Viet-French Influence at Pho Quyen

There are warm duck salads and then there is goi vit, which may be the best of them all.

Goi vit is duck salad Vietnamese style. What it lacks is any intent to impress those who order it with the cleverness of the chef. What it offers is a marvelous range of flavors. There is the mellow taste of roasted peanuts, the subtle zing of red chile, a dash of sweet and sour and the freshness of herbs, among them mint and a slim, pointed leaf with a peppery taste that is popular with Vietnamese.

The herbs, along with shredded cabbage and sliced onion, form a bed for nugget-size pieces of warm duck. The chopped nuts are sprinkled over the top, and a minuscule container of spicy, gingery dip on the side adds still more layers of flavor.

This unusual salad exists far off the trendy track in a small restaurant called Pho Quyen. The location is downtown Los Angeles in a block of North Spring Street that is taking on a strong Vietnamese tone.

The cook at Pho Quyen is Tuyet Thi Nguyn, who is from Nha Trang in Vietnam. Nguyn produced wonderful dishes at Dong Phuong on Beverly Boulevard, where she worked for eight years. So it was a pleasant surprise to locate her again. The restaurant opened a few months ago, with Tran Van Tien, also formerly employed at Dong Phuong, as manager.

Reasonable Prices

The menu cover promises, in Vietnamese, good food, reasonable prices and good service. And it would be hard to find a more reasonable price than the $3 charged for the duck salad, unless it is the $2.50 attached to a soup named bun oc. This latter dish is an example of the French influence in Vietnam, for it is snail soup, and the menu employs the French word escargot in its translation instead of the English word snail.

The escargots were a bit tough, but the broth was wonderful, a blend of pork and chicken stocks with some sweetness, possibly from tomato wedges, offset by spicy ginger. There were rice noodles in the soup, too, and cilantro and green onion.

Beef stew is another Vietnamese-French blend served at Pho Quyen. Flavored with curry, the stew comes with a large chunk of French bread. French creme caramel appears as banh flan, an individual mold of custard with a uniquely Vietnamese presentation: crushed ice over the top.

In some cases, the English names of the dishes are so mystifying that ordering seems risky. But the reward for taking a chance may be a fascinating plate of food. One might envision an appetizer described as “Vietnamese steam rice flour ground pork roll with bean pudding” as a bowl of complex gruel. But it turns out to be translucent, soft rice flour crepes filled with slices of pork pate accompanied by little stuffed bean croquettes. The Vietnamese name for this combination is banh cuon banh cong.

Seafood Noodle Soup

Mi tom cua, or seafood egg noodle soup, fulfills its name in an unexpected way. The broth comes in one bowl. The noodles are in another, along with pork, shrimp, green vegetable and a sweet, reddish sauce at the bottom that is meant to be mixed with the contents. An idea worth copying is the garnish--crisp, deep-fried won ton wrappers, each embedded with a shrimp.

Mi quang, a bowl of brilliant yellow noodles and other ingredients, also has an unusual garnish--big, puffy chips made by deep-frying pieces of large round speckled wafers that can be found at Vietnamese markets.

Pho Quyen’s menu is large and includes the barbecued meats, beef soup, spring rolls and strong French-style coffee that are typical of Vietnamese restaurants. For an interesting beef dish, try bo nuong banh hoi, or charbroiled beef seasoned with fine shreds of lemon grass and topped with chopped peanuts, carrot shreds and green onion. On the side are the finest imaginable rice noodles sprinkled with dried shrimp that are fried, then powdered. This is one of the most expensive dishes on the menu, but expensive is perhaps the wrong word when the top price is only $3.50.

Pho Quyen, 667 N. Spring St., Los Angeles, (213) 626-2642. Closed Wednesdays. Open other days from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Cash only. Reservations accepted but not necessary. Park on street or in neighborhood lots.