The Complex Simplicity of Vietnamese Food

Salty. Spicy. Sour. Sweet. The layers of flavor hit you from all sides at once. Crunchy and tender, the contrast in textures takes this meal to a whole different level. Unlike other traditional cooking methods, where a variety of ingredients cook together for a given time to become a homogenized, flavorful sauce or soup, Vietnamese cuisine is more of a celebration of how the simple, individual ingredients all work together to create a complex experience for your palate. One of my favorite dishes to date is the Rare Flank and Beef Noodle.
There is no easy way to read a vietnamese menu and this is basically the translated description you're going to find for this one. Now on this recent visit I decided to get this food to go, so I had the opportunity to assemble it myself. Once you open the take-home bag, you will find three containers to work with. In one container there is a comforting, salty, homemade beef broth, which I first throw into a pot to bring to a boil. In the second container there is thinly slice raw flank steak, chopped green onions and rice vermicelli noodles. The reason the steak is raw is because it is going to cook to a perfect medium rare when you pour the hot broth over it. The third container (actually a small plastic bag) includes fresh sweet basil, bean sprouts, sliced jalapenos and fresh lime wedges. This is the side salad to most vietnamese dishes, however it is not meant to be eaten alone, but in fact added to your dish to add a dimension of freshness and flavors that balance the other ingredients in your bowl. Even with my considerably limited knowledge of vietnamese food, it is my opinion that this dish is a fine example of all the interesting flavors this cuisine has to offer, simply divided into seperate containers so you can appreciate what each ingredient contributes to the dish.