Teich.Net :: All In

It is easy to spend a lot on food in Hoi An. While many places there offer wonderful settings, Mango Rooms and Thi Nhan were by far our best—and most expensive—meals. 

Mango Rooms has gotten plenty of well-deserved accolades and guide book endorsements. It’s far from traditional food, which can be a welcome break on a long trip. And, it’s just plain tasty. The view from the bar on the second floor balcony doesn’t hurt either. The ever-so-light vegetable tempura—including squash blossoms!–and cocktails with fresh mango and passion fruit, ginger and lemongrass were the standouts. The fish of the day was also very good. The crystal rolls, forgettable. Chef Duc stars (and double stars) "favorites/sexy/yummy" (each page has a different footnote) that did end up being the best of our choices. If in doubt, go with those. Mango Mango, Duc’s other lounge restaurant across the river, facing the Japanese bridge, has a different menu but similar food. We ended up there on our last night when searching for the best vantage point to watch the full moon festival that had darkened the center of town. I was devastated when they didn’t have the tempura on the menu. They must had read my mind: we got two tempura squash blossoms as an amuse.

We biked to Thi Nhan (formerly the Quan Nhan restaurant described by New York Times food critic Amanda Hesser–it seems the former co-owner is now out of the picture) for lunch on the way to the beach our second day. We would not have found it without our hotel’s instructions to look for Full Moon across the street and the printout of the NY Times review tacked to the door. We were the only customers but didn’t mind. We had the choice between a $30 menu for two and a $50 menu, both five courses of fresh local seafood, the difference being "bigger crab." We went with the smaller portions, which we still couldn’t quite finish (though the crab was indeed tiny). The crab with the ginger-tamarind-lemongrass sauce, the shrimp with fried garlic, and the clams with I don’t know what (I usually don’t even like clams!) were outstanding, the fish and calamari also good if ordinary. Thankfully, Thi Nhan also shelled the crab for us at the table.

As for the rest of our meals: Hoi An Cargo Club was decent but not memorable aside from the particularly pungent fish. We tried the local specialties cau lau,, the white rose, and another noodle dish, as well as spicy eggplant, at Brother’s Cafe and found them all rather bland, but it’s possible that’s the style. We haven’t found much heat in the food in Vietnam, despite our best efforts. (Oren also got eaten alive by bugs at Brother’s, so we cut short our lingering there.) The beachfront restaurant we visited (the fifth one north of where the main road hits the beach, I believe) was passable, but nothing special.

Mango Rooms
111 Nguyen Thai Hoc
On the street that runs along the north side of the river, just east of the bridge that’s towards the center of town. Mango Mango is across the river, facing the Japanese bridge.

Ti Nhan
128 Cua Dai – Cam Chau
3 km from Hoi An, 1 km from Cua Dai beach, on the north side of the main road connecting the two, close to Full Moon (which is on the south side of the street)

Several other restaurants came up as recommended in our research. Of those, here are the ones we wish we had had a chance to try:

• Cua Dai Restaurant, at the Hoi An Beach Resort, recommended in the book of travel essays, To Asia With Love.
• Dung, 38 Phan Chu Trinh Street, towards the East end of the old part of town. We did walk by on our last night, but the neon lighting was not what we were looking for during the moon festival.
• The Mermaid (Nhu Y) Restaurant, where the spring rolls and white eggplant are recommended by Frommers. 02 Tran Phu St.
• The bun gio cha nam nhieu rau at an area up an alley off Phan Cho Trinh St. (about 100 yards west of Le Loi St.). Recommended by Duc of Mango Rooms, via a post on Chowhound. You have to go between 3:30 and 4 in the afternoon because that’s the only time the dish is available—we kept missing the window.

There’s a small (20 people max) place in West LA that I’ve heard about for a few years. Referred to as “Secret Beef”, this is a Japanese style BBQ restaurant. 9 courses, prix fix, BYOB, and often hailed as the best beef in all the US. The catch? You can only get in if someone else who’s on the list brings you. Lucky for me, Chuck (his original post) just happened to be going there this past Tuesday with 4 of his friends, and he invited me to tag along!

If you want the gory details, I’d suggest this Chowhound post. Barring the crab legs on the starter, it’s exactly the same as our meal.

My verdict – to tell you the truth, and I’m almost afraid to post this – disappointing. The meat was good. The throat was tough for me, and a bit unique. The rest of the beef was amazingly tender, with the best marbling I’ve ever seen. Ultimately, I eat for the taste, and that’s where I was let down. There was little to no “beef” flavor, mostly it was succulent, tender, grilled meat stuff. It may just be the style. I am far from experienced with Japanese BBQ. I’m used to steaks, thick cut American or Argentinian. For the person who appreciates this style, I’d easily believe this is the best version of it in the western world.

It is BYOB, so BYOB we did. 6 bottles for 6 people, including the star of the evening, a 750ml 2000 D’Yquem (thanks Steve!). Wonderful wine, darn good food, great ambiance, and a great set of people. If you get a chance, go for it!

