The O.C.’s Little Saigon comes fast and furious

The cluster of shopping centers and maddening traffic along Bolsa Avenue -- the main drag in Orange County’s Little Saigon -- can feel claustrophobic.

If you need to break Bolsa’s embrace, pull over and ask the nearest teenager for directions to “The Fast and the Furious” shopping center. He’ll direct you to the pagoda-style plaza that served as a cinematic bad-guy hideout. This is T&K; Food Mart, your one-stop Vietnamese eating zone.

The corner restaurant is Quan Hy (9727 Bolsa Ave., [714] 775-7179), which features a quaint footbridge and water fountain, as well as specialties from the central Vietnamese region of Hue. The chewy banh beo ($6.36) keeps the place packed through late afternoon. The delicate cakes are made of steamed rice flour sprinkled with green onion, fried onions and minced shrimp. They’re served nine at a time on individual plates so the whole table can dig in, but even the little old ladies around here can devour an entire order themselves.

At Banh Cuon Tay Ho (9629 Bolsa Ave., [714] 839-1389) across the way, fish sauce is every diner’s best friend. A massive jug of the sweet, tangy and tragically named condiment sits at each table, offering a light and even refreshing taste when prepared with flavors like garlic, sweet chilies and lemon juice. While the restaurant’s clientele varies wildly, including ladies with thousand-dollar handbags, toddlers being fed by Grandma and hungry wannabe gangsters, common ground is found in the banh cuon, or “combination rice flour sheet” ($5.55), according to the menu. A chewy, translucent, rolled-up rice flour crepe stuffed with ground pork and tree ear mushrooms, banh cuon is similar to the steamed rice noodles at dim sum joints but less likely to glisten in oily delight. But glisten it shall, thanks to a dippable bowl of fish sauce or a full-on dousing.

For dessert, head a few doors down to Thach Che Hien Khanh (9639 Bolsa Ave. No. A, [714] 839-8143). Soupy Vietnamese sweets are simple but it’s the decision making that’s complicated. Point to any of the items overflowing from the different trays along the counter -- mung bean, grass jelly, seaweed, jackfruit, longan, taro, creamed corn and peanuts, to name a few -- and mix it up with some of the bright green starchy batter and coconut milk. At $2 a cup, there’s no shame in gulping down the entire thing and getting right back in line.

-- Cynthia.Dea@latimes.com