Mai Lan Fine Vietnamese Cuisine
I apologize in advance for the dark and blurry photos. I did not bring my camera with me and these pictures were taken with my SonyEricsson T610 camera phone.
Tonight after a leisurely stroll around the park, we decided on having dinner at Mai Lan Fine Vietnamese Cuisine.
It's been a while since I've been here, but this place is home to one of my favorite Vietnamese dishes and I haven't found another place that makes it in quite the same way.
We decide to start off with appetizers...two of them to be exact. The first was bi cuon(pork roll, US$2.00). It is very much like a spring roll, except that it's not fried. It's filled with shredded pork, lettuce and mint all wrapped in thin rice paper and served with a sweet chili fish sauce. The second was goi cuon (shrimp roll, US$2.50). This dish was also wrapped in thin rice paper, but this one had shrimp, sliced pork, bean sprouts, mint, lettuce, rice vermicelli (noodles) and chives. This one was served with a sweet, flavorful peanut sauce.
After finishing off the appetizers, we were ready for the main course. Here I ordered one of my favorite dishes, ga xao gung(stir-fried boneless chicken with ginger and chili, US$8.95). Though the dish is a bit oily, I can't get enough of the ginger/chili combination. As soon as the dish arrives at the table, you can smell the ginger. One bite and you'll agree that there's nothing else like this combination. If you love ginger, the this is a must try!
In addition to the ga xao gung, we also tried something new, ca xao tofu (stir-fried eggplant with tofu, US$8.95). This dish was served with a bit of dark colored sauce. Though a tad bit sweet, the sauce was quite flavorful. If I had to guess, I would say that it was a combination of fish sauce and sweet soy sauce. There was also a lot of basil in this dish which actually complimented the sauce AND added to the dish's overall sweetness. This was a nice balance to the spicyness of the ga xao gung and definitely a dish that I would order again!
To round out our dinner, we also had an order of the "broken" rice. I've been told that this rice is just plain old jasmine rice which has been "broken" prior to cooking. The texture is actually quite nice...hmmmm, I wonder if I should start cooking rice this way at home?
After dinner was over, we both decided to over-indulge and ordered dessert. We ordered the che dua xanh (coconut milk with kombu and lotus seeds, US$2.95) and the sung xa hot lu(coconut milk with agar agar and pomegranate tapioca, US$2.95). Both desserts were overly sweet, which is something that I've come to expect from Southeast Asian desserts. The only complaint I had was that with the first dessert, che dua xanh, the lotus seeds were mashed. I definitely would have preferred them whole. With the second, sung xa hot lu, the agar agar and the pomegranate tapioca had little or no flavor.
All in all, this meal was greatly satisfying, although a bit pricey.
Mai Lan Fine Vietnamese Cuisine
1224 Keeaumoku Street
Telephone: 808.955.0446
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