Bodega Bistro Cuisine

It's a bistro but not a bodega, and these rolls aren't filled with bo, or de, or ga.

Peter Cherches, who writes the blog Word of Mouth, pointed me to this rare example of a States-based Hanoi-style restaurant. (Rare, at least, for New York and San Francisco; they may well be more common in Southern California.) Cherches also mentioned that in Vietnamese, "bo-de-ga" means "beef-lamb-chicken," but with time for only a single dish, I couldn't resist these nem cua (Nem Coo; $14.50); sheathed in fried rice paper, they're stuffed with dungeness crab and black mushrooms.

Wrap the hot, crisp rolls with cool vermicelli and a few leafy herbs (including my recent acquaintance, rau răm) in a lettuce leaf, and dip in the multicolored sauce. If you've wrapped the leaf into a snug bindle, you can spoon the sauce into the open end — but beware too many fragments of bright pepper.

Bodega Bistro Cuisine
607 Larkin St. (Eddy-Willow Sts.), San Francisco
415-921-1218
www.BodegaBistroSF.com

Comments

[Zach]

Those spring rolls look like the real deal