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Mai Pham has woven wonderful memories between the recipes of this beautiful book: memories of her childhood in Bangkok, her Vietnamese family and their reverence for good food, her husband's search for the best pho recipe in Saigon. The recipes themselves are light, healthy, and loaded with the unique flavors -- strong and delicate, tangy and mild, sweet and mouth-puckeringly sour, always exotic and delicious -- of Southeast Asia. Pham owns the Lemon Grass Restaurant and Cafes in Sacramento, and is a well-known teacher of Southeast Asian cooking.
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Light, Fresh, Exotic, and Delicious!
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First Sentence
Years ago, when I was asked to develop a cooking class topic based on the inherent healthfulness of Vietnamese and Thai cuisine. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
Years ago, when I was asked to develop a cooking class topic based on the inherent healthfulness of Vietnamese and Thai cuisine. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
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Most helpful customer reviews
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
Is this a memoir or is this dinner?,
By
This review is from: The Best of Vietnamese & Thai Cooking: Favorite Recipes from Lemon Grass Restaurant and Cafes (Paperback)
I am a Vietnamese woman whose mother never taught her how to cook Vietnamese food. I've bought all of the popular Vietnamese cookbooks on the market. I had high expectations about this one since Mai Pham's cookbooks are probably the most popular Vietamese cookbooks available. I was sorely disappointed. Here's a list of all of the things wrong with this book:1) Pretentious prose. Mai Pham mentions in this book that she use to be a TV anchorwoman. I'm not surprised judging from her too precious prose about her oh so wise and generous grandmother and her mischevious sister Denise and her charmed childhood before the war, yada, yada. Is this a memoir or is this dinner? 2)No pictures of the food. There are no photographs of food, no illustrations of food, nothing except photographs of her wise and generous grandmother, her mischevious sister Denise, her and her husband on their wedding day, etc. This is cookbook - the food should be the star. 3)Compromises on authenticity. Ginger twinkies? The recipes in this book are representative of her cooking at her restaurant instead of the Vietnamese culinary tradition. That's fine, but the title is misleading. 4)Caramel Sauce recipe doesn't work. I've tried this one 4 times and I've ended up with candy chips everytime. I've tried several of the recipes here - some of them are good, some ok. I generally find that she doesn't use enough fish sauce and that the recipes are almost always Americanized.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Authenticity aside, the recipes are good,
By
This review is from: The Best of Vietnamese & Thai Cooking: Favorite Recipes from Lemon Grass Restaurant and Cafes (Paperback)
As can be gathered from the reviews below, there is some disagreement as to whether the recipes in Mai Pham's cookbook represent "authentic" Thai and/or Vietnamese cooking. I'm neither Thai nor Vietnamese, but my guess would be that the recipes, which come largely from Pham's American restaurant, have been adapted somewhat to appeal to non-native palates (the spice level in the Thai recipes seems low, for example). Those looking for "authentic" Thai or Vietnamese recipes may want to look elsewhere.That having been said, I sometimes find the authenticity fetish a bit much. If you read Pham's chapter introductions, you discover that she is a woman who has moved around a great deal, and her cooking has been influenced by multiple native traditions. Cooking in America is a real melting pot venture, and while this has led to some deserved ribbing from those whose countries have more developed palates, it has also led to a dynamic, creative treatment of food. I think Pham's work falls on the positive side of this dichotomy. To put it plainly, her recipes taste good, are well written and tested, and combine different cuisines with good results. Her recipes are not fusion, and are not ground-breaking in the way of those of say, Ming Tsai, but they are simple and tasty.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars
Don't bother,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Best of Vietnamese & Thai Cooking: Favorite Recipes from Lemon Grass Restaurant and Cafes (Paperback)
I bought this book because of the good reviews. I'm vietnamese and since moving away from home, I wanted to replicate the home cooking. Instead, what you're find is that it's not real Vietnamese or Thai but maybe a cross between the two? Requires too much ingredients (like a restaurant) so unless you want to spend up a storm of money to get a mediocre meal, don't bother. I think it's tailored more to American audience then authentic viet/thai. After about 4 recipes, I've basically gave up. The other cookbook I felt was more home/authentic in the vietnamese food dept is written by corinne trang. Hope that helps.
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