The Green Lemongrass is one of our favourite Vietnamese restaurant. If you ask me why, perhaps it was because I was impressed with the breakfast we had at the other Green Lemongrass on Kingsway.
You may want to make that jump over to that post to take a quick look at that post we made a few months ago. As you can see some of the dishes we had in the Kingsway Green Lemongrass, they offer more than just pho. To add icing to the cake, these dishes are mostly $5.00 each.
The other Green Lemongrass is nearer home in Richmond. This Green Lemongrass is located on Westminster Highway, just a little east of No 3 Road. We had actually blogged about this Green Lemongrass before but it was more than five year ago. Believe or not.
This restaurant seems like it used to be a … single family home. The dining area is separated into separate rooms giving this a homey feeling. If this really used to be a single family home, then I can just imagine this is the oldest remaining building in this stretch of the road. The area here is pretty much made of commercial buildings.
This is what I also like about Green Lemongrass – the quaint tea pots which looked like they were imported from Vietnam.
They have a colourful picture menu. It is a menu worth reading. While there are the usual Vietnamese favourite dishes, embedded in it are some really interesting dishes. Interesting as in, if I don’t what it is, it is worth trying. That sort of interesting.
Yeah, you can click on the menu above to show it larger on a separate page.
Today’s honor goes to Nanzaro. He ordered the dish called Hu Tien Ko which is seafood, pork and egg noodles tossed in house garlic soy sauce.
It came in two serving sizes. The large one is $8.00 which was what Nanzaro got. The small one is $7.00.
It came with a small bowl of soup on the side. Usually when one orders dry/mix noodles, it will come with a side bowl of soup. Nanzaro said it’s Chinese style soup with daikon, carrot and green onion.
There is a lot of garlic flavour in this dish.
Some of you will probably find this too oily. It is more so at the bottom of the dish. So the best way to eat this is to thoroughly mix the sauce below so that it coats every strand of the rice noodles. We actually like the way it is; not too healthy. You know what I am saying?
Nanzaro said the best part is the Prawn Cracker. Too bad there is only one piece. So we gotta take his word for it.
For me, I ordered the Banh Hoi Tom Nuong. This is a bit expensive in that it is $12.00. I wanted this because this is pressed noodles. There are two skewers of prawn brochette and also came with a bed of salad of pickled carrot and daikon, green leaf lettuce, mint, cucumber, tomato and bean sprout.
You can also get the Banh Hoi (pressed noodles) with pork, beef or chicken.
The prawns were quite large and succulent. The jhup covers it sufficiently and there are charred grill marks.
The Banh Hoi is made of rice vermicelli with a firmer texture. That is why it holds better into a sheet. This is a light noodle.
The process of making this noodle is tedious. If you are interested, you can read about the production process here.
This does look like a very healthy kind of food. Lots of greens. There are mint, tomatoes, pickled daikon and carrots.
However there is only two large pieces of Green Leaf Lettuce. This is the base for the assembly of the Banh Hoi. I thought that the amount of ingredients are not proportionate to the lettuce for wrapping.
I was looking at this for some time and saw that the waitress was looking at me with amusement, I asked her to show me how to eat this. She did not do it for me but just instructed me on the steps.
First, the pickled daikon and carrots with some beansprouts.
Then the cucumber and tomatoes.
Next is the Pressed Noodle.
Rested some prawns on the pressed noodles.
So there you go. Not that difficult. right?
The problem is to wrap it up. The waitress does not speak much English and she just showed to wrap it up by folding on the side.
The size of the lettuce is just ngam-ngam (just right). It could hardly hold everything in.
That is my masterpiece.
It is very difficult to eat and is a very messy affair. When I show the waitress this, she said it is too big.
At least it is not greasy. All the ingredients are clean and non-greasy.
Like I earlier said, they only gave me two pieces of lettuce. So I had a lot leftover ingredients, particularly the Banh Hoi. So, I just dip it in the fish sauce. Quite nice too.
