Most people don’t get to experience a restaurant tasting menu. It’s often too expensive, sometimes up to $120 per person, without wine pairings. Many people also don’t want to spend 2-4 hours at a table, which is about how long it takes to eat the 5-9 courses at a restaurant. Heck, a lot of people don’t enjoy eating in fancy restaurants, ever. A way around all those concerns is to eat in Little Saigon, a mammoth Vietnamese community situated just south of Los Angeles. In July, I went with my friend Krystal to Nhu-Y for 8 courses of fish. This time, we returned to Little Saigon with mutual friend Adam for another single-ingredient, multi-course experience: 7 courses of beef at Pagolac.
Other dishes lined the left side of the menu, but we fixated on the right side of the menu, which was devoted to Bo 7 Mon, seven courses of beef ($12.99 per order). We split two orders.
Course #2: “Bo Cha Dum: steamed meatballs – delicious meatballs mixed with mushrooms, peanuts and spices steamed to perfection.” I don’t know about perfection, but the mounds of meat were certainly succulent. Course #3: “Bo Nuong Mo Chai: tasty grilled ground beef sausage – seasoned with five spices and broiled to perfection on an open flame.” Less sausages than mini-meatballs, they were savory and juicy. Course #4: “Bo La Lot: Hawaiian leaf sausage – grilled and wrapped in special aromatic leaves freshly imported from Hawaii.” These herb-infused ground-beef “sausages” were great. Course #5: “Bo Sate: beef sate – prepared with a special curry sauce, pickles, ginger and wrapped in sliced tenderloin and charbroiled to perfection on an open flame.” This was my least favorite course; even though the taste was pretty good, the case-less sausages were slightly chewy, a textural struggle.
Accompaniments included rice paper and vegetables (lettuce, cilantro, and mint) to wrap the beef, plus a special dish of fish sauce with chunks of pineapple floating in it.
Pagolac’s Thuc Uong (beverage) list featured the usual Vietnamese drinks: Vietnamese iced coffee, tea, and pickled plum soda. Adam, ever the adventurous eater, ordered a glass of “longan drink ($2),” which featured sweet pitted longan, red ginkgo nuts and cubes of yellow jello.
As with any eating outing with Krystal and Adam, our post-meal conversation turned to the inevitable, “What’s next?” Krystal and Adam were believers in multi-course, single-ingredient Vietnamese meals. If they get their wish, we’ll discover a Little Saigon restaurant that offers 7 or 8 courses of lamb. Little Saigon encompasses four towns. No doubt we’ll find what we want eventually.
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