Baby, when it’s cold outside, I head straight for a steaming bowl of soup. During this chillier-than-usual fall, I’ve been sampling the flavorful soups of Asia – Vietnamese pho, Korean soon doo boo and Japanese-style ramen. Here’s where to find excellent interpretations of all three:
The soup: Pho, Vietnamese beef noodle soup
Where: Vien Dong, 3801 Yakima Ave., Tacoma; 253-472-6668
When the weather really started to take a dive in November, I went to my favorite place for pho, a Vietnamese noodle soup pronounced “fuh” (but so many people say “foe,” I don’t think it matters anymore). Vien Dong is at the corner of 38th and Yakima, the center of the Lincoln District, a neighborhood full of walk-in Vietnamese sandwich shops, Thai restaurants and great Asian grocery stores.
Soups at most pho restaurants are in the $6-$7 range. Expensive eating it is not. If you never have enjoyed pho soup, it’s a soup heady with the flavors of Southeast Asia: hot, salty, sour and even a little sweet. An aromatic scented broth is peppered with scallions and slivers of onions; a tangle of slippery, chewy rice noodles fills the bottom of the bowl. Meat choices – sometimes served in the soup bowl and sometimes served on the side for you to drop in and cook in the boiling hot broth – range from shrimp to chicken, tofu, thin slivers of beef steak, barbecued pork, pork roll and meatballs.
A tray of fresh bean sprouts, holy Thai basil, cilantro, lime wedges and sliced jalapenos comes on the side, offering the option of more flavor power. Any number of condiments on the table – plum sauce, fish sauce, soy, sugar, sriracha, chile oil – can make the soup as flavorful, or not, as a diner desires.
At Vien Dong, the broth offers dimension, and here’s why: copious cilantro stems and leaves float in the bowl, turning the broth ultra fragrant with an earthy citrus tone. On my visit, I slurped a bowl of beef ($5.75) pho, but it was my dining partner’s pork and shrimp soup ($6.75) that held my palate’s interest. No. 13 is listed on the Southern-style noodle soup menu. It comes with a salty broth with a few slices of shrimp, slivers of barbecued pork and rectangular slices of compressed pork roll. (If mystery meat bothers you, you might want to skip this soup.) What I loved about the soup was the texture of chewy egg noodles against slippery rice noodles. What’s better than soup with noodles? Soup with two kinds of noodles. This is the soup that cures colds. Or at least you’ll feel better after eating it.
The soup: Soon doo boo, a spicy tofu Korean stew
Where: Cho Dang Tofu, 9601 South Tacoma Way, Tacoma; 253-682-1968
Other location: 2200 S. 320th St., Federal Way; 253-839-2459
Call it Korean comfort food. I call it my new pho. Soon doo boo is a spicy, silky Korean tofu stew powered by chiles and a fish-tinged broth. Not a fan of tofu? Don’t let that deter you. This tofu is nothing like the rubbery cubes you buy in the water-filled package at your neighborhood grocer. This tofu is silky smooth, the texture slippery, and with a velvety mouth-feel that is more reminiscent of custard than tofu.
Cho Dang Tofu, a small and attractive restaurant in the same complex as the PalDo World grocery store, serves the spectrum of Korean dishes – from bibimbap to bulgogi to kalbi. Soon doo boo, also spelled soon dubu or sundubu, comprises the first page of the menu with 14 varieties. (The soup is simply called “tofu soup” on Cho Dang’s menu).
At Cho Dang Tofu, soon doo boo becomes a serious food spread. Expect your entire table to be covered by plates. It starts with an array of a half dozen banchan, the small Korean appetizer plates filled with kimchi, pickled zucchini, soy- and sesame-flavored salads, fried fish and other Korean noshes. Think of banchan as the Korean equivalent of Mediterranean tapas – small plates full of delicious flavors.
After the banchan arrives, the server brings an individual-sized sizzling cast iron pot – I delight in that it reminds me of a cauldron – filled to nearly overflowing with chile-spiked, fish-scented broth thick with those silky clouds of velvety tofu and whatever meat you desire: beef, pork, mixed seafood, bacon (my pick, of course), oyster, ham and the list goes on. Cabbage, onions and scallions add dimension to the deeply orange-hued broth. A sizzling, hot pot full of rice comes next. (Don’t touch – it’s hot). Scrape the rice into an empty bowl and your server will return with a pitcher of tea to deglaze the crusty bits around the edges of the hot rice bowl. Use your spoon to scrape the roasted rice from the walls of the sizzling hot bowl to create a tepid, somewhat meek broth.