For Arkensen, he ordered the House Special Pho. He is just happy ordering the same old stuff every time. I think he will grow out of this when he is older. I was like that when I was his age. What I like a lot when I was his age was Hainanese Chicken. I used to have two orders of that in my teen years and that appetite worried my mum.
The price for the pho is about what average. The large one is $7.75. This one has beef brisket, soft tendon and rare round steak in beef broth.
The soup is dark and murky. Different from others. It has a distinct spice flavour but we can’t identify what is it. It has a sweet note.
Suanne’s order was the Bun Bo Hue ($8.00). It has both beef and pork with vermicelli. There is also one small piece of pork feet. The spicy lemongrass soup is not even spicy even though it looked so.
For people who likes Pork Blood Cube, I think they will salivate looking at it.
We also had the Pandan Leaf Jelly served with Coconut Milk, Simple Syrup and Shaved Ice for dessert ($4.00). This one looks like the Malaysian cendol, except without the palm sugar.
The Green Lemongrass accepts credit card.
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The lettuce is meant to be.. kind of like a substitute for regular rice papers so instead of rolling everything together like a ball which makes a big mess wrap it like a spring roll.. or cabbage roll! =P
Green Lemongrass’ location actually was not in an old house! I believe it used to be “Mad Greek”, as the buildings around it used to all have the word “Mad” in them. This is prior to Mad Greek moving locations.
However, don’t quote me on this, but another restaurant was in Green Lemongrass’ location before!
You are correct, Nicole. Mad Greek the resto was where Green Lemongrass is now. And MG has been there for many years. My Saab mechanic (who re-located in 2010) was operating in the back of that complex, past that gigantic pothole in the driveway (wonder if it’s been fixed ?) and I’ve been his customer since 2001. Even outside his shop there’s an old wooden banner that says “Mad Motors” (AFAIK not related to Mel Gibson’s Mad Max), even though for his own business he used a different name. I suspect the owner of that plaza at one time named all his businesses “Mad”-something.
It’s a mad, mad world ! 😉
I’ve always wondered about the pressed noodle dish. Thanks! I now know!. We have been going here for a while as its a stones throw from our house and they accept credit cards which is weird for Richmond. BTW the dipping sauce is not fish sauce which is on the table as well but Nước chấm which is a vinegar sugar fish sauce mix. On another note does anyone know where I can find Bahn Xeo in Vancouver other than Phnom Pehn?
I know that Hai Phong on Kingsway and Clark in the plaza has Banh Xeo as well.
This restaurant has been on my radar for awhile. After reading your post I have to make sure I go soon!
Cheers!
Hi Ben: if you like prawns and jhup, try their Tamarind Tiger Prawn next time. Our family always orders this as one of the mains and enjoy it with a side of steamed rice. Very tasty and no messy wrapping to contend with!
Thanks for your demonstration of the Banh Hoi Tom Nuong. When I order that dish I never could figure out how to eat it, I figure the salad and noodles was a side dish and eaten seperately,now i know the reason they gave the huge lettuce pieces was to wrapy everything up. the dishes looks really good!
…mmm… *yum!* The prawn brochette looks very appealing ^^ I had Nanzaro’s dish at a different Vietnamese restaurant – and he’s right, the shrimp cracker/wonton thing is the highlight!
btw. the pandan leaf jelly looks so wrong after the pic of the pork blood… braaaaains *in my best zombie voice*
That meal has me drooling!! Quite a “sandwich” too. I’ve never seen one like that. I will have to look for that blood dish too. I make my own blood sausages at home (German versions not UK type). I have a question related to pictures in general on your blog. If you click one it opens a new page but the image is the same size. If you click that image it opens just the image but alas the same size. On many food blogs if you click an image it opens an almost full screen image and that I really like. That feature would be great with your mouth watering photos. Any chance of that happening?? Would really appreciate it.