Que Huong - Completing the Summer Grand Slam

*** Que Huong has closed

*** Updated posts can be found here, here, and here.

I'd heard about Que Huong a while back. It was described as "not a pho' restaurant; more of a white tablecloth place." So one Sunday morning we decided to give Que Huong a try.

Tucked in the back corner of yet another generic strip mall on University Avenue(on the corner of Marlborough Ave and University), Que Huong looks somewhat intimidating with the iron bars and grease board menu with specials written only in Vietnamese.  You notice an immediate difference upon entrance:

The interior of the restaurant was dark with swap meet artwork on the walls and a definite "pastel" look. How very retro 80's! We opened the menu, and yep, no pho', instead there were many items that I've really never seen on a Vietnamese menu in San Diego; like Jack Fruit Salad, and a whole list of fish listed only in Vietnamese. We placed our order and a "basket" of utensils, napkins, and "wipes" were delivered to our table - a nice change from the usual chopstick and spoons on a plastic holder that we're used too:

We started with the Cha Gio ($4.95), the standard Egg Rolls:

These were among the best I've ever had! They were crisp, not oily, with tasty filling. The garnishes delivered were also outstanding; along with the usual lettuce and mint, were Perilla leaves, tasting almost like shiso, these added a nice flavor. The Nuoc Mam Cam was also outstanding with pieces of garlic, and chilies added for additional flavor.

We also ordered the Duck Banana Salad ($12.95):

A large plate piled high with Basil and other herbs, julienned banana blossom, onion, fried shallots and garlic, this made a refreshing dish. Except for the duck, which was a chopped bland duck leg, with bits of bone everywhere. this made for ponderous dish, after cracking your teeth on a few bone chips, you got downright paranoid about eating this. Also, some of the banana blossom had a distinct soapy taste. At the same time a large soup bowl was delivered. At first I said "we didn't order this", but after some explanation we finally figured out that the soup came with the salad. This turned out to be a wonderful rice porridge. There was a nice salty, somewhat garlicky taste. The flavor of the fried garlic, black pepper, and cilantro stood out, with only a hint of fish sauce.

I ordered the Com Tam 7 Mon - the broken rice with 7 meats($8.95):

This beautiful looking dish was a mixed bag. The julienned pork, not among my favorite things, was very moist and flavorful, the BBQ pork was outstanding, the egg roll was great (of course), the shrimp cake with bean curd was also excellent. However, the steamed egg (my favorite) was dry and separating, the fish cake was tasteless, the pork cake was also dry, and worst of all the Com Tam (broken rice) was very dry and hard, like it had been sitting for a long time.

Que Huong had caught my interest though, and when Ed from Yuma emailed and said he was coming my way for a quick trip, Que Huong immediately came to mind. I thought it would complete our restaurant summer "Grand Slam" that started with China Max in May, and Sakura in July, and earlier this month Buga Korean BBQ made an appearance.

We met and entered the Restaurant and were seated as before. This time though the lighting was very bad - so please excuse the poor photo's. Communication was also a problem this time, as you soon see.

I ordered the Egg Rolls that we loved so much:

But as you see, these were really different(also charge $7.95 this time). But oh what a wonderful mistake this was. It was like the Egg Rolls except with an entire shrimp inside, and the wrappers were much more delicate. I'm printing a picture of this, because I want to make sure I get this next time! Same garnishes along with the excellent Nuoc Mam. Delici-yoso!!!

We also had Roasted Quail ($9.95):

This dish was good, but nothing we hadn't had before.

I had heard the Banh Xeo (crepe) here was excellent, so we made sure we got it ($5.95)

The crepe sure didn't disappoint, nice a crunchy exterior, moist interior with whole shrimp, ground pork, and lot's of bean sprouts. This was the best Banh Xeo I've had in San Diego. Not oily at all - simply delisi-yoso!

Finally the main dish, the Fried Catfish($25.00):

This was a major production and took three people to deliver. A plate of rice paper wrappers, a bowl of warm water, garnishes including banana blossom, pickled vegetables, perilla, pickled onion, bean sprouts, lettuce, mint, and I'm sure I left something out. A plate of bun (vermicelli), and Mr Catfish(medium sized), on a bed of lettuce, covered with cilantro. This dish was a "make your own spring roll" thing. That is, you grab a wrapper, dip it in the warm water and start building your spring roll with the garnishes. Than once completed, dip the roll into a little bowl of shrimp paste mixed with garlic and shallots. Sounds great right? Well not really; the catfish in my opinion tasted extremely "muddy" which spoiled the dish for me. Ed seemed to make the best of it though, being the good sport that he is. The damage a little over 50 bucks. Too bad, we could gotten away with half as much, and had a better meal! But overall a really fun experience.

Some notes; the restaurant was empty, not a good sign on a Friday. I hope this place stays around, there are some very good dishes, and I haven't even started on the soups yet. Communication may be a problem, as in my experience with the Egg Rolls. Parking is very limited as the Mall shares spaces with a Burger King and other businesses.

Que Huong Restaurant
4134 University Ave
San Diego, CA 92105

Open 10am to Midnight Daily

Comments

[Reid]

Hi Kirk,

Nice review. The catfish sounded great, but I'm mostly weary of whole catfish because as you've experienced, the flavor of the fish can be quite muddy. The goi vit bap chuoi (banana bud salad with ginger and duck) also sounds good. I'd like to try it sometime. I have a recipe for it, but as I'm not too much of a duck lover, I'd probably make it with chicken or shrimp.

