Dangerously low blood-curry levels
July 20, 2011 11:55 AM Subscribe
Please help me find a purveyor of my preferred curry!
Items 44 through 45B on this menu (from Mai's in Dallas) are variations on noi dat (clay pot) curry (ca ry/ca ri). I used to get my regular fix at Mai's, but now they're 1300 miles away and surely, surely I can also get this dish somewhere in Southern California if not in San Diego itself. (I will drive to LA if I have to. I'm hurtin' here.)
What was distinctive about these curries (besides the sizzling hot little clay or cast iron cauldron that made the bottom of the rice crispy) was that it was not a soupy curry. It was a very small amount of very flavorful gravy, and once you stirred it all up it made everything just the right amount of sticky. I like a soupy curry sometimes, but man this stuff is so good in a totally different way.
I could probably make something vaguely similar with prepackaged curry, but it would be especially nice if I could hunt down this dish at a restaurant so that there can also be nice spring rolls and ca phe su da without any effort on my part. I just don't know if this is just a Mai's thing or if it's a thing thing that I can find somewhere else and maybe I don't know the magic words.
Failing that, I'll take suggestions on how to best replicate this at home. I don't know much about Vietnamese curry and what direction I might take to replicate the flavor. There's definitely coconut milk there (it says so on the menu in the part you can't see), but after that I don't know.
Items 44 through 45B on this menu (from Mai's in Dallas) are variations on noi dat (clay pot) curry (ca ry/ca ri). I used to get my regular fix at Mai's, but now they're 1300 miles away and surely, surely I can also get this dish somewhere in Southern California if not in San Diego itself. (I will drive to LA if I have to. I'm hurtin' here.)
What was distinctive about these curries (besides the sizzling hot little clay or cast iron cauldron that made the bottom of the rice crispy) was that it was not a soupy curry. It was a very small amount of very flavorful gravy, and once you stirred it all up it made everything just the right amount of sticky. I like a soupy curry sometimes, but man this stuff is so good in a totally different way.
I could probably make something vaguely similar with prepackaged curry, but it would be especially nice if I could hunt down this dish at a restaurant so that there can also be nice spring rolls and ca phe su da without any effort on my part. I just don't know if this is just a Mai's thing or if it's a thing thing that I can find somewhere else and maybe I don't know the magic words.
Failing that, I'll take suggestions on how to best replicate this at home. I don't know much about Vietnamese curry and what direction I might take to replicate the flavor. There's definitely coconut milk there (it says so on the menu in the part you can't see), but after that I don't know.
Best answer: Does it have to have the crispy rice? My favorite Vietnamese restaurant in San Diego is Phuong Trang. They have a curry on the menu, but I don't think it's clay pot curry.
Also, this review at mmm-yoso mentions the curry at Pho Saigon Star positively. By the way, mmm-yoso is a good food blog to follow if you live in San Diego and like Asian cuisine.
You might want to ask the question on San Diego Chowhound boards if you haven't already.
posted by millions of peaches at 8:27 PM on July 20, 2011
Also, this review at mmm-yoso mentions the curry at Pho Saigon Star positively. By the way, mmm-yoso is a good food blog to follow if you live in San Diego and like Asian cuisine.
You might want to ask the question on San Diego Chowhound boards if you haven't already.
posted by millions of peaches at 8:27 PM on July 20, 2011
Ah, I should have mentioned: here's an excerpt from the review for Pho Saigon Star which matches your description pretty well: " The curry was sweet, with coconut milk and not very hot (spicy hot I mean). It had an excellent flavor, the chicken pieces were dark meat; flavorful. There were potatoes and hot onions and cilantro served with it. The sauce was not overly thick. it was good, tasty, but not like a Japanese curry sauce, which is thicker. You needed to put the rice into the curry to eat it."
posted by millions of peaches at 8:34 PM on July 20, 2011
posted by millions of peaches at 8:34 PM on July 20, 2011
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posted by pH Indicating Socks at 12:03 PM on July 20, 2011