Vietnamese | Sybaritica

A while ago, I tried a dish called ‘Scallop Xao Tuong’ at the Café Indochine Vietnamese Restaurant in Ottawa. It was described on the menu as being Scallops with Eggplant and Zucchini in a Fermented Black Bean Sauce and, while it was really delicious, I was a little disappointed in that there was almost no hint of black beans to give it the really rich umami flavor I was expecting. I also noted, in my review of the restaurant that, in addition to the eggplant and zucchini, there were all sorts of other vegetables included and that I felt the end-result was too ‘busy’.

I decided that I would try and improve upon the basic theme at home and my idea was to up the amount of salted black bean, replace the tiny bay scallops used by the restaurant with slices of large sea scallop, and keep the vegetable component to a much simpler minimum…  Read more

Date of Visit: July 11, 2013

I ate at this tiny restaurant with my wife around ten years ago although I didn’t recognize it until I had a peek inside and saw the same, shot-gun narrow little eatery divided into an upper and lower floor with just a few tables on each. I hadn’t especially planned on Vietnamese cuisine for supper on this particular occasion but after a quick perusal of the menu I decided to give the place a second try… Read more

Apologies, first of all for the poor quality picture, but it was not possible to get a full shot of such a tiny label…

Anyway, on a recent culinary excursion, I was unable to resist buying a product with the words ‘Water Giant Bug’ on the bottle, even though I didn’t have even the remotest idea what it might be. The name, I thought, sounded as though it may be one of those ‘poetic’ ones, and not reflective of any actual ingredient, but it definitely made me curious… Read more