Bun combo

Bun (vermicelli) combos are the perfect next step for someone learning about Vietnamese cuisine. The combos offer a chance to try a wide variety of different meats, rolls, and learn the joys of nuoc cham, all while still being anchored by friendly and familiar rice noodles. Having spent the last 7 blog entries exploring the bun on offer in Toronto’s west end restos, I’ve expanded my own horizons and hopefully encouraged others to do the same. Here are my picks for Best in the West:

1. Pho My Duyen [1208 Bloor st w]

More stylish than your average noodle house, yet an equal amount of care is lavished on exquisitely fresh ingredients. Many of the more unusual menu items illustrate the French colonial influence on Vietnamese cuisine. For the bun, try B19 Char-grilled Shrimps on Vermicelli.

2. Pho Phong [1603 Dundas w]

This out of the way spot still manages to lure in a diverse crowd with swanky décor, comfortable booths and consistently high quality food. I suggest #70 Dry Vermicelli with Spring roll, grilled pork and shrimp wrapped sugar cane.

3. Tie: Rua Vang [125 Ossington] and Pho tien Thanh [57 Ossington]

You won’t go wrong at either of these spots on Ossington. The cook at Pho tien Thanh used to work at Rua Vang, so it is hardly a surprise that they offer similar fare. Rua Vang (aka the Golden Turtle) is more well-known, which can mean waiting for a table during busy times, but the smaller, less crowded resto down the street is just a good, if not sometimes better.  At the Turtle, go for #93, Vermicelli with Grilled Chicken and Pineapple. Down at Pho tien Thanh, sample #58 Vermicelli with Meatball and Spring roll.

The corner of College and Dufferin is an unlikely location for a miniature Viet-town, yet a number of Vietnamese businesses and shops cluster together here in an otherwise distinctly Portuguese neighbourhood. No fewer than 3 Vietnamese restaurants co-exist on a single block.  Faced with such an array of options, how is one to decide? On road-trips my dad always picked a roadside diner based on the number of transport trucks parked out front (truckers being the experts on roadside cuisine), so following the same theory, I decide to try the resto with the largest number of Vietnamese customers inside. And the winner is: Pho Linh.

Simple but modern exterior of Pho Linh on College.

The busy resto is decorated in a simple, yet pleasantly modern style. The lighting is almost painfully bright. So far, so good.  But when the tea arrives, it tastes like little more than hot water. Oh well, no one chooses a Vietnamese restaurant for the tea. Moving on to the main attraction, I select #47– Vermicelli with Fried Chicken and Lemongrass [$7.00].

Vermicelli with Fried Chicken and Lemongrass

The noodles arrive remarkably quickly, and as was the case at the Canh Buom next door (see my earlier review), they are slightly thicker than average, more like spaghetti than vermicelli. On top of the noodles rests a generous serving of boneless, skinless chicken thigh, which has been crisply fried and garnished with mint, green onion, lettuce, bean sprouts and peanuts.  The texture of the meat is acceptable, slightly chewy, not at all fatty, however it evinces no noticeable notes of lemongrass or indeed of any spicing beyond salt. The flavor is pleasant, but plain. Even after dressing the dish with nuoc cham and herbs, I find myself spritzing it with lime in order to notch up the flavor profile.

Meanwhile, across the table my dining companion is busy adding chili and hoisin sauce to his pho, the broth of which he found to be quite flavorless on its own. The tea seems to have set the tone for the evening after all—not bad, but a bit bland.

All this being said, I’m not willing to write off Pho Linh just yet.  Given the large number of people eating there (and with other Viet options nearby) and the positive buzz this place gets online, I’m willing to wager that I just happened to stumble in on an off night.

Pho Linh
1156 College st.
416- 516-3891

After 4 weeks of tasting bun in Toronto’s west-end Vietnamese restaurants, I thought I had hit my stride. Though quality, freshness and style varied to some degree in each place I visited, the formula was basically the same. I knew what to expect. Then I wandered into Canh Buom and got thrown a curve ball.

Outside Canh Buom on College.

Several aspects of the evening conspire to unsettle and surprise me. First the Décor: An unexpected nautical theme (Canh Buom translates as  ‘boat’s sail’) is strangely mismatched with 1950s-bowling-alley-style booths upholstered in sparkly vinyl. Second the Service: A gruff old man and a young fireball of a waitress tag-team our table in good cop/bad cop mode. At times the scene plays out like a slap-stick comedy—for instance, when a fellow diner went to squeeze some siracha chili sauce into his pho, only to have the entire lid fall off, dumping half the bottle into his bowl.

