This evening for dinner I went to Pho Pasteur, one of my favorite Harvard Square haunts, but instead of ordering the old standby of the house pho (with all the funny looking beef parts), I went out on a limb and got myself a chopped salad with chicken, shrimp, carrots, mint, basil, cabbage cut so thin I thought it was rice noodles when I first tucked into it, and of course a dressing made from the ubiquitous Vietnamese fish sauce or nam pla. Heavenly.
I like to eat at the bar when I'm dining alone. Not only is it seem less pathetic, but you get to watch the staff as they run back forth for drink orders and take their breathers in the small barroom dining area. Tonight one of the waitresses was enjoying a snack of sliced strawberries that she drizzled sweetened condensed milk over before eating. I wonder if that's a Vietnamese thing? There's always a can of sweetened condensed milk open behind the bar at Pho Pasteur, since Vietnamese iced coffee is made with it.
Don't be fooled by the "Vietnamese" moniker, though, as Vietnamese iced coffee is the same as Thai iced coffee which is the same as Malaysian iced coffee, or iced coffee from any country in Southeast Asia for that matter- fresh brewed French-press coffee with sweetened condensed milk, poured over ice. It's a smart way to get your sugar into a cold drink, which is always a problem with iced coffee here in the States. Chains like Dunkin' Donuts overcompensate for the sugar's obstinate refusal to dissolve by dumping about a cup of sugar for every "lump" you ask for. The sugar still doesn't get into the coffee, but it does create a supersweet sludge at the bottom of the cup that you may accidentally inhale while drinking your iced coffee through a straw. Blech.
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