Eric Banh and his Passion Behind Ba Bar

 

Ba Bar is Eric Banh’s latest expansion to his Vietnamese empire. The 50-seat high ceiling space feels much like a gastropub that happens to serve quality Vietnamese street food. The noodle bar hopes to fill in the gaping hole of Seattle’s restaurant landscape by providing late night food until 2 am, and 4 am on the weekends. The menu includes a variety of vermicelli noodle dishes, claypot rice and chicken, duck leg confit, and of course bowls rich and steamy Pho. Nightly specials are also available.

A few days after having dinner at Ba Bar, I just so happened to be their first ever lunch customer. After taking a seat, I soon realized that Eric Banh was running around his new restaurant and I jumped at the opportunity to speak with him.

Eric Banh has three very successful restaurants, one of which I can easily call one of my favorites. Monsoon serves contemporary Vietnamese cuisine with a Northwest flare and it’s where I had my 30^th birthday dinner celebration. Monsoon Eastis the same restaurant in Bellevue while Baguette Box is a Vietnamese inspired gourmet sandwich shop. 

I watched him work as he directed his staff around the restaurant. It became apparent that he’s a man that pays attention to detail, down to how a server should seat and treat customers, to how a table should be properly setup. “It may look simple, but you must take it very seriously,” he lectured a staff member over foam on an espresso drink.

I was a bit nervous at first not knowing what to say or ask. I took a deep breath, fixed my helmet head and scooter blown hair and walked up to him. I told him how big of a fan I am of his restaurants and I introduced myself as a food blogger. He asked me not to be too critical as he was obviously self-conscious of the growing pains of a brand new restaurant. “I was fifteen in Edmonton and barely knew English when I got my first restaurant job. That’s why I hired young kids to work here, to give people a chance at their first restaurant job.”

We talked about quality and the need for late night food in Seattle. He was a bit disappointed that the youth of the Vietnamese community give him the most grief over the price of a bowl of his Pho.

“Our broth is made over fourteen hours; at Monsoon over twenty-four hours. And the bone to water ratio is so high and the broth so rich. All this and I’m only charging two dollars more than everybody else,” explained Banh. 

“You have the three buck chuck and you have a sixty dollar Washington Cabernet; both will get you drunk,” Banh metaphorically preached about the quality of his food, “but it’s all about the journey.”

I then sat down as my combo vermicelli was served. I cheated and picked off a piece of the imperial roll as Banh walked by. “Mix it all up, pour some sauce and eat it like a salad!” Banh explained as he ran around his restaurant.

“People like me and you, we live to eat, not eat to live,” said Banh as he took another pass by my table.

“You should try some dumplings.” Five minutes later I had two dumplings stuffed with mung bean, caramelized shallot, and a spicy soy vinaigrette at my table. “These two ladies make them by hand. Very authentic, I plan on having a dumpling station here,” he pointed to an empty space near the entrance of the restaurant.

The dumplings were pleasant, but it was the sauce that blew me away. Even after I finished the dumplings, I kept spooning up the sauce into my mouth or vermicelli bowl. 

My experience with the two times I’ve been to Ba Bar has been excellent. The food is passionately prepared in the vision of Eric Banh and is on par with the excellence of Monsoon. I’ve had no trouble with service despite other people having bad experiences that other people such as Kate Opatz from Pat My Butterwrote about.  I’m confident that veteran restaurateur and passion of Eric Banh and his staff will pull it all together. I hope the late night Seattle community will come to Ba Bar for something that all of Seattle has needed for a long time: a bowl of late night happiness. 

 

How Investing a Little Time and Effort into Wedding Planning and Caramel Sauce Pays Off

On top of the hill just off the ferry landing is Orcas Hotel. This is the site of our future wedding and reception. Photo by Abbie Griffin.

I love the principle of investing, not just in financial terms, but also with time and energy.

We’ve invested a lot of effort into our wedding plans in the last 2 weeks. A visit to Orcas Island, dozens of emails and phone calls with vendors and relatives, and long hours over our coffee table and Macbooks will all pay dividends in ensuring that everything will be smooth up until the big day. 

A view into the cabin we stayed at while on Orcas. Photo by Abbie Griffin

Not only were we able to accomplish our goals on Orcas Island, but we were able to find serenity and relaxation. The hospitality and friendliness of the locals, the "Oh my God" views, along with great food and peacefulness reaffirmed why we are choosing to get married on the island. Our fruitful efforts made it easy to do exactly what anyone hopes to do while on Orcas Island: Slow it down a bit. 

Since we’ve taken care of major details like the venue, photographer, DJ, and save the dates, we can actually enjoy our trip to Maui instead of working and worrying about things on our trip. It’s nice to again view Maui as a relaxing vacation rather than an obstacle to our wedding planning.