Deciding to leave my fate up to chance, I ask the waitress to bring me her favorite vermicelli dish. Imagine my surprise when instead of the large bowl of thin noodles I’ve come to expect, a flat plate bearing thicker, spaghetti-like rice noodles and a veritable mountain of herbs (mint, Perilla, and Vietnamese balm) arrives in front of me. Along side is a dish of grilled pork and sausage patties, pickled green papaya and carrot, all soaked in nuoc mam cham and garnished with crushed peanuts, sesame seeds, and crispy fried shallots. When I inquire of the waitress what it is I have received, she explains that this is the North Vietnamese style of vermicelli (much less common in Toronto’s Vietnamese restaurants than the Southern style) known as Bun Cha Hanoi [A18, $8.50].  Rather than mixing the noodles and toppings together in a large bowl and dressing with Nuoc cham to taste, in this style the diner selects choice bits from the serving dishes and blends them in a small bowl, a few bites at a time. The cooked meats are dressed with the fish sauce in advance so that the strong salty flavor permeates them to a much greater degree. The effect is less delicate and less sweet than in the southern style, but is tasty and quite compulsively edible. You will find that you fill that tiny bowl many, many times. Particularly the cha (juicy grilled pork patties flavoured with garlic, sugar, salt and black pepper) will disappear all too quickly.

Little bowl of Bun Cha Hanoi.

Canh Buom bills itself as a Viet-Thai restaurant and has variety of Thai options on the menu. Do yourself a favor and take the opportunity to sample the much less well-known North Vietnamese fare instead. Don’t let the wacky décor, or the enthusiastic, yet ineffectual, service distract you. But do check the lid on the hot sauce before you squeeze.

Canh Buom
1144 College st
416-538-4287

If an award for strangest restaurant décor existed, Kimbo would be firmly in the running. This location clearly didn’t begin its commercial life as a Vietnamese restaurant. The massive dining room is decked out in a faux-Tudor style, with heavy wooden beams framing textured plaster walls, red carpeting, and huge wrought iron chandeliers that look like something Errol Flynn might have swung from while executing a swashbuckling escape. Overall the effect is of a mock-baronial castle, where cabbage rolls would look more at home on the table than salad rolls. Nonetheless, the menu is distinctly Vietnamese, specializing in bo 7 mon, or beef in 7 courses.

Crazy decor at Kimbo

Kimbo's Vermicelli with grilled beef and spring roll.

As there are only 2 of us dining tonight, we will skip the beef-stravaganza, in favor of simpler fare.  Perusing the list of vermicelli combos, and in a nod to the specialty of the house, I spend an inordinately longtime deliberating between the grilled beef and the sautéed beef combo. Ultimately I decide on #114, Grilled Beef with Spring Roll on Vermicelli, $7.95.

Once my decision is made, the meal arrives at the table with almost supernatural speed. As it turns out I needn’t have agonized so– the beef arrives bearing none of the traditional attributes of grilled meat, no searing or grill marks, just a uniform, rather tough texture and the overwhelming flavor of vinegary marinade. The spring roll is better. It is large and filled generously with bean thread noodles, black mushrooms, shredded carrot and minced pork. The rice paper wrapping is thick and chewy rather than crispy. The best aspect of the dish is the vermicelli itself, which is more al dente than usual, in a way that I enjoy, particularly when mixed with hearty curly lettuce and bean sprouts, then dressed with the syrupy, rather fishy nuoc cham and a little bit of chili sauce from the variety of sauces available on the table. My mood lifts further with the arrival of a very affordable bottle of Tsing Tao [$3.50]. Domestic brews are even more of a steal at $3.00 each.

Kimbo isn’t going to supplant any of my favorites for best vermicelli in West End T.O., but if you’re looking for a quick bite and a cold beer, you could do a lot worse.

Kimbo Restaurant
358 Bathurst st
416-603-7817
Sunday-Thursday 11 am-10 pm
Friday & Saturday 11 am-11 pm

Part One: Vermicelli Combos

A basic bowl of vermicelli comes with the noodle, lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes, pickled daikon and carrots, and a bowl of light fish sauce, nuoc cham. Combination choices include different types of meats, and spring rolls.

Like pho, the different choices can actually overwhelm those who are new to the dish, but if you have an idea of which combo you want to try, then it’s just a matter of finding it on the menu. Some restaurants do offer “Special Vermicelli Combo”, which basically include a large combination of most of the ingredients listed here. Ordering this bowl will give you a chance try several of the meats at a time, thus giving you a better idea of what you might or might not like.

Next up: Rice Combos.

