Sneaking around. Van Ða

If a dumpling lands on the table, but no child is there to eat it, does it still taste good? Yes. A school event gave us a chance to sneak off to Van Đa and have the Huế set menu. I thought the first course was the apex. The menu called them all dumplings: bánh bèo (tiny steamed rice cakes with, I think, scallion oil and duck skin), bánh ít ram (mochi and mung bean balls) ⊕ Van Ða’s version was a single globe rather than the two-component snack that turns up in web searches. and bánh bột lọc, tapioca dumplings wrapped in banana leaves. Biting on the latter, I had what might be called a Proustian sensation, ⊕ Unlike “professional” food writers, I have read the entire Recherche and am able to allude to Proust without using the m-word. an involuntary memory of being taken to a Vietnamese restaurant in the 7th in Paris when I was fairly little and eating some kind of indescribably delicious steamed starchy dumpling thing that I had not seen again since.

Source: Van Ða

Dumpling type: steamed tapioca dumplings, fried mochi dumplings, rice cakes

Modality: dine in

Adult rating: 🥟🥟🥟🥟🥟

Child rating: not too resentful of having gotten pizza and playtime instead