous visit to Saigon:
January 2019 New Year's Day
Still wanting to try the version at Hoai Hue and maybe at Pho Duyen Mai or Bolsa. But really, Hoai Hue is next on our list
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