CHAR: Vietnamese, please

"SO have you spent a summer in Vietnam as well?" Barry Wallace asks me when I pop into his new spot Pang on Kevin street. I actually haven’t, but he tells me it seems like every second customer has, and they want to revisit the vibrant food they found there. Vietnamese cuisine certainly seems to be having a moment in Dublin with both traditional and ‘Vietnam-inspired’ spots popping up around the city. It’s fresh, healthy and perfect for vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free diets, so you can see why it is booming.

Vietnamese recipes aim to achieve a balance of five fundamental tastes. These tastes correspond to five philosophical and emotional elements that are based on Chinese yin and yang. They are sweet, sour, salty, bitter and hot and they are the building blocks of Vietnamese cooking.

The flavours of Vietnamese food also reflect native traditions and colonial influences: Vietnam has been occupied by China, Japan, India and most notably in food terms, by France. The French annexed Vietnam for less than a hundred years, but there are culinary traces; techniques and ingredients that have been worked into the local landscape. The most famous Vietnamese dish is probably the fragrant pho, a rich French-style beef broth [traditionally] with rice noodles and handfuls of crunchy bean sprouts, fresh coriander and basil, with thin slices of hot red chilies on top.

Another French-Vietnamese mash-up is the banh mi; crusty French-style bread, traditionally featuring cold-cuts of meat and pâté fillings, with slicked pickles, fresh herbs and spicy mayonnaise. It’s an intercontinental belter of a sandwich. Note to the Brits, who were here for 800 years and couldn’t even manage to leave behind one decent snack. The most significant food-related heritage out of that whole business is the potato, and we all know how that turned out.

Photo by George Voronov

Pho Viet on Parnell Street was the first Vietnamese restaurant in Dublin. Owner Tri Nguyen came over in 1979 on a boat, not long after the Vietnam War ended. I spoke to daughter Kim, who thinks there were under two hundred Vietnamese in Ireland then, but there are a few thousand now. Her dad had worked as a chef in Hong Kong. In 2012 he and his wife Tuyet, who’d arrived to Ireland in 1990, opened Pho Viet on an auspicious date – 12/12/12.

She says that as time has passed Irish people have become more familiar with the food, “We get a lot of customers saying they visited Vietnam”.

There are regional differences to Vietnamese food. Kim tells me, “My family are from Saigon in the south so the flavours are lighter”. Pho is their most popular dish. It takes a long time to prepare, “sometimes my parents are here until 5 or 6 in the morning”. That is dedication. They have two different broths, one for meat-eaters and one for vegetarians and they’ve noticed lots more vegetarians and vegans in the city in recent years.

The chefs in Pho Viet are from Vietnam and the food they cook is traditional with a few small exceptions.

“Both my parents are Vietnamese,” Kim says. “They want to bring our culture into Ireland. We import all the ingredients to make dishes in the traditional way. We get a lot of reviews saying this is really traditional Vietnamese food.”

Kim’s parents want people to learn more about Vietnamese food and they want Ireland and Vietnam to become countries better acquainted.

“It’s the same in Vietnam, not a lot of people know where Ireland is.” I suggest she opens an Irish restaurant in Vietnam as our intercultural ambassador. “I wish! That might be too complicated.”

Complication is absent from the menu at Pang, which is Vietnamese-inspired but a confident and modern interpretation. Owner Barry Wallace used to work in fashion. The recession led him to set up a food stall at markets, leading to the successful and casual in Brussels. He now works as a restaurant consultant, coming up with ideas for new restaurants and sometimes setting them up himself. Pang represents a modern remix of Vietnamese food. There are hopes to open more in other locations in Ireland and the North. He is, “obsessed with food”.

Barry continues, “I like creating new brands, new recipes. I love that creative process of making something unique”. There’s certainly an eye for design and the visual. The rice paper rolls are stuffed full of fresh ingredients. Options are pho spiced chicken, prawn and fennel, tofu and courgette, all with fresh herbs and noodles visible through the translucent exterior. They come with different flavour bomb dips like orange soy and peanut hoisin. They are super pretty and born to be grammed.

They’re also healthy. Barry loved the rolls he had in Vietnam but says, “I thought there was a gap in the market for a healthier version”. The aim is to build up a whole combinatory range of these rolls with different dips, all of which can be made into salad bowls. Like lots on the menu, the pho here is vegan, infused with star-anise. It’s particularly light, fragrant and super fresh. They do a version with chicken and both are topped with loads of fresh herbs, lime, chili, sriracha and hoisin.

In case you’re worried that this might be a little bit too #fitfam for you, fear not. There’s certainly healthy food on the menu here, but it’s not food that will leave you hungry. Pang is also one of the few places in Dublin where you can get a proper banh mi and it is tasty as. Barry sourced a Polish baker who is making the right kind of bread, a light baguette with a crust that shatters as you bite it. There are a range of fillings all loaded with traditional in-house pickles, spicy mayo, fresh herbs and crispy onions. They do lemongrass chicken, beef brisket or tofu, and my favourite the mortadella and corned beef with pâté. There are cures for gout these days anyway.

Where Pho Viet is traditional, Pang is a more loose representation. I ask Barry where he stands on authenticity.

“There are certain things I won’t bend the rules on, like the bread. Banh mi bread is really hard to source in Ireland. It’s not something that artisanal bread-makers are making. If we sell out of our Banh mi bread, I’m not running off to Dunnes or Tesco. The pickled carrots and daikon are all traditional Vietnamese. Where I would bend the rules is with a main ingredient. You might have a bun cha salad bowl but with jerk chicken. The flavour profiles work together.”

So whether you like things old school or experimental, you won’t be short of tasty Vietnamese eats in Dublin these days.

phoviet.ie & lovepang.ie

Some other Vietnamese hotspots in the city…

Aobaba, Capel Street

Aobaba was jammed when I visited. The banh cuon [rice paper rolls filled with minced pork and black mushroom] are such a weird but good texture combination, especially with the addictive crispy onions. The pho is colourful, steaming, rich and zingy and you can order small or large bowls. They have top notch pancake and banh mi too. Have the bubble tea for more mouthfeel experiments.

Jolin's Vietnamese Coffee House, Portobello

A café-like spot on Clanbrassil Street, Jolin is family run and features an accessible pan-Asian menu with some key Vietnamese additions, including a rich, nourishing pho [both pho bo – beef and pho ga – chicken], delicious summer rolls [rice-paper rolls] with a fresh and spicy dip. Try the spicy Vietnamese chicken salad and a potent Vietnamese coffee for after.

Vietnom, Stoneybatter

The punderfully-named Vietnom started out as a stall at Electric Picnic. Founders Milly Murphy and Alex Gurnee set up shop in The Glimmerman in Stoneybatter, Thursday to Sunday. They, like Pang, are a modern reinterpretation of Vietnamese food, taking the flavours as inspiration but creating sustainable, vegetarian Irish versions. The menu is fusion, but often includes banh mi and the greats.

Bun Cha, Moore Street

This is Vietnamese on Moore Street, inspired by street food from Hanoi. Bun Cha is grilled pork and rice noodles, I guess a Vietnamese equivalent to our meat and two veg. They do a range of noodle soups including an oxtail pho and spicy bun bo hue, and a wonton version which looks swish.