Tag: restaurant reviews

New England

Soc Trang

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113 Vermont Street, Springfield, MA 01008. Phone: 413.736.9999

Worth visiting in a 35 mile radius.

After the Vietnam War brought a mass immigration of Vietnamese people to the United States, they scattered all across the United States, bringing their dishes from home with them. Over time, Little Hanois began to pop up, and some areas were favored over others for their level of Vietnamese-food prestige, including Houston, Texas, Orange County, California, and… Springfield, Massachusetts?

Although Springfield is not widely recognized as a Mecca for Vietnamese food, it has a surprisingly large Vietnamese population. Back in the early 20th century, Springfield was an almost exclusively white city in its economic heyday. Large companies like Rolls-Royce and Indian Motorcycle had factories here. However, floods, the Great Depression, and the departure of companies for cheaper labor overseas sent the city into a downward spiral from which it hasn’t recovered. But for every cloud a silver lining, and the economic depression that hit Springfield diversified it, bringing Puerto Ricans, African Americans, and a substantial Vietnamese-American population to the city.

Soc Trang is a down-home, Vietnamese restaurant tucked away in one of Springfield’s residential neighborhoods, away from downtown’s small cluster of skyscrapers. The space is pleasant with a spacious dining room, but the atmosphere is pretty flat. The two times I’ve been, its crowd has been very thin. There’s no music playing overhead and the stage awkwardly placed on one side of the room has always been empty when I’ve been there (although I’ve never been for dinner).

The egg rolls for the appetizer were satisfactory and set the expectations pretty high for the meal. The skin was  hot and crispy, a good sign that they had been made fresh, and the peanut sauce on the side added a sweet touch.

When I took a sip of the limeade, I recoiled. Did they give me pure lime juice? I thought.  It wasn’t sweet at all.Then I realized my naiveté. I was so used to drinking pre-mixed juices that I had forgotten that the sugar was lying on the bottom of the glass, waiting to be stirred in with the spoon that was served in the glass. When the sugar dissolved, the limeade was just the right mix of sweet and sour.

The shrimp vermicelli was delicious. Just shrimp and vermicelli would have been rather bland, but the savory fish sauce and interesting addition of mint kept my taste buds satisfied. The shrimp was soft and tasty, although they did skimp on the serving. The vegetables were a well-chosen medley that included carrots, green onions, and lettuce.

It should go without saying that pho noodles are smooth rather than clumpy, but I’ve had some poor experiences with pho outside of major American cities. Having had some pretty bad pho, I was pleasantly surprised to see that I didn’t have to pry the noodles apart with my chopsticks. The beef was well marbled and plentiful. The broth, as usual with pho, was a tad bland, but that was easily remedied with a sprinkling of Sriracha sauce.

Fried rice is served in several variants at Soc Trang including shrimp, beef, pork, and chicken. Since we’d already had some of those meats in our meal, we went with pork. Although the meat was dry, the rice was fluffy and buttery. The tiny onion pieces added a nice tangy finish.

I have had all of these foods before at different Vietnamese restaurants, but it was my first time trying Vietnamese coffee. I had no idea what it was, and was imagining it as some sort of strong coffee. It turned out to be like an iced mocha (but you can also get it hot), very sweet and milky. It made for an excellent dessert.

Prices are cheap (the large bowls of pho are under $10) but the service quite disappointed me. Often times, at small, family-owned restaurants, the service is better than at bigger places because there are fewer customers and they can pay more attention to each party. Not at Soc Trang. It seemed as if the waitstaff were always trying to make each encounter as brief as possible, and although they were never rude, they were not exactly polite either. Soc Trang is a little hidden gem that will surprise you with the quality of its food, but by eating here you’ll have to sacrifice both fun atmosphere and attentive service.

Boston · New England

Gourmet Dumpling House

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Chinese broccoli with garlic
Fried chicken with basil
Dumplings
Beef with veggies

52 Beach St., Boston, MA, 02111. Phone: 617.338.6223

Not worth visiting.

The restaurant review is flawed by nature. There are over seven billion humans on Earth, each one with their own tastes, preferences, and knowledge of different cuisines. How can one food critic satisfy the tastes of all of these people? The answer is simple: it’s impossible. For every person who agrees with a food critic, there’s bound to be one who disagrees. That’s why sometimes after a letdown by Zagat or the local paper’s food critic, it’s good to lay Google to rest  and just wander around a fun neighborhood until you find a restaurant that looks promising. Boston’s Chinatown is a great neighborhood to do such wandering, because of its pedestrian-friendly streets and sheer number of restaurants. There is a downside to wandering, though. It’s like prospecting for gold. You could strike it rich and find a bounty, or you could go home disappointed.

Don’t let the name fool you. Only one little section of Gourmet Dumpling House’s crowded seven-page menu is dedicated to its namesake. The rest is filled with dishes of all kinds, from fried oysters to sauteed pig’s blood with leeks.

Our appetizer was the Chinese broccoli, which was similar to both bok choy and American broccoli. The stalk and leaves are that of a bok choy but there are little broccoli heads nestled in between some of the stalks. The leaves soak up the delicious garlic sauce that the broccoli is served in. The stalks are crunchy but alas, flavorless. This was my favorite food here because the dominant flavor of the dish (garlic) was rationed well and was a good choice of sauce.