Like in many aspects of life, investing time, resources and effort in the kitchen can pay off handsomely in the long run. Putting in time and effort to making items like melted onions, fresh spice mixes, or homemade chicken broth can really increase your stock in the kitchen (pun totally intended). These ingredients can be made ahead of time and stored in your pantry, fridge or freezer. You can then use or add them to a number of recipes and instantly add depth, complexity, and flavor to your dishes.

Caramel sauce is a staple to Vietnamese cooking. This inky bittersweet sauce can be thrown into a pan with meat, chicken, shrimp, or fish to give your dish a sweet and savory richness.  It also lends a rich brown color to grilled meats, much as molasses does in American barbeque. Putting in a half hour to make a batch of caramel sauce allows one to throw together dishes that are both easy and quick to prepare yet deep in flavor and richness.

I’ll first show you how Andrea Nguyen makes her caramel sauce in her book Into the Vietnamese Kitchen. Then I’ll feature a series of three very easy recipes you can make using the caramel sauce as a primary source of flavor. 

The first of these recipes, chicken and ginger simmered in caramel sauce, will be featured below. Chicken thighs and ginger are simply simmered in caramel sauce, fish sauce, and a splash of water. The juices from the chicken incorporate into the sauce resulting in a kaleidoscope of sweet, savory, and aromatic flavors.  The sauce will can be mopped up perfectly by a bowl of rice leaving you with a satisfying quick and easy Vietnamese meal.

FrancisFoodie’s Notes on making caramel sauce

• To simplify, the entire process of making caramel sauce is the following
• Water and sugar heats up evaporating all the water
• Sugar bubbles, partially crystallizes and then melts
• Melted sugar darkens in color and turns into caramel
• When caramel is cooled, remaining water is added to the thick caramel dissolving all the caramel into water leaving you with a slightly viscous, inky brown and bittersweet sauce
• When the caramel is approaching a coffee color, feel free incorporate any crystallized sugar around the edges by stirring it into the melted mixture
• The sauce will virtually have a shelf life of forever

Caramel Sauce

Adapted from Andrea Nguyen’s Into the Vietnamese Kitchen

Ingredients

3/4 cups water

1 cup sugar

Select a small, heavy saucepan with a long handle with a light interior to make monitoring the changing color of the caramel easier. Fill the sink with enough water to come halfway up the sides of the saucepan.

Put 1/4 cup of the water and all the sugar in the saucepan and place over medium-low heat. Stir with a metal spoon. After about 2 minutes, when the sugar is relatively smooth and opaque, stop stirring and let the mixture cook undisturbed. A good 7 minutes into cooking, bubbles will cover the entire surface and the mixture will be at a vigorous simmer. As the sugar melts, the mixture will go from opaque to clear. 

After about 15 minutes, the sugar will begin to caramelize and deepen in color. You will see a progression from champagne yellow to light tea to dark tea. When smoke starts rising, around the 20-minute mark, remove the pan from the heat and slowly swirl it. Watch the sugar closely as it will turn darker by the second; a reddish cast will set in as the bubbles become a lovely burnt orange When the caramel is the color of black coffee or molasses, place the pain in the sink to stop the cooking. Add the remaining 1/2 cup water; don’t worry, the sugar will seize up but later dissolve. Return the pan to the stove over medium heat. 

Heat the caramel, stirring until it dissolves into the water. Let cool for 10 minutes before pouring into a small heatproof glass jar.

FrancisFoodie’s Quick Notes on Chicken and Ginger Simmered in Caramel Sauce

• I prefer to cut the ginger into the shape of matchsticks. It is visually appealing and will almost eat like little noodles in the dish.
• There will be some chicken fat floating around in the sauce. You can choose to remove most of the chicken fat by spoon if you wish.

Chicken and Ginger Simmered in Caramel Sauce

Adapted from Andrea Nguyen’s Into the Vietnamese Kitchen

-1 and 2/3 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs, well trimmed and cut into 1-inch chunks

-Chubby 2-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled, thinly sliced, and smashed with a broad side of a cleaver or chef’s knife

-3 tablespoons caramel sauce

2 tablespoons fish sauce

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons water

1 scallion (green onion), green part only, chopped

In a small saucepan, combine the chicken, ginger, caramel sauce, fish sauce, salt and water and stir to distribute everything evenly. Cover and bring to a strong simmer over medium heat. Stir again to break up the chicken pieces and replace the lid. Cook for 10 minutes, stirring every now and then so all the chicken is evenly exposed to the sauce. Fragrant plumes of steam will shoot from under the lid and the contents will boil vigorously. The sauce will increase in volume as the chicken releases its juices. If the contents threatens to boil over or the lid rattles, lower the heat.

After the 10 minutes, uncover and continue cooking for about 5 minutes, or until the sauce reduces and the color deepens to a rich reddish brown. Remove from the heat, cover, and let rest for 5 minutes.

Taste the sauce and adjust the flavor with extra fish sauce, if necessary. Transfer to a serving bowl, garnish with the scallion and serve immediately.

