Ánh Hông
August 18th, 2006 | by Loretta |My parents tell me Anh Hong in Vietnamese translates to hero in Chinese. I’m not sure why a restaurant is named as such, but I guess it’s a good, memorable and reputable sort of name.
In any case, this was a restaurant with some pretty great and unique Vietnamese dishes that I don’t remember ever having found in NYC yet.
As with any new restaurant menu, it was challenging deciding what to eat. The menu is pretty extensive and the dishes were very authentic sounding.
My uncle’s family were ordering smoothies, so I looked at the drinks they had. I pointed out to my dad that they had one with mang cau, which is known in English as custard apple or guanabana. Look it up on wikipedia; it’s eaten like a pomegranate and I’ve only had this once in Vancouver. Until a few weeks ago, I’ve never seen them in NY, since they used to be illegal in the US.
The smoothie (sinh to) is made of mang cau (maybe frozen, I’m not sure) and ice. It has a tart but sweet taste to it, much like soursop. The consistency was rather thick, but not creamy and rich like a milkshake would be.
It gave me brain freeze. 
To start, our uncle ordered a plate of Cha Gio, which are fried egg rolls.
These were filled with shreded taro, carrot and other goodies. They were served with iceberg lettuce, but most places serve it with romaine. The roll is to be wrapped in lettuce and dipped in the fish sauce concoction the provide. Since they’re piping hot, I did not take much pleasure in eating them as I always have trouble waiting. Needless to say, I took a bite and nearly burned my tongue. 
Mom knew right away she had come here to try Banh Hoi Heo, a noodle dish served with grilled pork in a flavorful broth-like soup. So they gave us a plate of raw veggies to share, which is meant to be added to the soup dish.
- Bean sprouts
- Chile peppers
- Lime wedges
- Mint
- Chinese basil
It is very typical to get a plate like this at any Viet restaurant if you are eating something with soup.
As per the recommendation of my parents (and I think my aunt too,) I had the most wonderful noodle soup dish ever.
Banh Canh Cua is described in the menu as noodle soup with shrimp, crabmeat, squid, scallop, fish cake and sliced pork. What they didn’t tell me was the soup was an incredible seafood broth, so concentrated in flavor that it had the sweetness of seafood in it. There were shreds of scallop maybe at the bottom of the bowl of soup towards the end.
The noodles were a thick–but soft– rice noodle (lai fun in Canto) and the meats in the dish were mainly sliced pork (maybe pork hooves…) and agglutinated blood (maybe pork, but I can’t tell the blood from one animal from another. I’m not sure how they agglutinate the blood. And I know it sounds gross, but you eat it all the time if you don’t skim the broths you make with bones. The best way to think of it is a very high iron and protein type of tofu; this time it was particularly soft in texture, rather than firm.
Mom says that in Vietnam, the broth is clear, not red.
Randy ordered a rice dish with grilled pork chops and shrimp: Com Tom Thit Nuong.
The rice was pretty authentic, as it was broken rice. That is, the grains were broken. And I liked how the pork chops were thinly cut and evenly cooked. I can’t comment on this further, since I didn’t actually taste this dish.
Dad also ordered a rice dish, worth mentioning because he had pasted shrimp smeared onto tofu skins before cooking. And he let me sample.
It was a little oily. However, it was well worth it as the bean curd skin was crisp and there was real shrimp ground to a paste in between. I believe he ordered Com Suon Chao Tom.
As for my cousin Jessica, my uncle ordered the usual for her. Apparently, her usual is very much like Erick’s
Again, I did not try this one, but I noted that it wasn’t a packed, dense consistency. It borderlined with a pilaf practically. And the chicken they used were dark meat, rather than chicken breast. It also had shredded ginger along with peas, diced carrots and kernels of corn.
The tab came out to be rather reasonable considering the drinks, appetizers and entrees that were ordered. It was somewhere a little less than ten dollars a person, before tip.
Anh Hong is located in Dorchester, MA at 291 Adams Street.