Check out the full gallery.

Explanation of ratings

Attire: Whatever. Really. It’s the least style conscious place you can imagine. Wear what you wear.

I’ve written about the French Laundry before (visits one and two). This post is now two months overdue and I’ve struggled with what new to say about our lunch in May. While my giddy, over-the-top awe has mellowed over the course of our five meals there (which have included a few dishes that didn’t quite make it into the stratosphere), my general opinion that it offers the best fine dining experience in the US remains unchanged. That said, my compulsion to return as often as possible has waned as the price and familiarity have increased, so with the difficulty of assembling a party of four on 3 days’ notice willing to drop that kind of cash, I nearly took a pass when Chuck offered me a last-minute reservation in May. But, we did manage three people, it was a good time of year for produce, and a nice celebration for the week before starting my new job, so off we went! Rather than rehash the oohs and awes or detract from the memory with a few nitpicks, I offer notes from our latest meal through photos.

Check out video interviews with top Bay Area chefs and food writers talking about their favorite San Francisco dining spots. I felt some validation watching Thomas Keller, one of my food idols, coo over my personal SF favorite, Quince. And, I had never though of trying Campton Place for brunch!

As a side note: I actually found this site through a banner ad served by DoubleClick on Tastyr San Francisco Restaurant Reviews, a site I landed on from a comment about recommendations on a TechCrunch post. This is the first time I can remember clicking on a banner ad in ages. It’s not that I don’t like ads — I actually really appreciate the goods ones, they are just few and far between. American Express has done a pretty decent job with their My Card, My Life campaign, though I’m not sure how much the print ads or this Local Dish site contribute to my use of my Amex card. What this find does demonstrate is the value of real content in advertising and of matching little sites like Tastyr with truly relevant ads.

In getting to know new people, especially at work, the conversation usually includes where we’ve worked in the past. The fact that I used to work for an organic rainforest sorbet and gelato company (“ice cream,” for short) usually meets some surprise. I suppose the food industry and tech aren’t the most obvious career path bedfellows, but the mentality and skills of the entrepreneur translate well to starting or growing any small business. Apparently I’m not alone in this perspective: Chris made a similar observation about the common challenges facing entrepreneurs in response to an excellent column by Mr. David Chang of New York City’s Momofuku Noodle Bar and (the new) Momofuku Ssam Bar.

On a side note, we stopped by Momofuku Noodle Bar on arriving in NYC a few weeks ago. Chuck has been raving about it for ages, and he is note alone. We just beat the crowd at 5:30. We were blown away and still can’t stop talking about the pork buns. I just keep adding underlines to that piece of paper where I first wrote “meat is good.”

I’m sorry it has been so long since I have posted. It’s not for want of interesting food and wine experiences. Life has just gotten in the way of blogging of late… Some of the highlights from the last few months include:

• Noteworthy meals in London (Origin, Mela…)
• Two phenomenal tasting menus at Quince (it remains one of my Bay Area favorites)
• An excellent birthday dinner at Manresa that included a garden “salad” unlike anything I’ve ever had
• A first-time visit to “Two” (the reinterpretation of Hawthorne Lane) that, despite a few pleasantly surprising dishes that mostly came from the pasta and pizza section of the menu, didn’t leave us rushing for a return visit; the wines brought by our companions at that meal, on the other hand, still have us drooling
• A serendipitous cancellation at The French Laundry…

In other news:

• I’ve upped the ante on last year’s six tomato plants with ten now crammed into my relatively small vegetable bed this year, albeit it might much mightier Texas Tomato Cages. All three on the shadiest end are already huge; one at the opposite end is doing quite well; the rest in the middle are still a bit stumpy. Odd…
• And last but not least: Thursday was my last day at Yahoo!. It was a difficult decision and a sad goodbye for now. However, I am thrilled to be joining, starting tomorrow, a very cool startup called Aggregate Knowledge. More to come…

We have been meaning to visit Lure ever since San Francisco Magazine gave it an “excellent” opening review. Maybe it was all those months of having the idea of such addictive seafood in the back of my head, but the reality disappointed.
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After being on our list of places to try for more than a year, through all the opening hype, and then the relative silence, we finally made it to Myth with Chuck and Nick for dinner earlier this month. A brief recap.
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There are lots of new listings and updates on our Restaurant Guide and list of Restaurants to Try. Check them out and leave any suggestions or questions (not everywhere is listed yet) in the comments.

11585We just spent eight gloriously sunny days in Cabo with Oren’s family. New discoveries and updates are noted in our Restaurant Guide…

I love the food in Baja, though these days restaurants there seem to be generally more expensive than those of similar quality in the Bay Area. My favorites in the area (Mi Cucina and Café Santa Fe on the nice end and Gardenias Tacos for great-shimp-tacos–no-atmosphere) would rate higher on a Mexico- or Baja-only scale, but the top end doesn’t compare to what we have here and I have tried my best to keep the ratings in that broader context.