Dave Lieberman

The banana blossom salad at Xanh Bistro, which will convert even the hardest heart to the way of Vietnamese food.

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Xanh Bistro is the perfect introduction to Vietnamese food for people who are scared of Little Saigon and its brusque holes in the wall: it serves excellent, home-style food like grilled or stewed fish, plenty of vegetables, and great small plates in a warm, well-designed environment. The service is attentive and fluently English-speaking, the menu is approachable by non-Vietnamese while still being authentic, and there's a wine list and dessert, things not common a little further north on Brookhurst Street.
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Flickr user dgmckelvey

​Pity the other publications in the stable o' stallions that is Village Voice Media, because they have to come up with a list like this, too--and they don't have Little Saigon sitting smack dab in the middle of their publication area. How do we choose from the hundreds--yes, multiple hundreds--of Vietnamese restaurants in Orange County? We could write one of these top-ten lists just based on banh mi. We already pretty much did write one about pho. We could even critique the top ten bowls of bun bo Hue, the top ten seven courses of beef, or the top ten nem nuong cuon in the county... so instead, here's a representative sampling, and make sure you add your favorites in the comments section!
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Dave Lieberman

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Halal phở? Given that we live in a county where halal pizza, halal Chinese food and halal hot dogs are all available, it shouldn't come as a shock that Phở Ellie, OC's first (and, to my knowledge, only) halal Vietnamese restaurant, has opened.
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Dave Lieberman

Van Restaurant's bún chả Hà Nội

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Long before chefs with fancy certificates from the CIA and stages in uppity French kitchens decided to reimagine classic dishes, long before the New Wave chefs of the 1980s separated the ingredients of a dish onto those giant white discuses they called plates, and before Jacques Derrida, the coiner of the term "deconstruction", was even a twinkle in his father's eyes, the Vietnamese were deconstructing the dish bún.
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Edwin Goei

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I was surprised to see the familiar Lee's Sandwiches logo at Costco this weekend. Two gents were giving out samples and hawking cà phê sữa đá, Vietnamese iced coffee. But apparently, according to their Facebook page, they've been doing these roadshows since the summer. On offer were six pack of bottles for $15.99, each bottle constituting 3 servings.

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I dare say that I'm the only Forker who has tried pho since our epic Final Pho Tournament earlier this year--but the weather is about to get chilly, so I guarantee Dave, Shuji, and Edwin will slurp anew. For the rest of ustedes, here's the 10 best pho palaces in Orange County--all familiar names, but never put in a list before! Oh, app joy!
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Goat blood pudding topped with goat liver; Photo by Elina Shatkin--I owe you a taco acorazado for this...

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Right now, in the Orange County we currently live in culinarily--a wonderful, exciting time, with great restaurants opening weekly even in this Great Recession and the old guard still vibrant--the seven courses of goat offered by Binh Dan embodies our greatest attributes. It's ethnic--unapologetically so. It's sustainable and organic--the goat meat used here comes from the family's goat farm in the Inland Empire. It's epic--seven courses of goat!--and unique: few places in Little Saigon sell goat, let alone seven courses of it.

Binh Dan is family-owned, and therefore individualistic: the restaurant will close at a whim. It's in a strip mall, our quintessential treasure chest for great eats. It's incredibly affordable--a bit less than $20, with more than enough food for two. It uses goat, a much-underappreciated creature. But, most importantly, it's a stunner at each level.
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Flickr user rexroof

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Maybe we're just overly sensitive because we live in a paradisiacal county where Vietnamese restaurants outnumber Chinese restaurants, where a bánh mì is easier to come by than a pastrami sandwich, where happy hour not only means cheap drinks but $2.99 phở. That doesn't stop people from making mistakes, though, so as part of our continuing series on how not to look like a schlemiel in various restaurants, here are five common mistakes people make with Vietnamese food.
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Dave Lieberman

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You'll have noticed we're changing who writes this feature on a day-by-day basis: this is how you know we're getting close to the end of our countdown. Make sure to pick up a copy of our Best of OC 2011 when it hits the newsstands October 14!
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These are the only acceptable ingredients in this can.

​Condensed milk--called sữa in Vietnamese, and largely the only kind of milk available there--is a simple thing. It's exactly what it sounds like: milk that's been reduced to 40% of its original volume, then mixed with a lot of sugar and cooled.

It's indispensable in the making of cà phê sữa đá, the coffee drink that (with no offense intended to the Rockstar-drinking bros of Huntington Beach) ought to be named the official caffeinated drink of Orange County. We make a lot of it around here, because it packs a caffeinated, sugar-laden punch that wakes us up a lot more efficiently than 7-Eleven Standard.

So why is it so damn hard to find condensed milk without additives?

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