Our Pho Field Trip
The Bug and I are doing field trips every Saturday. One weekend we went to Oakland's famous Chicken 'N Waffles (like Roscoe's, but not) as part of our "EXPLORE Oakland" field trip. We saw Jack London's little Alaskan shack, we looked at a lighthouse boat, we drove through West Oakland and looked at the folks working on their yards and corner gardens, and we spent some time in the giant, beautiful cemetary.
Last weekend we went to the Benicia Camel Barns. No eating involved with that one.
This weekend I had lots of shopping to do and didn't have time for a historic field trip. Instead, we went to Saigon #1 on North Texas Street in Fairfield and tried out some Vietnamese food. I'm no stranger to Bun and Pho, but I knew the Bug was and figured he'd enjoy it. I was right.
We arrived at 2pm to an empty, clean strip-mall hole-in-the-wall. It seemed to be staffed by 14-year old boys. We ordered a small Pho with brisket ($4.95) for the Bug (no tendon, thank you very much) and Bun with grilled pork and fried roll ($6.50) for me.
Oh. Guess I should mention that my kid had a bike accident a few days ago and bashed apart his two front teeth, doing himself some pretty nasty damage. No biting into foods and no hard food for at least 6 weeks. So I figured nice soft rice noodles and soothing broth would be a comfort.
I wasn't impressed with the veggies that came with the Pho. A lot of crunchy bean sprouts, one sad sprig of mint, three slices of jalepeno, and a tiny wedge of lime. No cilantro at all. But then again, I thought my kid would really only touch the lime, so I didn't say anything.
We also got one summer shrimp roll and one fried pork roll. Both were a hit with the kid...I objected to the substitution of lettuce for mint in the summer roll.
The grilled pork in the Bun was GREAT. Really flavorful, a little crispy, and perfectly cooked. The broth in the Pho was pretty good too. The only thing we didn't like was the watermellon smoothie, no pearls ($2.47) which was so fake and powdery tasting neither of us drank it. Imagine...a kid not liking a cold shake that tastes like Watermellon Bubbalicious!
The Bug ended up falling in love with bean sprouts. He wrapped up a package of them in a large lettuce leaf and munched on them in the car on the way to Costco. Very happy kid. We'll go back.
Saigon #1
1972 N. Texas Street
Fairfield, CA
2 comments:
hey Bug, come over here and teach my boys about food! They get less adventurous as they get older, and it's really bugging me. I just keep dishing it up, hopefully. The chicken marinade sounds amazing, and I'm going to try it, but grill my chicken inside, cos it's mid winter. brrrrrr.
Yes--he's much more adventurous than I ever was. He loves to try fish and shellfish. He'll try all sorts of odd things. Scallops, crawfish, odd mushrooms...and the great thing is even after he has something suitably nasty, he'll try something else!
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