Le Viet

sugar cane prawns - 8.5/10

i like tze char. basically good old chinese food with a steaming hot bowl of rice and dishes in the center. but then, i don't really know that many good tze char places near my house. sometimes when you're lazy, you don't want to eat nice pretentious food. you just want something satisfying, convenient, and tasty at the same time. and for that, i like to go to Le Viet. now le viet isn't really chinese. well its vietnamese, but apparently the owner is local, so i guess thats where the local influnces come from. regardless, most of the waitresses are vietnamese which makes it just a tad difficult to speak with them when you're ordering your food, especially if you're fussy and like you food altered or done in a specific way. however, they're all really friendly helpful, which makes things much better. although le viet has pho and all, i much prefer to eat their main dishes. usually, the first thing that comes to my mind when i go there is sugar cane prawns. these are absolutely delicious. little sugar cane sticks are wrapped around in a prawn paste and then pan fried. this makes them incredibly succulent and tasty. the sweetness of the sugarcane penetrates the meat and really brings out the incredible flavor. the meat is slightly salty and firm to the bite, with a strong prawn taste to it. at the same time, when you bite hard into the sugarcane, you can taste the fruity sweetness of it and that combines fantastically well with the flesh of the prawns.

one thing that d really likes is the vietnamese summer roll. summer rolls are basically the healthy version of spring rolls. there's lettuce, some other vegetables and prawns wrapped around in a thin rice wrapper. they are then dipped into a thick, dark sweet sauce and then eaten. some people like this and some people don't. if you're really into deep fried spring rolls, you may not really like this. but if you're the type of person that doesn't really like fried food (and why in the world would you not?) then you'd probably like this. its super healthy. taste like eating grass. but in all honesty, its really not bad.

this was not to bad too. the broccoli was firm, stir fried lightly and not overcooked. so you still end up with that crunchy texture that you find when you don't cook vegetables for too long. some people like it, some people don't. i'm pretty ok with it. the scallops wer nicely done. but nothing spectacular. just wholesome veggies.

the guiness pork chops was something else that i like to order. its nice and sweet. i couldn't really taste much stout, maybe just a tiny hint of it. but its fried well, with the sticky sauce all over it.

black pepper beef on hot plate. the beef was succulent, soft and tender. the black pepper sauce gives it a slightly spicy taste.

so thats about it for le viet. i didn't plan to say much in this post. just showing you something interesting that i like to eat. a worthwhile try if you're in for some simple asian cuisine.