It's a masterpiece of layering: garlic-spiked grilled Vietnamese sausage, a crisp wonton stick, fresh lettuce, herbs, and pickled carrots are rolled in rice paper with one long spring of green onion, served with the closely guarded secret recipe “mom’s sauce” dip. Like David Chang’s Momofuku pork belly buns, the dish has spawned countless imitators since it was first introduced almost two decades ago, but no one can touch Brodard’s original recipe spring roll. It’s estimated that across Brodard’s three restaurants - Brodard Restaurant and Brodard Chateau in Orange County's Little Saigon, plus Bamboo Bistro in Corona del Mar - more than 10,000 of Brodard's signature grilled pork sausage-loaded spring rolls, nem nuong cuon, are made each day. Ba Bar Capitol HillĬan an entire empire be built on one single dish? In the case of Brodard Restaurant, the answer is a resounding yes. Those are the building blocks for some of the most delicious plant-based Vietnamese cuisine in the country, from bun bo hue (royal noodle soup), to bo luc lac (faux beef with watercress), to the famous ca nuong trui, a dish of grilled soy "fish" and rice paper wraps prepared so beautifully, it's hard to believe the ingredients weren't previously swimming. Now expanded to downtown LA and helmed by Chef Ito - who took a vow of silence, which somehow makes the food even more expressive - the menu's foundation consists of organic produce, natural ingredients, and water purified by reverse osmosis. Twenty-three years later, Au Lac isn’t just legendary within Orange County - it is one of the oldest and best vegan restaurants in the region, where vegan and raw have been fully embraced. Mai Nguyen opened the restaurant because switching to a wholly plant-based diet helped her recover from a serious illness, and she wanted to pay it forward by sharing the diet that saved her with the world. When Au Lac was founded in 1996, raw and vegan diets weren’t nearly as popular as they are today. Fountain Valley & Los Angeles, California
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