Our entrees were very peppery and very fried. A caution to future diners: “chicken with basil” is thickly breaded and fried, and covered with ground pepper (when I was ordering this entree I was imagining sauteed chicken in a basily sauce). This dish is pretty good. The breading was thick and the chicken underneath was piping hot and juicy. The basil tamed the grease a little bit, but was rather dry and shriveled.

The dumplings (fried with pork and leek for us) were originally what I was looking forward to. After all, I was visiting a restaurant called Gourmet Dumpling House without any prior research. The intense onion-like flavor of leek dominated the landscape, while the fresh ground pork appeared every few bites to remind me it was still there. I would put less leek in the dumplings so I could taste the pork a bit more. Overall the dumplings were satisfactory but ultimately got overshadowed by the other dishes.

The sauteed beef with various vegetables (most of which were onions) was presented fajita-style in a smoking-hot skillet. The beef was quite spicy, not the kind of spicy that makes your head throb and your face turn red like an angry cartoon character and you doubt you can take another bite; it’s the kind of spicy that on the first bite makes you think, “This isn’t so bad,” so you take more bites in rapid succession only to realize the mess you’ve gotten yourself into. The onions were decent coupled with the beef, but their strong flavor competed with the almost overwhelming pepper.

You should ask for water and order rice (it’s not free!) because the strong flavors of all the entrees require some mildness to cool them down.

Gourmet Dumpling House is not awful, nor is it great. It often overuses ingredients in its dishes, such as leeks in the dumplings, and its entrees tend to be fried, masking the flavor of the main ingredients. Boston’s Chinatown has a plethora of restaurants, so if you’re there I would advise you to just keep wandering. Who knows? Maybe you’ll come across a hidden gem.

California · Los Angeles

Guelaguetza

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3014 W Olympic Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90006. Phone: 213.427.0608

Worth visiting in a 1 mile radius.

Guelaguetza has garnered quite a reputation since it opened in 1994. The popular Oaxacan restaurant in Koreatown, L.A. has appeared on LA Times food critic Jonathan Gold’s annual Best 101 Restaurants list, has won a James Beard Foundation Award for American Classics, and has earned positive reviews from many different food critics. With a resumé this impressive, I had to give Guelaguetza a try.

One thing everyone who considers going to Guelaguetza should know is that the restaurant is quite loud. The combination of overwhelming live (not that great) music, dozens of diners chattering, and the open kitchen creates an atmosphere so noisy that you have to shout to talk to the person sitting next to you. The patronage is mostly big parties of Mexican families with some foodies mixed in.

Guelaguetza is known for its mole sauce and micheladas, which are a type of drink made from beer, lime juice, and chili peppers. The menu at Guelaguetza is not your typical Mexican fare. As I scanned the menu searching for the usual tacos, burritos, and enchiladas, I passed over many items I’d never heard of before. Tasajo? Nopales Asados? Campechana? This was going to be my one opportunity to eat Mexican food in Los Angeles before going back to New England with its, shall I say, limited options of Mexican food, so I took the opportunity and ordered all out.

Our meal started with a lagniappe of tortilla chips and mole sauce with cheese sprinkled on top. Chips are usually a good indicator of the quality of a Mexican restaurant and I was very impressed. They were piping hot and fresh, and the mole sauce, though spicy, still retained the rich chocolaty flavor. I liked it better than the usual salsa that comes with chips at most Mexican restaurants.

There’s a corner of the large dining room at Guelaguetza where you can see the cooks grilling the meat. Our alambres entreé was fresh off the grill, a mixture of grilled beef, bell peppers, onions, cheese, salsa, and guacamole in between corn tortillas. This dish tasted good, and the accompanying tortillas were soft and full of buttery flavor, but it was not very interesting. In fact, it tasted rather like a beef taco in a different form.

The tlayuda is a sort of Oaxacan pizza covered in pork fat and beans, topped with lettuce, chorizo, and Oaxaca cheese. While alambres seemed a little too ordinary to me, the tlayuda was very unusual. I can’t say I liked it, though it was an interesting dish to try. The chorizo topping was odd because it tasted more like a spicy ground meatball than the sausage links that chorizo usually are. The spread on the tortilla crust was fatty and starchy and tasted like burnt lard. The tortilla was very thin and baked to a crisp so it tasted more like a water cracker, while the mixture of lettuce and cheese sprinkled on was bland and did nothing to help the dish. This dish was a major disappointment.

The seafood cocktail was good but not great. I liked the tomatoes, shrimp, octopus, and avocadoes on top of the complimentary saltines, but the seafood wasn’t very fresh. The signature dish, chicken with mole negro, was clearly authentic, as it included the wing of the chicken rather than just the breast. This is something you can’t find in most Mexican restaurants in America. I thought the chicken was cooked just right and the mole sauce added the same great spicy-chocolaty flavor that worked well with the chips. Carnitas did not come in taco form as I expected, but were served with a side of guacamole and a small salad. Although simple, this entree was one of the best, because pork and guacamole are a combination for the ages, especially when the pork is juicy and tender like it was here.

I would recommend Guelaguetza to try once, especially if you’re not very familiar with Mexican food because of the interesting array of dishes on the menu. However, I wouldn’t come back. Although most dishes were fine and service was cheerful, some dishes missed the mark, and the noisy atmosphere put a damper on my meal. Keep in mind that L.A.’s Koreatown has the highest concentration of restaurants in the country, so there are many other restaurant options in this diverse neighborhood.