Why is it a good choice for people who have special needs, especially for gluten-free people?

Gluten-free is a big issue for people who can’t eat” wheat related products”. Due to this habit, rice will be a smart choice instead of wheat for those people. As a fact, that Vietnam is the second largest rice exporting country in the world. Therefore, they have lots of different kind of rice dishes to be considered to eat. Some of  the best rice dishes that Vietnam has are:

 Chicken rice in Hội An

This kind of rice is very famous in Hoi An where is one of best tourism attractive place in Vietnam. Everyone comes to this city will be invited to eat this dish without doubt.

Baby clam rice in Huế

Baby clam rice is a special dish from Hue. It is made of crunchy cold rice, baby clams, fried pork fat, banana flower, fermented shrimp sauce, sliced star fruit and various spices.  This food tastes sweet, buttery, salty, sour, bitter and spicy at once. The mixed of hot baby clam and the cold rice blending together is weird but they are going together perfectly.

Tấm/Broken rice – Ho Chi Minh City

Broken rice is the most famous and traditional food in the south. We could have this dish anytime during the day. Moreover, it is served from street food shop to a luxury restaurant. The dish is made of  broken rice, grilled pork, pork skin, egg and fish sauce.

“Cháy”/burned rice – Ninh Binh

This rice has to make with steel pots. We must be carefully choosing the rice to make. When we got all the ingredients, we need to burn the rice to nice yellow colour.  Finally, we need to leave it under the sun until the rice is dried for 2 to 3 days.

After drying, it is broken into round shape slices which then are soaked into hot cooking oil pan until turning golden. The golden burned rice slices are served with a special soup of pig’s heart and kidney.

I hope that this post is helpful for people who need gluten-free dishes!!!

Images link:

http://www.vietnamonline.com/best-of-vietnam/10-best-and-uniquely-vietnam-rice-dishes.html

Vegetarian Dish - Goi Chay

Goi Chay (Vietnamese Vegetarian Salad)

       This dish is called “Goi Chay” ,which is very famous in Vietnam,  we could actually find some similar dishes in Vietnamese restaurant which are made of different ingredients with the same cooking method.

T     This dish is very easy and fast to make, and even better as leftovers. This dish usually takes about only 20-25 minutes to prepare and then it is ready to eat. This food is much healthier because it is not cooked with oil or cheese or even too much salt. Therefore, it will reduce the rate of causing some diseases: such as: heart attack, cancer or any diseases that related with our traditional cooking method.  When you are eating it, it is actually giving you a fresh or nature taste of vegetables. It is also good for people who are on diet because it does not provide too much calories. You can eat Goi Chay anytime during the day when u feel hungry, even before you are going to bed because it is not a heavy kind of food which gives you a hard time to sleep.

       This is the ingredients for the dish (for 6 people)

       1 pound extra firm tofu
Vegetable oil
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1/8 cup soy sauce
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 serrano or Thai bird pepper, deseeded and finely chopped
1 head green cabbage, shredded
2 carrots, peeled and shredded
Large handful of herbs (basil, mint, rau răm if available), coarsely chopped or torn
Rice noodles (optional)
1/2 cup peanuts, crushed

Images link

http://www.thekitchn.com/recipe-goi-chay-67437

      

If you come to any Vietnamese restaurant, maybe you could order this dish. Let me know how do you like it!!! <3 

Good Vietnamese restaurants in downtown Toronto

Hi guys,

So I was discussing with my friends in class about Vietnamese foods, I found that lots of them have never tried any of Vietnamese dishes before. They also don’t know where to find good Vietnamese restaurant, so I thought it’s a good idea to post a blog with list of good restaurants I know in downtown Toronto. I will also be posting the list of good dishes in those restaurants.

I used to live and work at downtown Toronto for a while. I have tried lots of restaurants but I only like some of them

Pho Hung

Address: 350 Spadina Ave Toronto, ON M5T 2G4

Phone number: 416 593 4274

Image link https://plus.google.com/118407498756892968259/photos?hl=en

This restaurant is known for its Pho Bo Dac Biet – Special Beef rice noodles. The price is reasonable so if you are a student who looks for a quick meal, you could come and order foods here. I tried other dishes but it wasn’t that good so I’m only recommending the Pho Bo Dac Biet. 

Pho Linh

Address: 1156 College St Toronto, ON M6H 1B5

Phone number: 416 516 3891

Image link https://plus.google.com/114705700842904950789/photos/photo/5855734693369442034?hl=en

This restaurant is known for its Bun Bo Hue – Hue Spicy Beef noodles. However, they only do this special dish on Friday – Sunday. On weekdays, you could try “Banh Cuon” – Vietnamese rolled cake. This is a really tasty cake that even I normally don’t eat a lot, I still can finish an extra-large order. I just love it. (talking about this make me want foods now =.=!!)