[Jo]

I'm with you Reid, a little duck is ok, but to much makes me "quackers"! ::falls off chair laughing::

[clare eats]

oh I love chinese roast duck! mmmmmmm

This place looks good :) nice and 'homely' I love cha gio with wrapped in lettuce etc, you do know how easy it is to make nuoc nam right?

[Christine D.]

Whoa! how weird, I ate fried catfish with banh trang today! But it was at another place, which i think is called Hong An (on Brookhurst/Westminster in Orange County). We had ordered a medium sized catfish, but they upgraded us to a large one, free of charge =). I don't know if my fish tasted muddy or not, but it was pretty good! The rice paper was SO stubborn today. Probably the stickiest paper i've ever had to deal with, and i ended up eating a few quadruple layered rolls. we also ate bo bay mon (7 courses of beef) so I was wayyy beyond full at the end of the meal. My hands still smell like catfish and fish sauce even though i've washed them so many times! My family really likes this place because you can have a variety of things and the food's pretty good. It was even pretty crowded for a monday evening.

[Kirk]

Hi Reid - If you're ever in Vegas have the Whole Catfish at Lotus of Siam - Ed & I kept talking about it as being our "Gold Standard". I've not too many problems with whole catfish - this one was too muddy.

Hi Jo - I'm a duck lover - but you "quack" me up!

Hi Clare - Yes I've made Nuoc Mam - I liked this version because of alot more hot chilies and that slices of garlic were in it. There were 2 versions of Nuoc Mam served - one with the Cha Gio and a different one with the crepe. I thought the La Tia To (perilla leaves) added a nice flavor.

Hi Christine - Sounds like you had a great meal! We were served a shrimp paste, garlic, and shallot dipping sauce with our catfish, this didn't even mask the muddiness. The nice thing was that we were given those disposable oshibori, that helped.

[Jo]

nuoc mam is just straight from the bottle with the shredded herbs etc. right?

[ed]

Hey Kirk. I did have a good time. I think you are a little hard on that poor catfish. Once I learned to use enough of the wonderful shrimp paste sauce with all the garlic, I thought it was pretty good. Not Lotus of Siam good, but what is?

[Kirk]

Hi Jo - I'm really talking about Nuoc Mam Cham - Fish sauce dip. Fish sauce, vinegar, water, sugar, red chilies, lime juice, with shredded pickled radish and carrot.

Hi Ed - Maybe I am, but I expected more. I've had better catfish at Celadon and Phuong Trang.

[Jo]

ah ha! OK, I'll have to keep that in mind. My Viet cooking is not that advanced yet. I'll have to get a crash course from Van before we leave.

About the "muddy" catfish. I have presumed that you meant the flesh itself had the flavor of bottom soil from whence it was caught. It now occurs to me that you might have meant something else. Would you be so kind as to elaborate?

[Kirk]

Hi Jo - You're correct, it was a very muddy taste.

[Jo]

Fascinating. I don't think I've ever experienced that in cat fish. Don't suppose you know if the fellow was wild or farmed do you?

[Kirk]

Don't know - but I thought it was pretty bad - but Ed disagrees, it represented every bad stereotype of bad fresh water fish in my mind!

[RONW]

You know something Kirk, I never ever ate catfish. But if you're not especially busy tomorrow, stop by the house, because I have some tilapia for you....not kidding.

[Kirk]

Hi RONW - I still can't eat tilapia, even after all these years - visions of the Ala Wai and the "pond" at the Blaisdell come to mind. yuck....

[christine d.]

mmm tilapia! I can't believe you don't like it! I usually pan fry it with crushed garlic cloves and then pour nuoc mam all over it, and eat it with rice. it's freakin delicious.

[milgwimper]

Kirk,

The muddy taste might be from algae if the catfish was farmed. I haven't had the same problem with freshly caught catfish, but sometimes farmed catfish is muddy tasting.

[Kirk]

Hi Christine - If you grew up seeing tilapia like I have.....I think you'd feel the same way. I'm sure tilapia is good; but than again alot of things would taste great with garlic and nuoc mam poured over it - I'd probably eat my arm that way! LOL!

Hi Mills - hmmm, you're probably right, never gave it much thought.

[elmomonster]

Kirk,

I, too, detect muddy notes in catfish and tilapia...but only once in a while (that's probably the difference between wild caught and farmed that people talk about)...Tilapia is my default fish to deep fry (I cook it until it beyond crisp - basically until its cracklins'), because it's so cheap and yup garlic and nouc mam is required, but if I could afford to have white pompret everyday I'd prefer it.

In any case, I've tried that lacy shrimp wrapped spring roll that you tried from my local 99 Ranch freezer case. They sell em frozen! Good eating, especially dunked in Thai sweet chili sauce!

[Kirk]

Hi Elmo - I never cook with fresh water fish, guess growing up in Hawaii created a major bias. I've never seen those shrimp rolls a 99 Ranch Market - I seldom buy frozen stuff from there, even though I shop there just about every week - I'll need to look closer.

[Kirk]

RONW hits it "right on the button" with his Tilapia post - here:

http://www.hotelwaikiki.net/2005/08/_on_the_front_w.html

It expresses my feelings on Tilapia in perfect terms!