The strip of Bloor west between Ossington and Lansdowne is undeniably gritty; it is also a surprising and refreshing foodie destination. In a few short blocks you will find a huge variety of cheap and delicious foods from a United Nations of small, unpretentious (read slightly dingy) storefront restaurants: South Indian, Ethiopian, Greek, Persian, Mexican, Caribbean, Portuguese, and Vietnamese. But Pho My Duyen is no shabby storefront.  Given the neighborhood, the décor is almost shockingly posh. What HGTV would refer to as ‘high-end finishes’ abound. Yet any concern that style reigns over substance here is dispelled with the first jasmine scented sip of premium tea. Throughout the meal, care and consideration reveals itself in myriad little ways: a paper umbrella in a drink, a spoon with a hooked end so it won’t fall into your soup when you rest it against the side of the bowl.

Surprisingly swanky interior at Pho My Duyen

The menu is exceptionally deep, offering exotic protein options seldom seen in other Toronto Vietnamese restaurants, like eel, frog legs, snail, and goat. Some items are pricey (the mango salad with snails rings in at a stiff $10.25), but the basics, like pho ($6.25 for a purportedly small bowl, actually the size of a generous medium elsewhere) are about average.  But for me, as usual, it is the Vermicelli combos that beckon and I opt for B19 Char-grilled Shrimps on Vermicelli, $7.95.

Grilled Shrimp with Vermicelli

The bowl of noodles arrives looking gorgeous, topped with two bamboo skewers laden with shrimp and slices of bell pepper and onion.  Shredded mint, beans sprouts, lettuce, cucumber, as well as crinkle cut pickled carrot and daikon are strewn on top like colourful confetti. Peanuts provide a salty, crunchy garnish. As promised, the shrimp have been char-grilled, perhaps a bit too aggressively. While fatty meats like pork and beef are excellent when charred, the same is not true of more delicate seafood. While the shrimp are not at all overdone or rubbery, some of grill marks taste slightly burnt. But the singeing is minor and doesn’t prevent the enjoyment of a dish that is otherwise bang-on.  The skewers have been lightly dressed with a delicate sweet and sour sauce that lends a warm orange tone to the entire dish when it is tossed with the excellent nuoc cham. Pho My Duyen’s nuoc cham lacks the usual chili heat, but makes up for it with a salty-limey punch accented with lots of micro-shredded carrot. The vermicelli itself is perfectly prepared, each strand distinct and without a hint of mushiness. The only tiny quibble is that the shape of the steep sided bowl, while elegant, makes it hard to scoop out the last dregs of sauce and noodles, and believe me you’ll want to get every last morsel!

On a side note, while the location is a bit out of the way, Pho My Duyen could make a fun party venue, as they have private rooms available and offer a variety of Vietnamese fondues perfect for sharing.

Pho My Duyen
1208 Bloor st w
416-850-4993
Monday-Thursday 11am-10 pm
Friday-Sunday 11 am-11 pm
*Wheel chair accessible

Ossington has exploded in the last year: posh new restaurants and bars open weekly, and half the places you wander into are so fresh that your cocktail comes with a side of drywall dust. Gentrification is in the air, but so far Pho Tien Thanh still looks like the restaurant that time forgot. The lighting is fluorescent, an A/C unit takes pride of place above the door, the bathroom layouts are… unconventional. Luckily, you are here for the food, not the décor. And, as the busy lunchtime crowd attests, the food more than makes up for the lack of ambience. Local business people and office workers drop in for take out, families enjoy lunch together, hipsters take a welcome break from cruising the trendy shops and galleries.

Street view of Tien Thanh on Ossington

The trim and well-dressed proprietor arrives at the table bearing smiles and tea. In the warmer months, iced tea is offered as an option, which makes a pleasant change. My lunch companion doesn’t even glance at the menu. He’ll get what he always does—Rare beef soup. While pho is invariably the most popular dish on any Vietnamese menu, Pho Tien Thanh is particularly renowned for their aromatic and beefy broth. Here the raw beef is piled high atop the steaming bowl like a ruby. It is perfection.

But, I’m here to root for the underdog. My mission is to challenge the supremacy of pho, championing vermicelli as the ultimate noodle dish. So for me it is #58 Vermicelli with Meatball and Spring Roll [$6.25].

meatball and spring roll

As it turns out, “meatball” is a misnomer; rather the meat is formed into a long skinny cigar shape and colored a very bright shade of hot pink! But set aside any hesitation about the crazy colour and you will find that exterior of the meat is nicely charred from the grill, while the interior is composed of lean ground pork and cubes of pork fat, very much like a sausage. Redolent of garlic and anise, the “meatball”, is surprisingly evocative of Italian sausage spiced with fennel seed. The spring roll too has been formed into an unusually thin cigar-shaped tube, as slender as your index finger. Wound so tightly, the rice paper wrapper doubles over itself, creating a texture that is both crisp and chewy, which contrasts well with the strongly spiced, peppery filling.