Vietnamese Cuisine: Beef Stir-Fried with Chinese Celery

 

If there’s one person I know that operates without a filter on their mouth, it’s my mother.

When my parents came out on their first visit to Seattle, we went to a small Vietnamese restaurant called Thanh Vi in the U-District. While thinking about what to order, our waitress told us how she lived in the Philippines as a refugee fleeing from Vietnam. She delighted my mom with stories of the Philippines and even spoke a bit of broken Tagalog with my parents.

After taking our orders, she hesitantly leaned in to my mom and told her how she was hoping to find a Filipino husband.

My mom’s face lit up like it was Christmas morning as she sprung out of her seat. She frantically waved her hands in front of her as she proclaimed to all the Pho slurping diners in the restaurant “My son! My son! My son is available!”

And that’s the story of how a wonderful romance began, not with the charming waitress, but with Vietnamese cuisine. 

Vietnamese eateries are considered by many to be the darling of Asian cuisines here in Seattle. Humble hole-in-the wall places like Thanh Vi, and hidden gems like Tamarind Tree and Green Leaf offer up steamy bowls of pho, bargain baguette banh mi sandwiches, rice vermicelli dishes and a wide assortment of grilled meats and seafood.

I’ve been learning more and more about Vietnamese while cooking here in my own kitchen. Andrea Nguyen’s Into The Vietnamese Kitchen has become a favorite cookbook of mine with it’s stunning food photography and easy to follow recipes.

Seattle Times food writer, Nancy Leson, talks about Nguyen’s book at All You Can Eat while Jessamyn at Food on the Brain recently tweeted how she is slowly cooking her way through the cookbook.

With both colonial French and Asian influences, Vietnamese cooks prepare their food in a way that brings out and compliments fresh ingredients rather than completely overpowering them.

The following Beef Stir-Fried with Chinese Celery is a perfect example of Vietnamese flavor. The thinly cut strips of beef flank are dressed in a uniquely Vietnamese beef marinade, while the Chinese celery adds a wild freshness, color, and crisp to the dish.

If there’s anything you should come away with from this dish, it’s the marinade and how it can be applied to thin strips of beef. I prepared beef this way and served it alone at a recent games night at our apartment, and it was gone before any dice were even rolled. I’m looking forward to exploring more ways to use the marinade, especially on the grill as the weather warms up. 

Francis Foodie’s notes on this recipe

• When cutting the strips of beef, cut perpendicular to the muscle threads of the flank steak
• I will almost always end up burning the onions and garlic so I usually remove it after cooking until their fragrant just before I fry the beef, only to add it as the beef finishes cooking
• Chinese celery can usually be found in the produce section at most Asian markets.
• Feel free to experiment stir frying this with other vegetables, but I found that using green pepper and onion was too overpowering and took away from the savory beef marinade

Beef Stir-Fry Marinade (Enough for 3/4 pound of beef)
Adapted from Into the Vietnamese Kitchen by Andrea Nguyen

1 teaspoon cornstarch

3/4 teaspoon sugar

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

2.5 teaspoon fish sauce

1.5 teaspoons light (regular) soy sauce

In a shallow bowl, combine the cornstarch, sugar, pepper, fish sauce, and soy sauce and stir to mix. Add the beef called for in the recipe, turn to coat the meat evenly, and set aside to marinate while you ready the remaining ingredients for the stir fry.

Beef Stir-Fried with Chinese Celery

Adapted from Into the Vietnamese Kitchen by Andrea Nguyen

Beef Stir-Fry Marinade

3/4 pound flank steak, cut across the grain into strips about 3 inches long,

3/4 inch wide, and a scant 1/4 inch stick

1 pound (about 2 bunches) Chinese celery

2 tablespoons canola or other neutral oil

1/2 small yellow onion, sliced lengthwise 1/2 inch thick

3 cloves garlic, finely chopped

Black pepper

In a wok or large skillet, heat 1 tablespoon of the oil over the medium-high heat until hot but not smoking. Add the onion and stir-fry for about 30 seconds, or until fragrant. Add the garlic and stir-fry for about 15 seconds, or until aromatic. To prvent the onion and garlic from getting stuck under the beef and charring, bank them on one side of the pan. Increase the heat to high and add the beef, spreading it out into a single layer. Let it cook, undisturbed for about 1 minute. When the beef begins to brown, use a spatula to flip and stir-fry it, incorporating the onion and garlic for another 1 to 2 minutes, or until the beef is still slightly rare. Transfer to a plate

Add the remaining 1 tablespoon of oil to the pan. When it is hot, add the celery and stir-fry for about 3 minutes or until the celery has softened and collapsed to about one-third of its original volume. Return the beef, onion, and garlic, along with any juices, to the pan and stir-fry quickly to combine. Continue stir-frying to heat and finish cooking the beef. When the beef no longer shows signs of rareness, after about 1minute, it is done.

Sprinkle with pepper and serve immediately over rice.