 Kimbo bo 7 mon

Address: 358 Bathurst St Toronto, ON M5T 2S7

Phone number: 416 603 7817

Image link http://www.phenu.com/KimBoRestaurant

This is where you find delicious 7 different beef dishes. The combo for two is around $25 and you get so much good foods. It's yummy!!!! 

Banh My Boy

Address: 392 Queen St W, Toronto, ON M5V 2A9

Phone Number: 416 363 0588

If you are looking for a sandwich, this is where you find the best sandwich ever. I fell in love with the 5 spices pork sandwich there. Sometime, I went downtown just for this sandwich.  It’s so much healthier and tastier than Subway or Mr Sub.

Kensington Natural Bakery

Address: 460 Bloor Street W, Toronto, ON M5S 1X8

Phone Number: 416 534 1294

Image Link: http://www.kensingtonnaturalbakery.ca/

Great place with great products! I’m sick of Wonder bread. I come here for healthy organic bread. This place offers special products for special needs. They have gluten free, wheat free, dairy free, sugar free, organic breads, cookies, cakes, coco balls and so many other things. If you are vegetarian, or need gluten-free products, you would definitely list this as your number one shop. I know that they sell products to Big Carrot, but why should you pay more if you could get it much cheaper in Kensington Natural Bakery.

That's pretty much all the restaurant I know and would recommend. So if you make a trip to downtown Toronto, you could visit and try out some of these restaurant. Let me know how you feel about the foods there!! 

I hope you guys enjoy it!! :) Please like my facebook page https://www.facebook.com/VietnameseFoodForHealthyDiet

How to make "Pho" - Delicious Vietnamese rice noodles

“Pho” is one of the most famous dishes in Viet Nam. When we talk about “Pho”, we often talk about Ha Noi – the capital city in Viet Nam. In Viet Nam, “Pho” is so popular with reasonable price (25k Vnd/bowl = $1.00), that’s why people could have “Pho” as their breakfast or lunch (pretty much anytime they want). I used to have “Pho” as my dinner all the time when I was back in Viet Nam because it was healthy but not heavy.

Image link http://www.vietnamairlinestickets.com/upload/images/pho-hanoi.jpg

It is not hard to make “Pho”. However, you would not want to make it only for you but for around 5 to 10 people since it requires lots of different ingredients, steps and actually takes around 3-4 hours to prepare (I usually cook for 5 people in my family).

These are the ingredients you need (for serving 5 people):

-          1 kg beef bones (chop into 5cm pieces)

-          400 gr beef shank and 300gr beef flank (slice it as thin as you can)

-          50 gr ginger (grill it)

-          Onion (grill this too :P)

-          Dry onion (these are the little purple onions that you can find in Chinese or Vietnamese markets) (and again, grill this)

-          Anise, cardamom, cinnamon stick (just one of each should be enough)

-          Bean sprout, mints, green onions, lemons, chili

-          Rice noodles (I always buy fresh rice noodle in a Chinese market)

-          Salt, sugar, and fish sauce

Image link https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaxjAOGCVTYO0mlgSVESivySpaBzHF4K-2aDcN3Lj8QA86zHQJChxgTgck5bxNs9P7FO6mhXA5X5_TtSoa-L-3r7EIPtOOLBD82dDGdYRuYpbRHEPndmO2fbzraKfMVg0sDQhfOk8xJMOd/s1600/gia-vi-nau-pho.jpg

Cooking steps:

1.       Soup:

-          Put the beef bone into your biggest pot you have, then put water and boil it for 5 minutes then pour that away. This is just to double clean the bones before you actually cook it.

-          Repeat the first step. This time you put a soup spoon of salt into the pot and keep the heat really low for 2 hours at least (I normally leave it for 3 hours).

-          After 2-4 hours, you can put all the grilled onion, dry onions, anise, cardamom, cinnamon stick and fish sauce in the soup pot. Keep the low heat for another half hour at least.

-          Finally, check the taste of the soup and add salt or fish sauce to match your taste

2.       Beef shank and beef flank

Don’t worry about this too much because after you done the soup, you are pretty much done everything.

You just need to put it into a big spoon and deep it in the soup for 30 seconds.

3.       Putting it all together

Get a big bowl, put the rice noodle in, put the beef shank and beef flank on top, then the green onion (cut it into little pieces), and finally put the spill the soup over.

The bean sprout, mints, chili and lemon juice are served on the side.

To be honest, I rarely cook “Pho” because it takes a long time to prepare. I usually go out to Vietnamese’s restaurant for it. However, it’s fun to spend time and cook with my family. In fact, most of Vietnamese’s restaurants in Canada are owned by people from the South of Vietnam, that’s why the taste is kind of different from the North.

 I hope you guys like it! Try to cook it if you have time and let me how it turns out. If you have any question about the ingredients or the steps, find me on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/VietnameseFoodForHealthyDiet?ref=hl ) and make comment there. I promise will reply as soon as I can! :P

P/S I found this link on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfzQGqHQf2I that show you how to cook “Pho”.