Too Hot to Cook...

It is hot. Too dang hot. So hot that last night, Patrick & I ordered in. We never order in. But the prospect of having to literally peel ourselves off of furniture to prepare food, even if it was bound for the barbecue. We ordered in from a restaurant called, "Vien Dong", a combination Vietnamese / Thai restaurant.

This is what we ordered:

Cold Shrimp Roll (Goi Cuon)
(Fresh rice paper roll with shrimp, vermicelli, lettuce & cucumbers. Served with peanut sauce.)

Pad Thai Noodle
(Stir-fried rice noodle with shrimp, chicken, egg, fresh herbs, bean sprout & lime sauce.)

Spicy Fried Noodles
(Shrimp, chicken and rice noodles with onion, green & red pepper [aka: capsicum], carrots and bean sprouts, cauliflower, broccoli and mushroom.)

Vien Dong Rice
(Lobster meat, shrimp, BBQ pork in fried rice.)


I'm not sure what I was expecting. I really think I'm craving Asian food, but I don't know what it is I want. The Asian food I get here is (for the most part) crap. It's food that's been translated to the North American palate. I do NOT want deep fried, sweet & sour chicken balls. I do NOT want beef & broccoli done in a beef "gravy" mix. I do NOT want deep fried won-tons that make my fingers greasy. What I do want is flavour & freshness. I want something that perhaps I've never tried before. Or perhaps the elements are something I've had before but not in that combination. When I think "Chinese food", I shudder. What passes for Chinese food around here is about as far from China as I am from being a man.

Vien Dong didn't taste like your sub-standard Chinese take-away. Though, not really having any Vietnamese or Thai restaurants around here to compare, I have to go by what my taste buds told me.

I liked it. I don't now if I'd claw my way back through a mob of animals though, but it was good. The veggies were still crisp. The rice had real egg in it and big chunks of meat (and that includes the lobster!). I actually quite enjoyed the rice. You could tell when you ate it that it wasn't 'Minute Rice'. It wasn't overly soggy to the point the grains start to burst. It was a bit salty, but I did enjoy it - mostly because of the lobster and the egg. You could taste the flavour of the egg throughout - subtle. I didn't realise how such a subtle flavour could enhance the dish!

I wasn't as impressed with the the shrimp roll. I could've easily made that. The peanut sauce though, was quite yummy. I haven't been able to get a good peanut sauce going. Either too sweet or too spicy.

I had the Pad Thai. It was very flavourful, but I'm not sure if it's the flavour I was looking for last night. I know their menu (which we found in the phone book) said lime sauce, it was quite reddish/orange in colour and tasted mildly barbecue-y. Not completely though, I could taste some citrus in there but that was NOT what I was expecting. Not altogether bad though - for what it is, it's alright. Big, big pieces of chicken. And the carrots are sliced the same width & length of the noodles so I think that's a neat-o selling point.

The best dish of all I think, was Patrick's Spicy Fried Noodles. Lots of good, yummy, crisp veg and noodles. Simple. Fresh. No pretences.

And there is enough for leftovers to that we can eat quickly and go see Wall-E tomorrow! :) No dinner making, wheee!