RESTAURANTS : It’s Very Hard to Spend Big Money--or to Find a Bad Dish--in Little Saigon

Little Saigon, a long stretch of Bolsa Avenue in Westminster (with some spill-over into Garden Grove), is one of the great cultural treasure troves of this area. But above all it is a place for inexpensive gourmandise.

Its restaurants display a vast range of cooking--glazed meats, salty noodles, flavorful sandwiches of home-cured cold cuts and garlicky, French-style pates. Spending big money in one of these places is as hard as finding a bad dish on their menus.

Recently, I’ve discovered two such places: Nui Ngu, which features the wonderfully obscure cooking of Hue (pronounced whey ), the mountainous province of central Vietnam; and Pagolac, which offers bo bay mon , the seven-course beef dinner that was all the rage in Saigon before the Communist takeover.

Nui Ngu (it means “royal mountain”) is about as modest as restaurants get. On quiet McFadden Avenue in Garden Grove, its decor consists of eight or nine glass-topped tables adorned only with soy sauce, chile sauce, sugar, toothpicks and faded red tablecloths beneath the glass tops. The menu, written in Vietnamese, is sandwiched in between.

Nui Ngu is run by Dao Tran, a Hue native with six children she reared in Jacksonville, Fla. On one visit, I found that the waitress, Tran’s daughter Kathy Pham, was also the cook for the day.

Everybody comes to Nui Ngu for the bun bo Hue , a peppery beef noodle soup that is vastly different from its more widely known counterpart, pho . Bun bo has a reddish broth thick with flat wheat noodles, big chunks of beef (sometimes still right on the bone) and an abundance of cilantro and garlic. It is served with a side plate of lettuce, bean sprouts, jalapeno peppers and lime, intended for squeezing directly onto the beef. It’s a hearty, delightful soup.

Banh bot loc is a stickier version of Chinese fun gor , a translucent tapioca flour-rice noodle filled with diced pork and dried shrimp. Then there’s banh ho , dollar-size rounds of rice noodle topped with bright yellow, shredded fresh shrimp and Vietnamese croutons made from pork cracklings. These are eaten with nuoc mam , the requisite fish sauce that accompanies most Vietnamese dishes.

Banh khoai-- a yellow crepe made from rice flour and turmeric which resembles a stuffed omelet--is not strictly from Hue, but Tran’s recipe is special. It’s smaller and far crispier than the standard. The filling--cooked bean sprouts, whole shrimp and dried pork--is somewhat bland, but when eaten with fresh mint, cucumber and a sweetened fish sauce, it is transformed.

You can safely pass on dessert, which is an acquired taste. But don’t miss the sinh to , icy fruit shakes made from jackfruit or guanabana.

Pagolac in Westminster is much easier to find, especially on a Friday or Saturday evening. Just look for a horde of people gathering around a doorway (I advise reservations).

It’s a bright, bustling restaurant with music blaring from multiple speakers. The waiters have almost no command of English, but since there is basically only one item on the menu, it isn’t needed. Actually, table-grilled shrimp or beef can be ordered as an extra, and if you aren’t in the mood for beer, you might try chanh muoi (salted limeade).

I find the cooking pleasant, but certainly not compelling. Strangely, the best actual cooking there is what you do yourself.

The first course, bo nhang dam , is the best. It’s a simple fondue of marinated, paper-thin sliced beef that you boil in an onion-infused broth. The meat is tender and trim, and you can cook it to your taste. Alongside are raw veggies, lettuce, mint, cilantro, plus vinegared carrot and radish, and hot chile paste.

Courses two through five are served together on a large platter, which means seven courses speed by faster than you might have thought. Bo cha dum is a light, airy meatball with minced mushroom, glass noodle and chopped nuts. It’s very, very good. Bo nuong mo is a garlic meatball with a sugary glaze on the outside. Bo la lot , the tastiest of the four, is shredded beef wrapped up in a tree-fragrant Hawaiian lot leaf. And bo sate , the most interesting, is a type of roulade with curry spices, pickles and ginger.

Courses six and seven come out together, making a three-stage, seven-course dinner, which is common in many local bo bay mon restaurants. Number six is bo bit tet , sliced beef on salad greens with heaps of sliced onion and red pepper. After the first five courses, it seems somewhat redundant. Seven is chai , a beef rice soup that can be boring, as it is here. Compared to a Vietnamese soup with soul like the bun bo Hue at Nui Ngu, this version may as well be from a can.

Nui Ngu is inexpensive, Pagolac slightly less so. At Nui Ngu, dishes are from $2.85 to $3.50. Sinh to are $1.20 to $1.75. At Pagolac, the seven courses of beef dinner is $11.95.

NUI NGU

10528 McFadden Ave, Garden Grove

(714) 775-1108

Open Tuesday through Thursday, and Sunday 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., Friday and Saturday until 8 p.m. Closed Monday.

Cash only.

PAGOLAC

14564 Brookhurst St., Westminster

(714) 531-4740

Open Tuesday through Sunday noon to 10 p.m.

MasterCard and Visa accepted.