Vietnamese Street Food

I just got this book, and the recipes looks delicious. However, the writers must have to pay the ink bill for the books as the text is printed on a very thin light gray ink.You know how when your printer toner is almost gone and you're trying to eke out a just a few more pages? that's this book's standard text. It's a real hard read for my aging eyes even in bright light, let alone the kitchen.The pictures are fine and so are the indexes and table of contents. Why they picked this font and color for their main text is a mystery. I may have to go find a 20 year old to read it to me :)

Great book, some obscure ingredients if you don't live somewhere with a large Asian population.

A bite dissapointed on the step/ explanation given for the recipy,

This made a great gift.

Great book that was a perfect gift!

Although the author did not understand much about Vietnamese streetfood, I felt the passion in this book

Mixed review regarding this purchase.This book is very good, glad to own it.There are errors in some listed recipe ingredients.No big deal, as, I think this occurs in many recipe books.My concern is that, the book delivered by Amazon is of a lesser quality than the book I had seen in my local library.The paper the book is printed on is of an inferior grade, and the binding, not great.This will influence the way I think about Amazon buys in the future.Delivery was prompt.Thank you, see how things turn out next time I purchase.

see review for real vietnamese cooking book by same author

This is a very attractive book, with great photographs for every recipe, printed on good quality matt paper. The instructions are excellent, the food types varied, and the chat about the different street food stalls entertaining. But if you do not have access to a specialist (usually Chinese) supermarket you may find yourself unable to source many of the ingredients.The recipes are divided into Roll, Grill/Roast, Boil/Steam. Fry, Baguettes/Salads, Sweets and Sauces/Condiments. Additional chapters are an introduction to street food culture in Vietnam, two pages about the recipes, a glossary and an index.All of the recipes look marvelous in the photographs and the instructions are easy to follow. An English title is followed by the Vietnamese name and a brief paragraph of description. then, on the left, there is a complete list of ingredients (never ridiculously long) and on the right the blow by blow instructions for how to assemble the dish. A serving estimate is also provided (usually six, sometimes more).Although some of the recipes can be made from ingredients sourced from major supermarkets, an awful lot must be sourced from specialist stores, if you are lucky enough to have one in the vicinity, or online suppliers. Difficulties included the all important rice-paper wrappers, rice noodle sheets, the occasionally used wonton wrappers, rice flour, various types of noodles of which I've never heard, Asian shallots, annatto oil, daikon, jicama, perilla leaves, dried squid, eel, fresh lemongrass stems, lotus leaves and seeds, galangal and cheong sausages. One recipe requires pig's ear, tongue and cheek. There is NO guidance as to what yo might substitute if you cannot find a particular ingredient.Once you've overcome the problem of sourcing ingredients there is a great variety of different flavours and styles of cooking. Here are a few examples: Beef rice paper rolls, pork skewers in rice paper, seafood spring rolls, barbecue pork two ways on rice vermicelli, roast duck, caramel fish with galangal, clay pot pork with quail eggs and daikon, wonton soup, rice noodles in pork broth with chicken prawns and omlette, braised beef with lemongrass and star anise, west lake prawn cakes, salt-and-pepper squid, five-spice eel, salt-steamed chicken in baguette, fish patties with coriander and chill in baguette, and a set of sauces.If I could have acquired the ingredients I would have given this four stars - but the difficulties mean that I can't use the book as I would like, so I have given it three. Others might live nearer to good stockists, and for them this will be a much more useful book, which should give great pleasure.

Have tried a couple of the classic-dish recipes and they turned out fine. As with any book like this, there are plenty of recipes I know we will never even try, but there are enough of the ones we wanted to remind us of our wonderful stay in Vietnam last year. I suspect we will be tempted later to try a few of the recipes that at first I thought I didn't need (like the baguettes/salads). I like the way the book is organised - there's a nice little glossary at the end about common ingredients and a separate section covers the sauces. Also the bits of background information are about right to make for a more interesting read without getting in the way. Overall, we are happy with our choice.

I brought this on my kindle at a bargain price and I must say that I am very pleased with it as I do like eating Vietnamese food and the recipes I found were quite easy to follow and satisfying:Beef rice paper rollsPrawn and omelette spring rollsBarbecued chicken wingsSticky rice with peanutsWonton soupNoodle Soup with ChickenBraised beef with lemongrass and star aniseSalt Steamed chicken in baguetteGreen papaya saladLotus Root SaladAlso, the ingredients can be easily sought from the Tesco’s, Sainsbury’s and Oriental/Asian supermarkets.

I would trust the recipes in here than any other British/American/Australian Vietnamese cook book sold on Amazon. The recipes are quite authentic despite listed ingredients are difficult to find. Readers should study them and find their own alternative ingredients rather than knocking off stars when rating this good book.Definitely recommend this to anyone attempting to cook 'authentic' Viet food.

Fantastic book! I bought a second as a gift for a friend. Adds personal stories of Vietnamese street sellers to useful recipes. A wonderful reminder of our trip.