new Things I Ate in Cambodia: Pho Hien Vuong: Lotus Root Salad, Mysterious Snail Soup

Monday, January 18, 2010

Pho Hien Vuong: Lotus Root Salad, Mysterious Snail Soup

Pho Hien Vuong
6835 Stockton
Ste 400
Sacramento, CA 95823
(916) 391-8538


Pho Hien Vuong is one of Stockton's multifarious pho joints, located right across the street from the (dearly beloved) SF supermarket. I am not entirely sure if I can identify anything in particular that differentiates the space within, other then that it is clean and Nickeloden cartoons are usually playing for the benefit of little-kid diners. The food, however, is quite tasty, and the menu provides some interesting selections that don't always make the cut at other Vietnamese eateries.



A lotus root salad with shrimp and pork. Delicious, light and fresh, and presented extremely attractively. This is one of my favorite Vietnamese dishes - something about the interplay of sweet tangy fish sauce dressing, crunchy lotus root, shrimps and pork is just the perfect thing, even more so on a good hot day. Which it wasn't when I ate this, but, ah, no matter.



My dad went with the perennial classic of beef stew, complete with the tendony bits that give him so much pleasure. A nice rich beef broth, with a good amount of flavor, and plenty of miscellaneous "stuff."



I always seem to order the same thing here: the special noodle soup, with snails, crab, ground pork, and some other miscellaneous stuff (including congealed blood cubes, which i am distinctly ambivalent too). The soup has a gamy, seafoody, delightful flavor that is rather hard to find in another dish, and is elevated any ore with the addition of shrimp paste/sambaal/large amounts of hoisin. I am a big advocate of Soup With Stuff In It and this really fits the bill.


Pho Hien Vuong is a nice option for a good Vietnamese meal if you're out hunting for weird Asian food products on Stockton, or just need some snail-and-crab soup in your life. Check it out.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

very useful read. I would love to follow you on twitter. By the way, did you guys learn that some chinese hacker had hacked twitter yesterday again.

foodhoe said...

me too, I love soup with lots of stuff in it. I've heard about those mystery snails, sometimes referred to as oc? how intriguing it all sounds

foodhoe said...

me too, I love soup with lots of stuff in it. I've heard about those mystery snails, sometimes referred to as oc? how intriguing it all sounds

KirkK said...

Hey Faine - That looks like Bun Rieu Oc....good stuff!