Rice

Rice is the ultimate asian grain and this place, Xoi Yen has the best bowl of Xoi Xeo by far! What is Xoi Xeo you ask? Well, it’s a mixture of yellow sticky rice with mung bean shavings and fried shallots topped with some sort of meat. What are mung bean shavings you ask? Well, it’s a giant yellow ball made of mashed up mung bean paste, which they take and shave like a block of cheese over your rice. Oh the joy!

They serve the dish with a side of spicy pickled cucumbers, perfect.

Then we’ve got rice noodles, dry with a sauce, crispy spring roll and meat. You take a little bit of the rice noodle, put it in the sauce so to soften them, take some fresh herbs and add it to the bowl. You can wrap a piece of the spring roll in a lettuce leaf and dip it in the sauce. You can just eat the noodles with the sauce cause it’s that good.

Square springs rolls that come with the dry noodles.

Then you’ve got rice noodle dumplings. Comes from Chinese cooking but it’s basically one sheet of noodle rolled up with meat inside and topped with fresh cilantro, fried shallots, nuts and you have a sauce. All amazingly delicious.

Another version of the dried noodled dish is to have it with grilled meat and over veggies, so it’s like a noodle meat salad with sauce. You can walk down so many allies and find them filled with “bun”.


And of course there’s pho, rice noodle soup. This time I had the beef variety and this woman and her meat, my goodness is it tasty tasty.

All this rice, you need a beverage.

And maybe a view.