The Little Saigon Cookbook: Vietnamese Cuisine and Culture in Southern California's Little Saigon...

The Little Saigon Cookbook: Vietnamese Cuisine and Culture in Southern California's Little Saigon | Ann Le | Great Recipes

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The Little Saigon ...

	The Little Saigon Cookbook: Vietnamese Cuisine and Culture in Southern California's Little Saigon Ann Le Globe Pequot, 2006 - 224 pages average customer review:based on 43 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Awesome and Authentic Cookbook!!!!!!!!

I found "The Little Saigon Cookbook" to be amongst the best of any of my Vietnamese/Asian cookbooks. It is vivid in its descriptions and illustrations. It also provides any serious enthusiast with some excellent recipes. My last dental assistant was Vietnamese and taught me a great deal before I had to retire and this cookbook reflects much of what she took the time to teach me. I also found the narrative of the author's coming to this country very interesting and inspiring.

I regret that there is a "one-star" rating on this book. But I have found that if you investigate grossly deviant ratings/reviews you can usually disregard them due to personal agendas, lack of experience, etc.

No, I am not Vietnamese, but I have been cooking and learning about Vietnamese cooking before most non-immigrants even knew much about this incredible cuisine. I can remember finally finding one of the few Vietnamese grocery stores at that time in south downtown Houston. This was just south of my dental practice and the owners couldn't believe that this "round-eyed" American was interested, much less knew anything about their foods. My first cookbook was a first edition by Bach Ngo. Since then I have collected most Vietnamese cookbooks in print and several out of print.

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Great Recipes

This book of recipes is complete and easy to follow. It is also in brand new condition.

TWO STARS rating...O.K. book, not for beginners.

I wanted to give this book a TWO STARS rating, but I couldn't change the rating so it remained a 4 star rating.

This book is nowhere near the level of Andrea Nguyen's "Into The Vietnamese Kitchen" or Mai Pham's "Pleasures of the Vietnamese Table", but I still bought it because it has a few recipes that are not in other vietnamese cookbooks. This author's knowledge of Vietnamese cooking is not as comprehensive as Andrea Nguyen's or Mai Pham's, and it shows in her descriptions of the recipes and the ingredients. For example, Andrea Nguyen described yellow rock sugar as an ingredient that's often used in Vietnamese soups to give roundness and a slightly sweet taste to them; Andrea Nguyen also mentioned that yellow rock sugar gives vegetables their sheen; and Andrea Nguyen took pains to differentiate between yellow rock sugar and white rock sugar because they're usually sold side by side on store shelves, and she warned her readers not to buy the white rock sugar by mistake. This author (Ann Le), on the other hand, simply writes "rock sugar" and does not differentiate between yellow rock sugar and white rock sugar. I'm not sure that she even knows there are two types of rock sugar. For this author to simply calls it "rock sugar" and not "yellow rock sugar" is a really bad oversight and confuses her readers. This author does not give informative and interesting background details such as these when writing about Vietnamese ingredients. Sometimes this author's recipes are not very detailed. For example, sometimes she writes "12 ounces of tofu" without specifying whether it should be regular, firm, or extra firm tofu. Furthermore, she lacks Andrea Nguyen's flare for language when writing recipes. I bought this book because I'm not depending solely on this book to cook Vietnamese food. As I mentioned before, this book has a few recipes that are not in other Vietnamese cookbooks, and this is a good enough reason for me to buy this book because I'm serious about learning how to cook Vietnamese food. I think people make the mistake of wanting to buy just one Vietnamese cookbook and expect it to have everything. As for me, I think it's important to have several Vietnamese cookbooks in order to get as many recipes as possible, and each book has something new to teach me. Add this book to your collection AFTER you buy Andrea Nguyen's "Into The Vietnamese Kitchen" and Mai Pham's "Pleasures of the Vietnamese Table", which is an excellent book. If you do buy this book, then watch out for the salt/fish sauce contents because some of the recipes (i.e. Sauteed Bok Choy With Tofu And Hoisin Sauce) are way too salty. Seriously, you can hardly eat the foods because they're so salty! The reasons I like this book are:

1) It has a recipe for "banh canh" (pork hock and crab soup with Udon noodles). This is the only Vietnamese cookbook that I own that has this particular recipe. I usually order this noodle soup when I'm at a particular restaurant in Little Saigon because I really like it, and now I can make it at home. The only thing I don't like about this recipe is that the author uses pre-prepared Udon noodles. It would have been better if she includes a recipe regarding how to make the noodles fresh at home. I think the noodles can be made fresh at home from a combination of rice and tapioca flours.

2) Avocado shake recipe. Tastes good.

3) Good background information about restaurants and markets in Little Saigon in Southern California, which is the biggest Vietnamese community outside of Vietnam.

This book is not comprehensive or detailed, and it's not well written. I'm not sure if the recipes were even well tested by the author. But it's still worthwhile to buy this book for a few scatter recipes that cannot be found in other Vietnamese cookbooks. However, this book is not at all necessary to add to your collection.

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A great taste of Vietnam!!!

This book is a great book if you want to explore the Vietnamese cuisine. The food is wonderful and so interesting. I was exposed to vietnamese cooking by my wife and got this book to surprise her. It was great and she was extremely happy. It really surprised her that I could do such a good job cooking the food that she grew up with. It was easy enough to cook, and very interesting to get exposed to what other cultures eat. I loved it.

Easy to follow and not too bad

I've tried a few recipes in this book and it is not too bad. There isn't a book out there that you follow exact steps to get a perfect dish. You will still have to modify it a bit to fit your taste bud. This book was able to be that base starting point for me. Highly recommended.

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