Whether or not January 1 is actually an opportunity for renewal is debatable, but one aspect that isn’t in question is how the day affects traffic in Southern California. Positively. While other people were still hung over, or possibly watching college football bowl games, we coasted down the 405 freeway from Los Angeles and quickly arrived in Little Saigon at Huong Giang, a central Vietnamese restaurant named for a river in Hue.
Up front, they have a frantic factory with several people filling aluminum trays with spring rolls. The dining room is less hectic, with the exception of a world class snark who denied us bun bo hue, claiming we already ordered enough food, and who returned to say “See!” when we confirmed his suspicions. Still, what food he did grant us, we enjoyed.
Oc nhoi Huong Giang / Cha Oc ($5.75) was a special periwinkle ham, foil wrapped and punctuated with crunchy ginger strips, all dippable in chile’d fish sauce.
Banh Cuon Dac Biet Huong Giang ($6.75) featured thin tufts of slippery rice cake topped with a number of different ingredients, including sweet chopped shrimp, grilled beef, reformed chicken/fish balls, and pink “pork hash” held together with glass noodles and stained pink with food coloring, all served with pungent chile-spiked fish sauce.
Bun mit Dac Biet Huong Giang – to lon (large bowl, $6.50), special vermicelli, starred “meaty” shredded young jackfruit that resembled artichoke hearts, crisp shards of black sesame-studded shrimp crackers and a panoply of ingredients, including lettuce and bean sprouts, that aid textural harmony.
Be forewarned: add too much of the funky shrimp paste that joins the Bun mit Dac Biet Huong Giang and risk suffering umami whiplash.
Com hen – to lon ($6.75), baby clam rice, had the visual flair of a good bibimbap, but with more intensity.
We enjoyed mixing the tiny, briny clams with crunchy bean sprouts, sweet fried shallots, scallions, crispy pork rinds, shaved almonds, shrimp crackers and more. The bowl comes with chile’d fish sauce and fermented bean paste. Again, be sure to remain judicious.
Chao long Hue – to lon ($5.75) turned out to be a hearty soup with clear broth bobbing with cilantro, rice, iron rich slices of pork liver and pork stomach, chicken and fish “balls,” and pork blood cubes, which our snarky server joked was “chocolate.” This bowl had ample elements that played well together.
We concluded our meal with two beverages: Nuoc dua tuoi ($2.50) fresh coconut juice served over ice with scoops of white coconut; and Ca phe sua (da hay nong) (cold or hot) ($2.25) jet black coffee tamed with sweet condensed milk and served over ice. This is not specialty brew, but we gladly welcomed classic cafe sua da kick.
Our snarky server may have known our limits better than we did, but he estimated our interest in his restaurant’s take on his country’s cuisine. Huong Giang is one of the better value picks in Little Saigon, and as for the snark, when he bites, don’t bother to jump.
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