Asia Bo Bun

Here we go again with non-French eats while in Paris.  For lunch, we wanted to grab a quick bite before some touristing.  We hadn't done any Vietnamese so far and since we were in France (they colonized Vietnam at one point), we had to get some Phở right?  Our first option (Song Heng) was not open for the Summer, so we went somewhere nearby in
Asia Bò Bún.  Hey, they are highly-rated on Google, which sometimes means nothing at all.  So I guess we were about to find out if this was going to be good or not...

Things started off on the right food with Spring Rolls that featured a rice paper wrap.  Just to be clear, rice and wheat wrappers are both used in Vietnam, but for me, I much prefer the rice paper variety.  Why is that?  Well, the crispiness of the fried rice paper is very different than that of the wheat wrapper.  Whereas the wheat wrapper shatters and is lightly crispy, the rice wrapper has a bit of resistance and almost chew to it.  It also can shatter, but it is even crisper (just like using rice flour instead of wheat flour).  This one was good and the filling was moist and flavourful from the sweetness of the veggies, in particular, the onions.  They supplied us with lettuce and basil to wrap these spring rolls (the traditional way).

Onto the most important item, in my mind - Phở Dặc Biệt.  As per usual, I omitted the cilantro because I'm one of the rare people who thinks it tastes like soap.  Anyways, this gave me a better chance to taste the broth as it was meant to be.  It was mild and clean with a slight meatiness and background sweetness.  Pretty good!  The rice noodles were both al dente and plentiful.  I found the meats to be good too with rare be tender as well as the brisket.

My son had his usual in the Lemongrass Chicken with Rice.  No egg this time, but didn't really matter as the rice was chewy but not dry.  As for the chicken leg, it was bone-in and nicely grilled.  Skin was mildly-rendered and the chicken itself was brined enough to have a salty aromatic sweetness going on.  Furthermore, the chicken was succulent and juicy.  Add in some of the nuoc cham and this was a legit version of the dish.

For my daughter, she had the Bò Lúc Lắc and it was not filled with any filler.  Normally, you would find onions and peppers in many versions, but this was how we like it - with just beef!  This was subjected to a good marinade and wok fry where the meat was caramelized while still being juicy and tender.  Plenty of flavour from the meat (in a salty and aromatic way) but the tomato rice was pretty tasty too.  Good texture being chewy but not dry.

Viv also went for her favourite dish in the Chicken and Spring Roll Vermicelli Bowl .  Well, I'm not really sure what to say about this one as we had already eaten both the spring rolls and chicken in other dishes!  The chicken in this one was in strips, so it wasn't as juicy, but it wasn't dry.  You see, we had to get this dish anyways because the restaurant is called Asia Bo Bun (the beef version of this).  Like the rest of the food, the vermicelli was well-prepared.  Solid Vietnamese in the heart of Paris.

The Good:
- Solid eats
- Moderately-priced
- Well-portioned

The Bad:
- Service is friendly, but a bit sparse