Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, October 2, 1994 TAG: 9410030091
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: JOANNE ANDERSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Such is the case of Vietnamese cuisine. Local meats and fresh vegetables are complemented with rice from China and seasonings such as curry from India or sweet and sour from Thailand. Then the food is prepared in the French tradition of sauting or simmering, methods adopted during more than a century as a French colony.
"To educate people about our food is one of my goals," said Nhon Ngo, who owns and operates the Vietnamese Tea House in the University Mall with his wife, Myloc Truong.
"We do not have a wok in our kitchen. We don't cook with soy sauce and only sometimes a little with oil."
The menu is prefaced with an excerpt from a New York Times review of one of Ngo's luxury restaurants.
"For over a decade now," the critic writes, Vietnamese cuisine has "captured the French palate and filled the Vietnamese restaurants in Paris."
Ngo and Truong have deviated from the luxury style to a casual, even under-decorated, atmosphere.
The food descriptions all were written by Ngo, who believes that food names should have meaning.
The Tea House Shrimp Roll is "chicken and vegetable filling hugging a shrimp, wrapped with crispy golden-brown rice paper."
There are sandwiches and hoagies, a word he picked up in Philadelphia.
Vietnamese Happy Pancakes, a direct translation, are crepes with a variety of Asian vegetable, crabmeat, shrimp, chicken and tofu fillings.
Singing Chicken, Seafood Clay Pot, Saigon Fire Island and Shaking Beef are all prepared with some combination of Vietnamese products.
True to the Vietnamese tradition of adopting other culture's methods when practical, both chopsticks and silverware are part of the table settings, here and in their native country. Bread is available with your meal, an American modification to the dining experience.
The first Tea House menu listed seven vegetarian dishes, but they have been so popular that more are being added.
One of the most unusual items at the Tea House is the coffee. A thick, creamy, mocha-flavored drink, Vietnamese coffee is brewed by dripping through a unique one-serving pot, then served with condensed milk over ice.
The coffee isn't hot, Ngo explained, because it's around 100 degrees in Vietnam year-round. The condensed milk is imported because there is no dairy industry in the country. The only cows raised are for meat, which explains the lack of rich milk-based or cheese sauces.
If you want to drink something other than coffee, order a Saigon Kiss. It's a vanilla and mung bean drink, not as thick as a shake, but more dense than the coffee. Very high in protein, the mung bean is used in many ways in Vietnamese cooking.
The Vietnamese Tea House might be the only place in the area where you can get Vietnamese beer, along with beer from Singapore, Japan, China, Mexico, England and some of America's microbreweries. The most popular wine selections start at $10 per bottle, but you can pay as much as $300 for a special vintage from the owner's private collection.
Dessert is delightfully French: mocha cake with a little apricot sauce between layers and crowned with a smooth, homemade buttercream frosting. Chocolate roll and vanilla flan also are offered.
The Vietnamese Tea House is a family affair with son Stevechau, 24, and daughter Myloan, 23, helping in all areas of the food operation. Stevechau and Myloan both graduate from Virginia Tech in December.
Whatever their children plan, Ngo and Truong will stay in Blacksburg for a while. Truong, who worked for a decade at IBM when she first came to the United States, ran the Nguyen Cafe with her mother back in Vietnam and now is preparing many dishes she learned to cook as a young girl.
Ngo, who once flew some not-so-friendly skies as a pilot and colonel in the South Vietnamese Air Force, said that "except for not having the sea here, the mountains and fresh air remind me of my hometown of Quinhon."
Vietnamese Tea House
801 University Blvd., inside the University Mall Blacksburg
Phone: 951-2768
Lunch: $2.95-6.95
Dinner: $5.95-10.95
Beverages: Extensive beer and wine, 36 flavors of Italian soda, very interesting coffee, blender drinks and mocktails
Hours: Noon-7 p.m. every day
Credit cards: Soon will accept Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover
Reservations: Not necessary
by CNB