The soup: Noodle soups at Pacific Grill’s Noodle Bar
Where: Pacific Grill, 1502 Pacific Ave., Tacoma; 253-627-3535 or pacificgrilltacoma.com
Since June, Pacific Grill has operated Noodle Bar, a separate menu/restaurant located within Pacific Grill. It’s a neat idea – a restaurant with multiple menu concepts.
The Noodle Bar menu is like nothing around town – and reminds me of dining at Ping, the hot spot in Portland that serves inventive Japanese street food with Southeast Asian and Chinese twists. My last visit to Ping found all kinds of small-bite wonders – grilled skewers with short ribs, quail eggs and fish balls, small-plate duck egg salads and tea-steeped eggs. At Pacific Grill, Noodle Bar offers similarly themed street food and snacks such as snake beans, which are long beans battered and crispy fried and served with a delicious hot mustard and sweet “mai tai” sauce ($8), house-made wasabi peas ($3), okonomiyaki, a Japanese stuffed pancake ($9), takoyaki, fritters filled with shrimp and scallions ($9), and other hybrid versions of Japanese street food. And then there is the soup. Owner/chef Gordon Naccarato infuses unusual twists in his noodle menu. It’s Japanese with a whiff of Southeast Asia and a swipe of Chinese.
“Obviously, we are not a traditional ramen or noodle house,” Naccarato wrote in an e-mail when I asked him about the Noodle Bar concept. “I learned to love ramen traveling to Hawaii and eating in ethnically diverse noodle bars in Honolulu’s Chinatown that served Thai chile sauces, fish sauce, sriracha, and hoisin – all on the same table. Hawaii is a melting pot of Asian cultures and visitors. You could add all these different ethnic variations to your ramen – taking it in a pho direction adding hoisin or a Thai direction where I have also traveled extensively, which appealed to the chef in me ... to make the noodle soups a background canvas that the chef or guest can add and choose from a diverse palette of additional flavors.”
Riffing on that DIY diner theme, Naccarato directs diners to assemble whatever soup sounds pleasing. Broths are a choice of classic ramen, a straightforward miso and a complex coconut-curry-lime. Diners have a choice of classic, springy ramen noodles or the more chewy-slippery Japanese wheat udon noodles. Shredded carrots, daikon radish, house-pickled jalapenos (divine little things), meaty mushrooms and an assortment of herbs are included in the broth. The cost is $12 for the broth, noodles and vegetables.
Want meat? There’s another add-in menu section for that. Choose shrimp ($2.50), pork char sui ($1), duck ($2.50), chicken breast ($1.50), beef ($2.50) or order your ramen Godzilla ($5) and get all of the meat choices.
The classic ramen ($17) was my first experience at Noodle Bar. The steaming, oversized bowl arrived on a beautiful wooden tray accompanied by a small dish of hot chile pepper and sweet vinegar sauce, an Asian soup spoon and chopsticks. The flavors might be a melting pot of Southeast Asia, Japan and China, but the execution and presentation stays true to the clean and beautiful Japanese aesthetic.
Naccarato described the process for making the broth on the “classic ramen,” which is sort of a misnomer because Naccarato’s broth is far more flavorful than a typical, classic Japanese ramen broth. Naccarato draws inspiration from Southeastern Asian ingredients – something he said he learned years ago cooking at the Vietnamese restaurant Le Colonial in Beverly Hills – and builds a deliciously fragrant base by simmering the Noodle Bar’s baby back ribs with chicken stock, dried shiitakes, vegetables and lemongrass. The broth was so deeply flavored, it reminded me of a kind of Vietnamese jus. Springy, bouncy ramen noodles filled the bowl and came topped with the shredded vegetables mentioned above. I ordered mine Godzilla style, and the bowl came loaded with tender slivers of chicken breast, shredded pork, meaty hunks of duck, thinly sliced beef and shrimp so fresh, it snapped when I bit into each piece.
On a second visit, I sampled the spicy coconut curry broth, Godzilla style ($17), and was floored by the curry broth that was far more a bright and spicy Thai-style curry than a mild and timid Japanese curry. The broth was creamy, bright yellow and punctuated with a back note of chilis and the bright flavor of kaffir lime leaves (a staple in Thai curry).
The beauty of Pacific Grill’s Noodle Bar menu is that the diner gets to choose his or her own noodle destiny. For me, make mine chewy ramen with that creamy coconut-lime broth and some of that meaty duck, and I’m a happy slurper.
Sue Kidd: 253-597-8270, Sue.kidd@thenewstribune.com
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