There are not many restaurants in the Klang Valley that serve authentic Vietnamese food. Best Restaurant To Eat was invited for a taste of Vietnam at Kafe Vietnam @ Bandar Puteri Puchong, located at 1, Jalan Puteri 4/1, Bandar Puteri Puchong 47100 Puchong.
This little neighbourhood restaurant offers a simple décor that caters to a family dining experience.
One of only a few restaurants that serve Kopi Luwak (civet cat), the beans are collected from the wild as opposed to some which are held in captivity which force feed the cat to produce the beans. There are a number of blend that are served in the restaurant thru the ala dipping Vietnamese style.
The coffee blend is of a mixture of Northern and Southern Vietnam coffee beans with a 10% Luwak beans blend. It has a fragrant aroma with a strong coffee taste coupled with a slight chocolaty body. The taste lingers well in your mouth as you take each sip of this cuppa.
The dinner review started with some Vietnamese Salad, the first of which is GOI GA which is shredded Chicken, Onion & Herbs Salad. It has a very tangy and zesty taste with a tinge flavour of the herbs and the crunch of the peanuts.
The other Salad was the GOI BO BOP THAU i.e Beef Salad, the thinly slice meat was very tender and juicy. Serve with crispy crackers as the sides, which you eat with the salad, exact out a different texture to this dish.
The last salad that was served is the GOI RAU CAU TOM THIT – It is a Jelly, Prawn and Pork Salad. What they used is the agar –agar strip which was soften and mix with poached de-shelled shrimp with Pork meat mix in it to give you a special taste with fish sauce dressing.
You can’t say that you have Vietnamese food until you tasted the Vietnamese wrap and roll, which was served in a piece of dulang as a platter. This dish is called THAP CAM CUON.
To wrap your pieces, you first spray the wrap with some water then you place a piece of green lettuce, a leaf or 2 basil, followed by a small portion of each of the skewered BBQ minced meat, Chunky pork, prawns cake, spring roll, a little of the bee hoon, star fruit pieces and wrap it up. Eat it as it is or dip into the accompanied home made sauce. A truly Vietnamese tradition of eating wraps.
Next, we had a special Vietnamese Pancake called BANH XEO, I notice that quite a number of dishes are served with fresh lettuce and basil including this dish which is the Vietnamese preference method of eating their vegetables - FRESH. The pancake have pieces of pork belly slices which gives the pairing a unique taste.
We then moved on to try the specialty Vietnamese noodles dish of which the first is PHO BO which is Beef Clear Soup Koay Teow. The warm soup broth was very beefy in taste and aroma. With a special Koay Teow, a thinner type which was used, and the thinly slice beef, it was a hearty meal altogether.
The next noodle dish is the BO KHO – a mild spicy beef and carrot stew with Egg Noodles- The broth was very flavourful with an aromatic herbal and spicy taste. Add in the basil leaves and the raw bean sprout, you bring this noodle dish to another level.
After the noodles dish, we tried the COM CA XOI MO which is a special Fried Rice with Seared Oil Chicken. What is special about this dish is the way they cook the Chicken.
As the name suggest, the Chicken is cooked using hot oil that is seared over the chicken. Compared to deep frying, this method is much better to retain the juiciness and tenderness of the chicken meat while having a super crispy skin on the outside.
Another Rice Set dish that we sampled was the COM THIT KHO TRUNG ie Rice with Stewed Pork Belly and Egg. This pork belly stewed is cooked using Old Coconut juice.
The result is the superbly unique sweetness of the broth that lingers on our mouth long after our taste of this dish. It has the resemblance of the Teochew Style stew, but this is a much lighter and sweeter version which was the effect of the coconut juice that was used to stew this dish.
The next dish is a very special dish as the fish is from the native land of Vietnam, which is the COM CA BASA KHO TIEU – Rice with Black Pepper Basa Fish, by the way, the Basa Fish belongs to the catfish family. Although this fish is a fresh water fish, it does not have any smelly taste of mud in it.
The smooth fish meat was cooked in a black pepper infused with premium fish sauce which was best eaten with the white rice until the last drop. Nevertheless, we needed a second order to fulfill our desire for more of this dish.
We had some side dishes which we had i.e. HEN XUC BANH DA – a special fried Safron Lala meat served with sesame crackers. The Lala are eaten with the special crackers.
Another side dish we had was the Fried Baby Oyster. I had never eaten oyster in this cooking style and it is a real experience to my taste-bud to taste the crisp batter while relishing the soft texture of the oyster from the inside.
Our dinner ends with the final dish LAU VIT NAU CHAO which is Fermented Bean Curd Duck With Yam, Kangkung & Mustard Green Hot Pot. The fermented bean curd paste was very well blended with broth and the darling of this dish it the duck to create a very delicious tasting broth. It was a very enticing and perfect end to our dinner review.
So, my search is over for a great and original Vietnam taste, as Kafe Vietnam @ Bandar Puteri Puchong will be my choice for a truly Vietnam experience. After your meal, you can also shop for some of the Vietnamese produce here too.
