The Phantom Fork: Venturing to Fairfield, the Fork finds royal Vietnamese fare
Each Tuesday The Register reviews an area restaurant, with an emphasis on establishments where a couple can dine for $30 or less. Reader suggestions are welcomed.
A Napa resident with a savvy palate strongly recommended a drive to a Vietnamese restaurant in Fairfield. “Great, cheap sandwiches,” she said.
The Fork hadn’t associated great sandwiches with Vietnamese cuisine, but he was intrigued. “Cheap” and “great” are a winning combo.
We went for dinner not knowing if sandwiches would still be on the menu. The Hong Xuan restaurant, on West Texas Street, a half mile from the Westfield mall, is bordered by rundown commercial strip. You would never stop unless you had been tipped off.
That’s what makes Hong Xuan such a discovery. Once inside, diners are rewarded with a simple, homey atmosphere, a delightful owner who takes you under her wing and food that is both authentically Vietnamese and a superb value.
The owner/server made us feel like family. In response to our questions, she explained the inner workings of Vietnamese cuisine, which is enough like Chinese that we quickly got our bearings.
Appetizers, which include shrimp egg rolls, spring rolls and fried fish cakes, are mostly under $5. Large bowls of noodle soup, including beef and chicken ($5.95), come in bowls big enough to float a duck.
Rice plates, such as curried chicken and grilled pork chop with bean curd skin, are $6.25 to $7.25.
But it was house specials that most interested us. My companion ordered curried shrimp with vegetables and rice ($7.75), while I zeroed in on the catfish clay pot ($7.50), which sounded exotic.
Since one doesn’t instantly bake a catfish in a clay pot, there was time to start our dinner with one of those acclaimed Vietnamese sandwiches, which are vaguely like American deli sandwiches, but with subtle differences. “I guarantee you. You will come back for more,” the owner said.
The sandwiches come on crusty French rolls that the owner said she buys daily in San Francisco. Hong Xuan offers cured pork, barbecued pork, pork roll, meatball, grilled chicken and others for the incredible price of $3. We ordered the special combo sandwich for 25 cents more.
In short order, a plump sandwich appeared, hot on the outside, cold on the inside. If you were to bite with your eyes closed, your senses would be confused. The bread filled with three types of meat would taste familiar, but what are vegetables and cilantro doing here?
The slices of meat were topped with a slab of cucumber and shredded carrot, with a tangy dressing. With our first bites, we were won over. This was the most exciting deli sandwich in memory.
Was it the cilantro? The cool crunch of the cuke? The special dressing?
Our server/owner explained that she makes her own mayonnaise, with sugar and lemon juice. The Vietnamese incorporated French rolls into their cuisine during the French colonial period, she said.
Since we were asking about colonial influences, she returned with a tall iced coffee blended with condensed milk. It was as good as anything at Starbucks. And very French, she said.
After 15 minutes or so, my fiery hot clay pot arrived. Swimming in a sauce of charred spices were four chunks of catfish, complete with skin and tiny bones, with a plate of white rice on the side.
The clay pot catfish was an explosive flavor package, hot in every sense of the term. And delicious. I could not recall a more exciting entree, which went well with hot jasmine tea.
How had she achieved such culinary heights with the lowly regarded catfish?
Vietnamese fish sauce, black pepper, brown sugar and mayonnaise all went into the clay pot, our server explained. What came out was the result of the alchemy of high heat.
My companion’s shrimp curry followed shortly. It arrived as chicken curry, a kitchen mistake we did not have the heart to point out. But a fine chicken curry it was. The dish was loaded with white meat. The vegetables were mostly squares of green pepper, with a few carrot slices.
The taste was subtly different from a curry dish at an Indian restaurant, which was all to the good. If this is Vietnamese cooking, we welcomed it
We left Hong Xuan feeling we had dined royally. We had been warmly greeted, the food was both ample and exciting. For such quality, the prices were ridiculously low.
The Fork cannot say enough about the sandwiches. A holiday shopper at Westfield mall could detour to Hong Xuan and for $3 eat something far more interesting that that same old Subway.
The decor is bright, with perhaps more overhead lights than are needed. When we arrived, a TV was on with a news show. Soon it was turned off and we got instrumental music from “Cats” and “Phantom of the Opera.”
Hong Xuan is located at 1303 West Texas St., at the intersection of Pennsylvania Avenue, kitty-cornered to the Daily Republic. Take the West Texas exit from Interstate 80. Go a mile or so. It’s on the right, with parking in back, off Pennsylvania.
Hours are 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. weekdays. On weekends, the opening is at 10.
