Science of Illusion, Artistry in Manipulation

There’s a Vietnamese restaurant behind the In-N-Out on Mission Dr, right across the street from Rosemead High School.  It’s called Nem Nuong Ninh Hoa. It has a fairly established reputation around town, and much of it is positive. I’ve never been there. One, because I really like my family’s nem nuong, and I’m not really out on a mission to destroy my preconceived notions.

It was also a few footsteps from a cemetery. Though, death need not be represented by a tombstone. Besides, only organic lifeforms receive such ceremonial tributes. Nem Nuong Ninh Hoa is an unwanted trespasser on a burial ground of its own. What stood before Nem Nuong built its foothold was something special.

It’s been a while, and I vaguely remember the place. I was around 7 years old, and my dad was working a pretty grizzly shift from 3:30pm to 1:00am. So dinner was often just with my mom and my brother. On days when  she couldn’t eat meat, we’d go to the Vietnamese vegetarian restaurant located where Nem Nuong Ninh Hoa stands today. I remember it was very dimly lit, and the entire restaurant had a blood red glow. Without a clear vision of the place, I’m sure this establishment sounds extremely foreboding. You’re not alone in those sentiments.

However, what I do remember vividly was the food. I will never forget the deep fried mushrooms. There was a beautiful crackle crisp from the exterior, shielding the tender demi-flesh from harm.  I don’t know how its foothold on my imagination has remained so resilient. I haven’t eaten at this restaurant for about a decade, if not longer. The most magical, however, was their vegetarian reinterpretation of Ca Kho, a braised fish dish simmering for long hours in fish sauce, and a sort of molasses, used as a darkening color agent. C0ils of bean curd and gluten did its best flesh interpretation, and a “skin” made of seaweed provided a taste recalling the sea. In harmony with the dark, rich sauce, it was Ca Kho as far as I was concerned.

I don’t remember the name of that restaurant, nor does my brother, nor does my mom. We all have fond memories though. Ever since, it has become the gold standard, to which all subsequent vegetarian restaurants would be compared to. None have surpassed it, though many have sufficed. Recently, we found a new one to make up for the ones we’ve lost.

Hoa Sen is located at the edge of Orange County’s massive Vietnamese community, and is actually a lot closer to Disneyland than it is to Westminster. Its name translates to Lotus Flower in English. It’s an unassuming restaurant, save for its colorful and multi-dimensional storefront banner.

There’s a Vietnamese drama playing in widescreen on the flatscreen TV placed in front of the kitchen. There’s a few customers, a mother with her two teens, looking completely uninterested. Two seasoned veterans shooting the shit, talking about their jobs and home life. And there is my family. A team of 5 (including my brother’s girlfriend) celebrating my mom’s birthday.

We ordered everything in their House Specials section, essentially. Our waiter suggested we order a dish called Tofu with Rau Ram (Vietnamese herb). She sealed the deal when she said it tastes exactly like Balut (underdeveloped chicken/duck fetus). A bit funny, isn’t it? A vegetarian place creating a mockup of a, by American standards, rather reviled dish, an embodiment of the savagery that is carnivorous consumption. That isn’t funny to you? …Our family laughed.

What’s funnier is that it tasted exactly like balut. I’m not so sure about the Filipino culture, of which I know balut is a quintessential dish, but Vietnamese folk enjoy eating it alongside a simple sprinkle of salt and pepper to bolster the natural flavor, and rau ram, an herb that has a certain perfume and a certain peppery bite that wraps the entire experience together.

We were astonished. It was so simple. Deep fried tofu, a plate of a salt and pepper mixture, pounded until it was a uniform, greyish brown color, and rau ram. And yet, upon closer inspection, it wasn’t just tofu. Delivering an autopsy, we discovered that the texture and composition of the tofu resembled that of bread dough. The tofu mixture had been kneaded to develop gluten. The gluten produces a certain mouthfeel, a bite, akin to that of the more egg-y parts of balut. It was ingenious.

The other dishes came flooding in. We ordered grilled lemon grass “chicken”, a “beef” salad with watercress and other micro-herbs, a crispy rice cake thing (like the crispy rice crust that happens at the bottom of a pot as a result of making rice the old school way), Canh Chua (Vietnamese spicy and sour soup), and of course, their Ca Kho in a clay pot.

If you were to give me a blindfold and fed me all of this food without telling me where it came from, I’d say that my mom and dad learned how to cook vegetarian exponentially better while I’ve been away at college. Perhaps the best compliment I can give a Vietnamese restaurant, vegetarian or not.

It had the unmistakable flavor of home. Their Canh Chua, a family staple, was executed very well. Very strong flavors. Our family would’ve amped up the heat by adding like, 4 more chilis than they had in the soup, but that’s just preference. In terms of the ingredients, it was almost a mirror image of what I’d get at home. Beautiful.

To review up their “meat dishes”, the Asian vegetarian experience must first be dissected. Asian vegetarian cuisine, as opposed to Western vegetarian cuisine, puts a strong emphasis on recreation, not reinvention. While western culture seems to be geared towards more of a lifestyle change when it comes to eating vegetarian, us Asians are more reluctant to give up treasured childhood memories. Thus, we compromise. The object of Asian vegetarian dining is to eat sinfully well without sin.

As a result, there are no gastronomers on the planet more dedicated, more skilled, and more cunning than Asian vegetarians. Unlike molecular gastronomy nerds, they feel no pressure to create concepts entirely foreign. Rather, their objective is to most perfectly capture the essence of beloved dishes of their childhood that were taken away due to their oath of faith. Nothing motivates like seeing your childhood slowly evaporating.

And thus, these scientists, these artists, conceptualize and create what should not be possible. Soy, bean curd, fungi, gluten, all masterfully transformed into something completely familiar. To call these dedicated people magicians would not be giving them enough credit. They are not making things appear out of thin air, but rather, they are manipulating nature to do unnatural things. What could be more rewarding than toeing the line of sin without any actual worry of it?

With all of that said, the grilled lemon grass chicken was fantastic. Another dish that was eerily identical to my mom’s lemon grass chicken…without the chicken. If there is any meat that the vegetarians have mastered in reconstructing is chicken. They still have work to do in other areas of the Animal Kingdom though. (Don’t ever order a shrimp dish at a vegetarian restaurant. I don’t care how gifted these guys are. The technology is simply not there to recreate shrimp.)

Alas, we return to the Ca Kho. Was it good? Yes. The bean curd, again, is coiled tightly and braised, creating some semblance of the flakiness of fish. It was a recreated catfish, and the fine chefs even paid attention to detail. Beneath the thin layer of seaweed “skin” was a layer of “fat”, probably created with gluten and agar, the stuff they use for almond jello. Was it better than the mythical restaurant of legend? No. The sauce, as were almost all of the dishes, was a bit on the sweet side. However, if by some miracle there was an alternate universe where the Chau family were a rag-tag band of vegetarians, we’d probably be the cooks and proprietors of Hoa Sen.

Because again, what could be more rewarding than toeing the line of sin?

Hoa Sen Vegetarian Restaurant
(714) 537-0077

12180 Brookhurst St.
Garden Grove, CA 92840
Open 7 days a week
10:00am – 9:00pm

P.S. Sorry for the lack of in-restaurant photos/food porn. Didn’t have a camera with me, and didn’thave my phone either. Guilt led me to scan their business card.

P.P.S. There was a gang of white hipster vegans that came into the restaurant towards the tail end of our meal. …If that isn’t an endorsement, I don’t know what is.