Aside from the distinctive shapes of the meatball and roll, the Vermicelli dish initially appears rather bland, garnished only with a few pieces of pickled carrot, daikon and green onion. However a rapid toss with the chopsticks reveals a bed of lettuce, cucumber and beans sprout hidden beneath the heap of noodles. Act fast! If allowed to steam under the noodles, the greens will lose their crispness, and much of the pleasure of this dish comes from the variation of cool crunchy veg and warm slick noodle. Dressed with Pho Tien Thanh’s spicy, vinegary version of Nuoc cham, this dish really starts to shine.  To further jolt the flavor profile, snag some of the Thai basil and saw tooth coriander from the plate of garnish that came with your dining companion’s pho. You might want to ask for a taste of that beautiful broth while you’re at it.

Pho Tien Thanh
57 Ossington ave (North of Queen)
416-588-6997
*Cash Only

In the coming weeks, we’ll explore the Vietnamese restaurants of Toronto’s Downtown West End, seeking out the best Vermicelli combinations. Often overshadowed by the ragingly popular Pho, Vermicelli really should be a contender for the greatest noodle dish.  In a typical vermicelli combo, various grilled meats, fresh herbs and vegetables, are arranged on top of thin vermicelli noodles. The diner then mixes the toppings into the noodles, dressing them with Nuoc cham (dipping sauce composed of fish sauce, sugar, lime juice and chili) to taste, making this a deliciously creative dish to eat.

Vermicelli combo with spring roll, grilled pork, and shrimp wrapped around sugarcane

Walking down a lonely stretch of Dundas, populated largely by Portuguese sports bars and defunct plumbing outlets, the façade of Pho Phuong draws you in like a beacon. Huge plate glass windows open into the restaurant, revealing trendy, modern décor in a style best described as Zen-hotel-lobby-chic. A multicultural crowd, whose demographic leans towards the young and hip, fill the room, happily slurping noodles. The restaurant is busy, even on a Tuesday after 9pm.

Tea is set down in front of you as soon as you slide into the dark brown banquette. Fresh orchids decorate the room. A well-designed menu, seemingly an inch thick, is set before you. Well over 200 items, not counting drinks and desserts, are listed. I consider myself lucky that I don’t have to contemplate all 200 items; tonight I have come to eat Vermicelli, of which a mere 28 combinations are on offer. I choose #70 Bun cha gio, thit nuong, chao tom (Dry Vermicelli with Spring roll, grilled pork and shrimp wrapped sugar cane) at $8.50.

The noodles arrive in a large, shallow bowl with an elegant shape. Arrayed on top of the noodles in orderly rows are the pork, shrimp and a darkly crisp spring roll, along with strips of vinegared carrot and daikon, shredded cucumber, fresh mint leaves and bean sprouts. Nuoc cham sauce arrives on the side in a pretty little star shaped ramekin. The aroma of the grilled pork tantalizes. It has been sliced thin to maximize the crispy charred exterior, while still being pleasantly fatty and tender. The spring roll is perfectly fried and filled with a dense mixture of delicately chopped meat and vegetable. The shrimp has been finely minced and mixed with a good dose of garlic, before being formed around a sugarcane skewer, reminiscent of a sophisticated Pogo. The texture of the shrimp is slightly hot doggy, but the flavor is pleasantly sweet and mild. Each element of the dish stands alone, but only when all the elements are aggressively blended together in the bowl and topped with the Nuoc cham, does the complexity of the dish as a whole emerge. The grilled pork imparts its lovely smokiness to the entire dish. The Nuoc cham lends a sweet saltiness. Refreshing mint and cool cucumber contrast with warm slippery noodles. No two bites are identical, which makes consuming the dish exciting, and much more than the sum of its parts.

Just as the décor is unusually stylish for a noodle joint, so too has the management gone the extra mile to make the dining experience comfortable for a wide variety of dinners—big booths can easily accommodate large parties, high chairs and booster seats are available. While you will pay a slight premium over run-of-the-mill Vietnamese restaurants, the extra couple bucks are well worth it. Pleasant lighting and ambience make this an ideal date spot, particularly if the object of your affection is less than familiar with Vietnamese Food. Pho Phuong provides the uninitiated with a great first impression Vietnamese cuisine. Follow up your dinner with some Latin music at the nearby Lula lounge and you’ve got an authentically Torontonian evening out.

Pho Phuong
1603 Dundas w. (East of Brock)
416-536-3030
10 am-10 pm 7 days a week