We were joined by Jason Lau, foodie and frequent design partner of Tiny Bites Consulting, and served by brother and sister tag team Khiem and Lai Chau (who, despite all our compliments, was too camera shy for the photo above). 

I thought we were in for a typical first-visit dinner : a dish apiece, perhaps an appetizer, perhaps a drink or two. As it turned out, Lai and her family bombarded us with an array of plates that they felt we had to try and then refused to let us pay for any of it. Behold the spread:

Banh Khot – Green bean muffin lettuce wrap dish, $8.95.

Trudy warned me beforehand that mung bean is often an acquired taste, but I wanted to try something besides the usual pho and bun. This dish was one of my favourites of the evening: the creaminess of the mung bean balanced with the umami and chunk of the pork and shrimp. (Jason was not a fan; Trudy prefers this dish in the usual crepe-style presentation.)

This dish is meant to be eaten in lettuce wrap format, but for us, it was too messy an operation. I wound up spearing a chopstick into my target and dunking the whole thing into my bowl of nuoc cham. 

Hu Tieu Kho – Dry rice noodles, $6.95.

A Vietnamese take on chow mein, I suppose? This dish was another first for me; my acquaintance of noodles in Vietnamese fare is limited to pho and vermicelli. Trudy prefers Hai Phong’s rendition over that of Phnom Penh, a restaurant that she is also a fan of.  This didn’t stick out for me. I ate it; it was good, I think; but it didn’t knock my socks off like other first bites in unfamiliar territory.

Complimentary servings of pork rib broth accompany dishes that aren’t already soupy in nature.

Bun Rieu – Crab mix noodle in soup, $6.95.

Trudy ordered this dish with a heap of customizations. I was surprised by this flexibility. At many family-run Asian diners, ingredient substitutions are discouraged if not outright impractical, considering the barriers of culture, language, and more. At any rate…whatever Trudy changed made for a damn delicious outcome. I even ate the Vietnamese ham, which I studiously avoid in most cases.

 Hu Tieu Mi Bo Kho – Tomato beef brisket stew with rice noodle and egg noodle in soup, $6.95.

Lai recommended this soup when I explained my adoration of tendon. When it came to our table, I was saddened that there was no tendon in sight. Lai apologized for the confusion (she thought brisket was what I was referring to).  Oh well – I’ll just have to come back to try something with tendon.

This dish sat well with me despite the mix-up. It reminded me of 3am brisket noodle soup dinners with my father and his musician friends, famished after a long night of jamming (I was part-time backup singer) at the venue a few doors down.

Bun Bo Hue – Spicy beef noodle in soup, $6.95.

Its broth was beautifully layered, deep with flavour and nuance, though that can be said of all the soups we had tried. The bun bo hue contained my favourite noodle of the night, which seems to be specific to this dish. I wish I had had enough appetite remaining to eat more of it, but the rest of the spread was already in my belly and I was no longer in the mood for more spice.

Sinh To Bo – avocado shake, $4. 

Avocados are my weakness. I order this drink at Vietnamese restaurants, eternally an optimist, and am constantly disappointed by its artificial make-up (powdered mix once held appeal for me in Tang, but I grew out of that phase before I was 10).  This was the real deal, chock full of fruit and green. It didn’t even trigger my lactose-sensitive system despite the presence of condensed milk.

A modern facelift

Hai Phong had been closed for nearly a year when a sewage pipe burst on their block, affecting the location and its neighbours***.  The city lagged on the operations and administration necessary to get the restaurant open to the public.  During that waiting game, the family decided to renovate.

I’m a fan of the simple, cheerful, and modern decor.  

Kudos to Hai Phong for playing Canucks games on their flat-screen TV in lieu of the usual musical variety shows. 

The restaurant shut down for the night before we realized that we had stayed for nearly 5 hours, sampling Hai Phong’s cuisine, chatting about food and Cooking Master Boy, and getting to know the family behind the business.  We said our thanks to the Chaus as they sat down for their repast and quickly left them to their meal, minds buzzing with the lure of Tamarind Crab for our next visit to Hai Phong.

Hai Phong
1246 Kingsway | Vancouver
(604) 715-7098
Cash only

*** Myth busted: Hai Phong was not closed because of shootings or other gang activity, which seemed to be a rumour that was going around the community when I had originally asked around about this restaurant.

The pink neon lights that usually lit up the storefront were dark as we entered the foyer, and we were ushered to a corner table in an elegant, largish, but mostly empty restaurant.  We were the sole diners in our section of the establishment.  Through the spire-shaped portals from my seat, I spied a family of four dining in solitary in the middle of the room, nearly ready to set off for home.

I was disheartened by the atmosphere, knowing that this place is often let out for grand Indian weddings and should have been abuzz with people.  Perhaps it was an off night, the gloom of the day having scared away regular patrons.  Perhaps, as reported by my guests, the storefront was invisible from the street, and those that would have otherwise chosen to dine at Ashiana passed by its dim doors, assuming they were closed for the evening.

Our group was nonetheless revved up at the prospect of investigating Ashiana’s array of dishes, so we quickly opened our menus and targeted the items that held the greatest communal appeal: garlic naan, the mixed grill of tandoori, prawn makhani, lamb rogan josh, bhindi for the okra lovers, and chawal-e-khas (basmati rice cooked with onions, peas, and mild spices).

The highlight of our meal was easily the prawn makhani, which is a seafood variant of the ubiquitous butter chicken.  The candy sweetness and the vibrancy of colour were muted in Ashiana’s rendition, and the ribbon of cream that usually snakes through the makhanis I’ve had was not present, but it made the dish more real to me—that I had been catered to by the parent of a family friend than by a food court kiosk.  The prawns were a refreshing element.  I’ve never held stewed chicken in much esteem, and I usually sop up the sauce and avoid the meat when eating butter chicken, but this time, I made sure to grab my share of crustacean before zealous mouths assumed my disinterest.

Other courses were adequately toothsome.  The rogan josh was a new dish to us all, and while we savoured its gentle heat and tender chunks of lamb, we mused rather inanely whether Seth Rog(e)n and Josh Groban may have had a fusion of sorts.  The garlic naan was plump and a delight to chew into but devoid of the garlic that purportedly permeated the dough.  The table enjoyed the tandoori platter despite the meats being somewhat sapped of moisture.  I was most disappointed in the bhindi, being an avid supporter of all things okra, as the vegetable retained too much of a bitter edge and was too slimy for most of us to enjoy.

Halfway into our meal, a party of over a dozen SFU students were seated nearby, exponentially uplifting the vivacity of our corner of the restaurant.  One fellow at the new table had attended the August dinner date at Cobre.  He accommodated our request for a group photo and acquiesced to my documentation of a few of the dishes that their group had ordered.

Our table continued to deplete our food stores while discussing overall impressions of the fare and the restaurant.  The cuisine was good; not great, not memorable, and not enough for me to personally tear myself away from my coccoon of downtown dining.  Surroundings were beautiful albeit a little lonely that evening, and I seriously debated leaving a generous tip in exchange for sneaking home some of their gorgeously bronzed dishware.  I suggest that you try Ashiana if you are ever in the neighbourhood with a hankering for Indian food, and let me know whether you feel the same way.

Ashiana Tandoori Restaurant
1440 Kingsway | Vancouver
(604) 874-5060

*I’ve always wanted to start a story with this line!