On Fri, 07 Jan 2005 11:59:17 -0600, Michael Odom wrote:
> On Fri, 07 Jan 2005 04:59:29 -0600, GregoryD >
> wrote:
>
>>For the past two years, I've lived in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. In
>>Arlington, there's a restaurant called Le's Fire Pot that has a bunch of
>>Vietnamese food as well as a fire pot/hot pot. I used to make a weekly
>>trip there on Saturday, load up on food, and then go home to watch the
>>football games, stuffed for the day. I've moved to New Orleans recently
>>and am fiending for this stuff (I'm a local, so the local food doesn't
>>exactly overwhelm me, even if it is good).
>>
>>I miss a few things over there, and I'm wondering if anyone can help me
>>out here. Specifically, the following:
>>
>>(a) curry chicken with potatoes
>>(b) vietnamese meatballs (for pho or hot pot... pretty sure they bought
>>these because they came in beef and either chicken or turkey)
>>(c) spring rolls (seemed to be rice paper, not fried.. with a blade of
>>grass that tasted like lemon... not sure what that was, though).
>>(d) vietnamese sausage.. the spring rolls usually had either sausage or
>>shrimp in them.
>>
>>Also, what cut of beef do these restaurants usually slice for shabu shabu
>>or hot pot? And lastly, there was a sweet, dark sauce along with the fish
>>sauce and the chili sauce.. wasn't teriyaki, though. Any ideas?
>>
>>GregoryD
>>
>
> The grass that tastes like lemon is lemongrass, I'd wager, though one
> doesn't eat the blades because they're tough. There are a number of
> good Vienamese recipes archived in Google groups, which is where I'd
> start my Internet search. I just found two curry recipes there, for
> example.
Well, that's my initial reaction too, but I'm not positive that it was
lemongrass.
> I found a suggestion that the sweet dipping sauce is made from hoisin,
> red chiles, ground peanuts and lime juice, also on Google. That sounds
> about right to me, but I'm no expert.
The sweet sauce looked like soy. Maybe a sweet soy? I added this sauce
to my hot pot.
I usually mixed red chilis with the peanut sauce for dipping, so I wasn't
too far off there.
> Also there are lots of Vietnamese folks in New Orleans these days, so
> finding a decent restaurant shouldn't be too hard. Nor should it be
> difficult to find an Asian grocery that carries lemongrass, sausage,
> spring roll wrappers, bean threads (part of the stuffing for spring
> rolls), fresh basil, and prepared curry pastes in assorted colors and
> flavors.
I'm going to have to continue to look. All the asian markets I've been to
around the area have been primarily Japanese or Chinese. Hmmm.... I do
think I remember one by a bowling alley in Gretna, but I'm not positive.
Sounds like an errand tomorrow!
> And finally I've been to Arlington, TX and to New Orleans, too. And I
> must say that it's pretty amusing that you miss the food in Arlington. I
> know how it is to miss a favorite eatery, but Lordy, Lordy, my man...
Well, I cook a lot and I could get just about every ingredient I needed in
Arlington. You can make red beans and rice, gumbo, and jambalaya
virtually anywhere... but truly fresh seafood is hard to come by. I
bought 15 pounds of shrimp for 40 bucks the last time I was down home
before actually making the move back. Beats the 10 bucks a pound you get
for the flavorless, frozen stuff they sell at supermarkets.
I miss that ONE restaurant (that, and Saltgrass' baked potato soup), but
wouldn't give up my maw maw's dirty rice for it.
They have boiled
crawfish that actually ain't all that bad, along with the buffet and the
hot pot. Of course, I do crawfish much better, but at least they didn't do
the crawfish redneck style... you season the water, not the shells!
The hot pot side of the buffet actually had head-on shrimp and mussels
along with the beef balls, tripe, squid, octopus, etc, etc... so you could
make a pretty good seafood soup out of it. Wasn't that bad for 9 bucks a
head.
Thanks for the help!
GregoryD