Baxter St. and Aji Ichiban

I've had a craving for Vietnamese food lately. The urge to fulfill this need in Albany is not so great, but here in New York it is much stronger. I've wanted to try Bun, but now with all the intrigue going on there, I'm not so sure. When I saw a picture of sweetbreads in a pho soup I'm surprised I didn't immediately start lurching there, zombie-like, only to stop after a hundred and fifty five miles and devour hot broth, noodles and thyroid.

So today I headed down to Baxter to revist an old favorite, New Pasteur. Somehow I got turned around on Canal Street, mistaking west for east, and I couldn't find it. I wandered up and down Baxter and settled on Thaison, or Thai Son. Luckily the signage also read "Vietnamese Restaurant." I looked inside two other restaurants on the block, missing New Pasteur, and Thaison looked the busiest.

Very quick service. They drop a menu, drop a large cup of steaming hot green tea. I scan the menu, close it after a couple of minutes, and someone is right beside me to take my order. She answers my question about the broth of the noodle soup I want, and we're off. I order Dac Biet, and Cha Gio. Beef soup and fried spring rolls with a meat and vegetable mixture.

There's a brief span of time when I notice some interesting "speacials" on the wall--I might have ordered the pig foot and beef soup instead--and then the sprouts and thai basil appear on my table. A minute later, a cook insistently strikes his bell several times, and my very large bowl of soup appears. The thin slices of beef floating on top are just barely cooked in the very hot broth. I was able to sample these slices while they were still almost raw, quite a treat. The broth, at least to me, suggested a stock made out of many animal bones--chicken, pork, and beef. It appeared to be rather fatty, with little globules faintly shimmering on the surface, but the soup broth was either very fresh stock or had indeed been skimmed because it tasted lean and clean. The requisite cilantro didn't overpower anything. As I dug through the not-overcooked vermicelli noodles, I found beef bacon, tripe, tendon, and several other cuts of beef. Thin strings of beef with a slightly serrated look intermingled with the noodles and added a welcome chewey, almost squid-like texture to the mix.

I was pleased to mix in a little thai basil and sprouts as I went along, but I didn't overdo it, in an effort to keep the soup hot. The broth must be hot--and this broth was served hot, and it stayed hot, until I dumped a handful of sprouts and basil in towards the end. By then the spring rolls had arrived, with large leaf lettuce, mint, and orange dipping sauce. While I was eating the soup a busser or waiter reached over me awkwardly to place some condiments in a rack next to me on the table. I added a healthy drop of a homemade spicy chili sauce with a light paste consistency to a side plate, wrapped up my spring roll in lettuce and mint, alternatively trying each roll with some chili sauce, some mint, some sprouts, and the orange sauce/oil. These were perfectly adequate spring rolls, glistening with oil which the dough soaked up as they cooled, on the meaty side with some interesting looking vegetables shredded between the meat.

Usually I stay for the slow drip coffee with condensed milk but I felt that the tea was adequate for lunch, so I got the check. $9.50 for a perfectly filling meal full of familiar, pleasing flavors, fresh veg, crunch and mild spice. As I walked out and looked back, I found that New Pasteur was immediately to my right. But I didn't turn into a pillar of salt.

Thaison
89 Baxter St, New York, NY, 212 732-2822

As I was walking downtown to eat lunch, I nearly passed a bright boutique with a colorfully painted window. Then I stopped. I'm not much for candy shops, but after passing so much great produce I was feeling a little guilty for not going native more and stocking up on something interesting to cook with at home.

Most reviews of Aji Ichiban bring up a consistent theme, you can get anything here for cheaper elsewhere in the stalls and supermarkets throughout the neighborhood. But it's all here, sweet and savory treats. All of Aji Ichiban's dried fruits, roots, meat, and fish have sample dishes atop the bins. I was intrigued. Hesitantly, I tried a coffee plum, then a dozen other fruits. "Try the ginger," said the sales girl, "everyone likes the ginger." I passed; I know what ginger root and ginger candy tastes like, but then a few bins down I found the lemon ginger candy. Wow. A few steps to the left and a row of dried fish beckoned. Tiny cubes of dried tuna, flaky chips of squid... smoked fish, sesame fish... my personal favorite was the Hokaido shredded squid. I turned around and inspected the two wrapped candy islands in the middle of the store. A row of multicolored chocolate "stones" in five or so bins looked wild, but they had no samples. And the ingredients listing didn't indicate the presence of actual chocolate, so I passed. I got a half pound of dried coffee plums, another half pound of preserved perilla plums, some small rice paper-toffee rolls called "White Rabbit" (the red bean toffee is yummy), and a tin of preserved Chayote. The chayote chunks in the tin are well kept, moist, spicy dried specimens of fruit. Eleven dollars for the lot.

Aji Ichiban
167 Hester Street (Elisabeth/Mott), New York