Bia

Under the Williamsburg bridge sits Bia, a Vietnamese grill and beer garden (with a loud, but fun, rooftop).  We wanted some small plates after having happy hour oysters at Maison Premiere and Bia was a perfect choice for some small dishes.

Summer spring roll with shrimp - A light and balanced spring roll with the right amount of cilantro, greens, pickled carrot and shrimp.  The best of the appetizers!

Vegetable dumplings - These were a little on the gummy side, but not detrimental to the greens that packed tons of flavor.

Steamed roast pork buns - Pork buns can be a hit or miss and these were a miss.  Although the pork was good, buns so rarely have a good pork:bun ratio.

Vermicelli noodles with quartered spring rolls and grilled pork - I adore vermicelli dishes, but could have done without both the pork and fried spring rolls.  They didn't provide any flavoring and the noodles with greens, cilantro, onions, peanuts, and rice vinegar/fish sauce was perfect on its own.

All this with 2 beers - $40

Co Ba Vietnamese

Vietnamese has been on my mind for a long while and oddly enough, in a town full of Asian dining trucks/malls/restaurants, Vietnamese has not really had a presence in the New York dining scene.  To my surprise, Houston is the most densely populated city with Vietnamese people.  Luckily, there is a restaurant near my apartment in Chelsea that seems to be undiscovered.

Suon nuong – finger-lickin’ lemongrass baby back ribs and the meat falls off the bone, topped with crushed peanuts with short grain semi-sweet rice cakes.

Muc chien don – chili-pepper fried calamari with tamarind-lemongrass sauce and just a touch oily.

Banh uot thit nuong – honey glazed pork with Vietnamese ham served over rice ravioli with basil, cilantro, cucumber, bean sprouts, crispy shallots and chili-lime sauce. The ‘ravioli’ were rice ribbon nests and the chili-lime sauce wasn’t saucy in the slightest, but more of a vinaigrette. This is a must!

Com tho ga – clay pot baked ginger chicken with shitake mushrooms and onions over rice. This dish is perfect to edge you into fall with its heavy pepper undertones.

Tofu House (CLOSED)

Every table at Tofu House on Korean Way is an oasis of food. Ironically enough, the only portion of the menu that included tofu was the soup.

I went with my friend Edna, an online food critic for nymag.com, and we ordered so much food, I thought I would pop. Typically, all Korean meals start with 2-12 banchan, or side dishes, that vary from over 100 types of kimchi, pickled cabbage/garlic/squid to steamed tofu. It was difficult not to fill up on sides especially when the kimchi at Tofu House is easily the tastiest I've ever had. In Korea, the meal is the kimchi and rice. Everything else is built around it.

Let me take you on our odyssey...........appetizers of homemade steamed dumplings and Kimichi Tofu Soup. Dumplings = average and we really messed up their staple dish of Tofu soup. The restaurant serves soup with a raw egg which you are apparently supposed to crack into the soup, although I couldn't really imagine since the tofu was mushy and bland. The thought of adding an egg, well, wasn't exactly the picture of perfection. However, whilst watching Bourdain this weekend touring New Jersey and hitting up a Korean joint, I learned the egg actually cooks the soup! WHA?!!?!?

We had to get Korean BBQ and in this case, Bul Go Gi, prime beef marinated with a special sauce. It was brought out on a sizzling skillet served with onions. Overall, the beef was tasty being brought on by the sauce, but could have been cut a touch thicker.

This brings us to the two dishes which were polar opposites for me. The Hwe Neng Myun or cold, spicy vermicelli with puffer fish and kimchi (photo-RT). When Edna ordered this dish, the waitress looked at us with crazy eyes, then proceeded to say, 'You don't want this.' Edna says, 'Oh yes, yes we do'. I had a pretty good idea of what we were in for, but would say this is a dish best best left for Korean culture only because most Americans would find it unpalatable. The noodles were slimy and sweet; the puffer fish (blowfish) was not that of sushi-grade, rather hard and crunchy. You are eating the spine, not the meat, of the fish. So, if the fact that they are highly toxic to humans doesn't dissuade you, eating the spine definitely should.

The Yook Swe Bi Bim Bob was our fav! I could come back and eat just this dish every week in the summer. (photo-LT) It is marinated raw strips of beef sitting atop vegetables and rice with sesame oil drizzle and egg yolk. The dish was mouthwatering - a perfect balance of seasoning between the chilies, sesame and scallion.

Tofu House 17 West 32nd Street NY, NY (212) 967-1900