Pho Fun!

Hello again, friends! I am writing from RJ's bedroom since I am here visiting him at school. I have had a lovely visit and I'm bummed I have to go home today :( Thankfully, it's nice outside today after the day of snow and rain Maryland got yesterday! I'm impatient for Spring to get here already!

Anywho, let's get to a recap of my evening last night! I got here around 3pm and RJ was working on some homework when I arrived. With little much else to do, I took a nap (Daisy was barking all night last night, so I was exhausted). When I awoke, we were both pretty hungry and decided to venture into town for some grub! 

For some reason, RJ and I have the hardest time picking restaurants when we go out. The conversation pretty much goes like this every time:

Me: Where do you want to eat?
RJ: I don't care.
Me: Well. what are you craving?
RJ: Nothing in particular, I could eat anything. What do you want?
Me: I don't really care, either.
RJ: Well, let's go to XYZ restaurant.
Me: I don't want that.
*RJ's head explodes*

After about 5 years of talking, we decided to go to a Vietnamese restaurant close by. In case you are unfamiliar, here is a blurb from Wikipedia about Vietnamese food:

"Vietnamese cuisine features a combination of five fundamental taste elements (Vietnamese: ngũ vị) in the    overall meal: spicy (metal), sour (wood), bitter (fire), salty (water) and sweet (Earth).^[1] Each Vietnamese dish has a distinctive flavor which reflects one or more of these elements. Common ingredients include fish sauce, shrimp paste, soy sauce, rice, fresh herbs, fruits and vegetables."

We sat down and I immediately knew I wanted to order the garden spring rolls. I am seriously addicted to these things. They are basically veggies, shrimp, and thin noodles wrapped in a cellophane noodle, like a traditional fried eggroll (only much healthier). The rolls are served with a peanut sauce that basically tastes like yummy peanut butter. The rolls at this particular restaurant were fantastic. The sauce had the perfect amount of sweetness and tang. I practically ate it with a spoon. 

For my main entree, I looked around for some healthy options and landed on the salad page. I expected some regular old lettuce salads but was quite surprised to see some awesome options with unique ingredients! This one particularly caught my eye (from their website): 

14.Green Papaya choice of grilled meat ( chicken, pork, beef, steam shrimp, grilled shrimp, calamari, soft or fried tofu)

Instead of lettuce, the base of the salad was shredded green papaya and bean sprouts. Cool huh? I topped my salad with grilled chicken for some protein. 

Those brown circle things on top of the salad reminded me of rice cakes texture-wise, I have no idea what they were, but they were lightly sweet and delicious!  

The salad was awesome. The papaya was perfectly sweet and tart. The chicken tasted kind of like teriyaki chicken and added a great amount of saltiness to the dish. I ate it all, and the plate was clean by the time I was finished! Overall, my meal was absolutely amazing and really hit the spot! 

Enjoy the rest of your Tuesday :)

Do you like to try food from different cultures? What's your favorite?