Que Huong Restaurant Catfish in Clay Pot [CLOSED]

Vietnamese Food San Diego

Many times, I’ve enjoyed Asian restaurants that flank strip malls along Convoy Street in Kearny Mesa, and my previous San Diego trip involved a detour to El Cajon for Iraqi cuisine. Clearly, it was time to explore a new neighborhood, and that led me to City Heights, which houses Vietnamese restaurants like Que Huong. Well, hopefully the neighborhood has more restaurants like Jay Ho’s ode to Hue, which is where the restaurateur’s family hails from originally. The restaurant rests in the corner of a strip mall, and comes complete with round, family-friendly tables, burgundy and faux stone walls, and traditional Vietnamese decorations. Still, it was what filled our table that held my interest: a multi-person meal designed for 5-6 people, costing only $54.95, and including plates of grilled mango salad, chicken wings in fish sauce, Thai style sweet & sour soup, fried shrimp tossed with garlic, salt and pepper, and wokked chunked beef with watercress. Still, my favorite dish consisted of Catfish in Clay Pot.

The bone-in cross sections of fish simmered low and slow in said pot, soaking up increasingly intense flavors of the ultra-savory sauce, which was redolent of lemongrass, crushed peppercorns and cured pork chunks. Something had to temper the sauce’s richness, and that important job went to a steamed rice cake, the size of a Frisbee, which provided crunchy relief from the flaky fish that still sported a belt of soft, sauce-soaked skin.

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Joshua Lurie

Joshua Lurie founded FoodGPS in 2005. Read about him here.

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