Vietnam Kitchen

The 1Utama Shopping Complex must be the most popular shopping haunt for PJ folks. It is the 4th largest mall in the world and apparently plays a big part in Kuala Lumpur making into CNN's list of world's 12 best shopping cities. Shopping is definitely not one of my pastimes. Food is. And indeed the 1Utama is a food haven of sort. There are restaurants and eateries all over the complex - in the new wing, old wing and on every floor. I have featured a number of restaurants in this place. The Vietnam Kitchen is yet another.

We had passed his restaurant many times but we had not bothered to go in. On this occasion, it was also a pass-by. Somehow the Vietnamese bug bit my wife as we did, and we made an adhoc decision to go in.

I did not have high expectations of the place as we walked in, in spite of its apparent popularity and its nice cool decor. Perhaps my mind was not programmed for Vietnamese at the time.

The menu was like a colourful newspaper. It even had a headline. And the dishes were all colourfully displayed.

We made our selection and had a pot of Vietnamese tea while waiting for our food.

The starter was the house platter. It was a big combo plate of pork, beef, prawn rolls, meat wrapped in sugar cane - the usual Vietnamese stuffs. The meats were deep fried in a marinade with lots of crunched peanuts. They were served with various salads and raw greens and a small portion of plain white mee-hoon. There were 2 types of sauces.

The rice paper was served separately with a bowl of water. The rice paper quickly turned soft when wet and became a kind of translucent popiah skin. We wrapped the meats and the vegetables with the sauces. The final product was delicious.

The mango duck was excellent. It was roast duck in a mango sauce. The meat was tender with a bit of fat. The flavour was superb. If you are ever in the Vietnam Kitchen, I recommend this as a must.

This was a sinful pork trotter, stewed with a chilli peanut sauce in a hot clay pot. The spicy chilli and peanut was a good combination for the pork trotter. The meat was tender. There considerable amount of sinful fat to make the dish more delicious. The duck and the trotters were totally worth our while in Vietnam Kitchen.

Finally, we had this vege dish. It was stir fried lotus root. The root was sliced thin and it was crunchy and very pleasing to the mouth.

My wife's sudden craze for Vietnamese paid off. The meal was very enjoyable. I saw a number of people having the beef noodles (Pho). I wondered aloud if it was good. My wife said we had tried it before and it wasn't great. Really? I thought this was my first experience in Vietnam Kitchen.