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Hoa, it's noodles

Vietnamese beef noodles in soup

The only Vietnamese eatery in Puchong offers tasty noodles but TAN BEE HONG discovers a few more goodies.

Vietnamese rice pancakes with yambean and chicken filling

Saigon spicy seafood noodles is completely oil-free

Fruit salad in Barbie-doll colours

THE bustling township of Puchong is a diner’s delight. You can find all kinds of cuisine here, from local kopitiam and mamak outlets to specialty restaurants offering Nonya, Korean, Japanese, Indian, western and fast food outlets.

But Hòa Vietnam Noodles seems to be the only Vietnamese outlet in the neighbourhood. Located right opposite the Puteri Mart wet market complex, it’s a modest, no-frills outfit but you can eat in air-conditioned comfort.

Restaurateur Frederick Ng is a self-confessed foodie who decided to open Hòa Vietnam Noodles nine months ago together with a Vietnamese partner, a chef from Vungtau, 120km south of Ho Chih Minh City.

“Our food is more southern Vietnamese and my partner personally trained the cooks to prepare food to her standards,” he says.

But, he admits that some recipes had to be tweaked to suit local tastebuds. “Vietnamese cooks tend to add a lot of sugar to their foods but this does not suit Malaysians,” says Ng.

We start with a Fruit Salad (RM4.90). It looks like a made-to-order-for-Barbie dish with the various chopped fruits coated in a creamy pink dressing.

“The colour comes from beetroot that we add to the mayonnaise,” explains Ng. Once you come to terms with the brilliant pink colour, the combination of green apples, papaya, potato, pineapple and beetroot is refreshing, especially on a hot afternoon.

Hòa Spring Rolls and Fried Spring Rolls are popular appetisers at RM8.90 for six pieces. The warm Hòa Spring Rolls are rice paper stuffed with yambean (sengkuang) and ground dried shrimps while the hot Fried Spring Rolls have a yam and seafood filling. A combination platter of three pieces of each type is also available.

Don’t expect anything flat when you order Vietnamese Rice Pancake (RM8.90). Instead, you get fresh rice flour sheets, rather like chee cheong fun, rolled with sengkuang, chopped chicken and wood fungus and topped with beansprouts, mint, browned shallots and pounded dried shrimp. Served hot, it’s really tasty. Ask for the chili fish sauce dip or sweet brown sauce if preferred.

But it’s noodles that we have come for. After all the restaurant bills itself as a noodle outlet. It’s hard to choose between kway teow, bihun, wantan noodles and yee mee. Yes, the last two sound strange but Vietnam cuisine is also very much influenced by foods from south China.

Vietnam’s No 1 noodle dish is the ubiquitous pho, available in the country at street corner hawkers as well as posh restaurants. Beef is the meat of choice for pho though a delectable chicken soup version is also available. Another version offers beef slices with tripe and all.

“We use local tenderloin. It’s sweeter and more suitable for pho than imported frozen beef,” says Ng who thinks the freshness factor is what makes the difference in taste.

“We simmer the beef stock for nine hours, using bones and tail. Chicken stock is easier, requiring only three hours of simmering.”

The noodles come with a plate of onion rings, sliced red chilies, basil leaves and lime wedges as well as sweet sauce, ketchup and a hot fried chili sauce. I thought it rather unusual to use ketchup which makes the soup a little tangy.

I also notice that Hòa Vietnam Noodles uses less fresh greens with their noodles than most outlets that offer pho.

Dry noodles are also on the menu, like Danang Onion Beef Noodle (RM8.90). There is so much topping — pickled radish, roasted groundnuts, carrots, spring onions, mint, brown onions, beansprouts and sliced beef — that one can hardly see the thick strands of rice noodles. To eat, one pours in a bit of fish sauce with chopped chilies and tosses it all up.

This is the same dressing used for Saigon Spicy Seafood Rice Vermicelli (RM10.90) which has squid, fish cake and prawns instead of beef and uses bihun as well as mint, chili padi, onion rings and peanuts. “It’s totally oil-free,” says Ng.

Curiosity gets the better of us and we ask for fried wantan noodles. These come with chicken, beef or seafood. We had expected something like kon loh wantan mee but really, it’s more like fried bihun except for the texture of the noodles.

Noodles are not all that Hòa offers. You can have Spicy Fried Rice, Vietnamese style, or rice with dishes though be warned that these are more to local taste than Vietnamese.

Hòa Vietnam Noodles is open daily from 11.30am to 10.30pm on weekdays and from 10.30am on weekends. It is close every second and fourth Monday of the month.



HÒA VIETNAM NOODLES

23 Jalan Puteri 5/7

Bandar Puteri

Puchong, Selangor

Tel: 03-8062 8322/019-4181 388

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