Seven Courses of Beef at Phuong Trang is delightful

Neighborhood: Convoy Street, Kearny Mesa

Price: $$

Vibe: Mid-80s home kitchen vibes. As with a number of Asian restaurants in this area, you are not here for the atmosphere, you are here to eat! Closes at 8:30pm SHARP so plan accordingly.

Phuong Trang is a staple of the Convoy Street food scene, and has been around since the early 90s, serving up authentic, fresh Vietnamese cuisine. It’s been around for so long that it doesn’t quite get the kudos it should as one of the best options for Vietnamese in the area. The ingredients are fresh and the quality just can’t be beat.

During one of my last visits to Phuong Trang, I was introduced to a lovely meal called Seven Courses of Beef. Meant to be shared, so it’s perfect for 2 or 3 people. This lovely coursing of beef involves a variety of different cooking techniques - each meant to be served in a “make-your-own-spring-roll” fashion, which is a little messy, but delicious and loads of fun! I love a good interactive meal!

Before I start in on the Seven Courses of Beef, I also must share a couple of fantastic appetizers we tried. There really isn’t a bad option on the menu, but I do hope to share with you some suggestions for things you may not have tried before.

Garlic Wings with Butter

I could come here just for the wings. Let’s be honest, I have done this! The deep-fried Garlic and Butter wings are out of this world! Perfectly crispy on the outside, while still perfectly juicy on the inside, yum! You can order either a half or a full dozen of these wings - go ahead and order the dozen because the leftovers are worth it.

Vietnamese Crepe

We also tried the Vietnamese Crepe, which is a crispy rice flour crepe filled with shrimp, pork, bean sprouts, sliced onions and mung beans. Wow. I absolutely love the flavors here, and the crunch of the bean sprouts inside this very light and fluffy crepe was really unique. The crepe was a lot larger than we anticipated, so keep that in mind when choosing your apps, as they are substantial!

On to the star of our meal - the Seven Courses of Beef, or Beef Seven Ways. I absolutely love fresh spring rolls. In fact, if we didn’t order this meal of beef coursings, I would have ordered the fried tofu fresh spring rolls (another time).

The Seven Courses of Beef represents 7 different preparations of beef — each to be eaten in your own spring roll concoction, with the exception of the Beef Porridge. Though during our visit, we missed out on the “Ground Beef in Caul Sheet” and were supplied with another helping of the “Ground Beef in Grape Leaves” (I was not mad about this! The Ground Beef in Caul Sheet is actually beef wrapped in caul fat, a membrane that encases the digestive organs of some animals).

They start the meal by bringing out all of the goodies to make your spring rolls. This includes the rice paper wraps, a small bowl of warm water and a plate of delicious accoutrement including lettuce, cucumbers, carrots, jicama and pineapple. I also suggest you order the vermicelli noodles to include in your spring roll inventions, this is an extra $3 but totally worth it.

Rice paper wraps are served with a bowl of warm water to make your fresh spring rolls.

Fresh lettuce, cucumbers, jicama, carrot and pineapple to adorn your spring rolls.

The first two preparations they serve are “cook-it-yourself” fondue-style courses. We started with the Vinegar Fondue with Beef. A small pot of vinegar is prepared on a warming plate, and you are each served a few thin slices of raw beef topped with thin sliced onions and scallions. Once that vinegar starts to bubble, grab your chopsticks and drop a slice or two of the beef in, it will cook instantly, so you won’t wait long.

While your beef starts cooking, I suggest you dip one of the rice papers in the water. It only needs to be submerged for a second and it will immediately soften. Place it on your plate and start making your spring rolls. You can add the meat first, or start with veggies, I just recommend that you start small so that you can actually wrap everything into the paper. I say this as advice to myself in particular, because I habitually overstuffed my rolls. It made them a little messy, but still delicious! Don’t forget to try the vinegar/fish sauce dipping sauce. It really ties the whole roll together. My dining partner and I each requested our own, so that we could dunk our sloppy rolls into our individual dipping sauces and didn’t have to worry about double dipping (or sharing).

Dipping sauce for the Spring Rolls

The second “cook-it-yourself” course is the Hot Grill with Beef, which is basically replacing the vinegar with a skillet of melted butter, you can drop in your beef and onions and cook to your liking. The raw steak that they serve are meant to be cooked one of these two ways,. My favorite was definitely the Hot Grill beef, so I chose to save the two of my three pieces of beef for this option.

Ground Beef in Grape Leaves, Char-Grilled Beef and Steamed Beef Meatloaf

I thought the first two preparations were fun, but then came out this amazing platter with our remaining courses. This included Ground Beef in Grape Leaves, which were fabulous! In fact, this was one I didn’t eat in a spring roll, I just took a bite, and it was a wonderful depth of flavor. The Char-Grilled beef had a delicious flavor profile, with that fresh off the grill char and smokiness. The Steamed Beef Meatball was also a surprising delight, and probably one of my favorite spring rolls of the evening.

Steamed Beef Meatball had loads of flavor and was one of my favorite of the seven courses.

Beef Porridge

Last but not least was the Beef Porridge course which was really unique and delicious. The Vietnamese certainly know how to make some delicious soups and the porridge was unexpected and would be my ideal “go-to” comfort meal on a cold day.

The entire meal was delicious at Phuong Trang and the Seven Courses is something I can wait to try again. I’ll work on honing my spring-roll-making skills and will try, try to remember that less is more, but let’s be real, you know I’ll overdo it again,

If you haven’t been ever or even lately, make your next night out an authentic Vietnamese adventure. Try something new! But get there by 7:30pm latest if you want to be seated, doors close at 8:30pm sharp!

Phuong Trang

4170 Convoy Street, San Diego, California 92111

Kingfisher, you complete me

The restaurant is centered around a lovely island-themed bar, giving off a lively and tropical vibe.

Neighborhood: Golden Hill – one of San Diego’s most historic and architecturally eclectic zones.

Price: $$$

Vibe:  Tropical chic upscale, but with the comfort of your favorite neighborhood joint

I’ve been plotting my return to this restaurant since my visit about a week ago.  That’s how unbelievably amazing it was.  I went with the “Food Club” gang to check out this oft-talked-about modern Vietnamese, French restaurant located in the Golden Hill neighborhood of San Diego.  From the moment we walked in, we immediately melded with the tropical chic vibe of the restaurant.  With a beautiful brassy island bar perched right in the middle, the elegant atmosphere of Kingfisher was buzzing in that upscale, but laid back, San Diego kind of way.  We were dazzled and excited for this eating adventure we had heard so much about.

Upon sitting we had to order something from the cocktail menu, the vibe just called for it and the options looked too good not to try out.  We tried the mango margarita (with tequila, Mezcal was an option too) and the Singapore Sling – wow, were they fresh, spicy and delicious.  The perfect start to our meal.

Mango Margarita and Singapore Sling

The staff at Kingfisher were just wonderful!  They are kind of staff that anticipate your needs before even you do.  Our server was warm, funny, and when we mentioned that we had “heard about the duck and is it still available?” he literally took off in a dead sprint to the kitchen to reserve one for us (which was WORTH the hustle, more to come on that).  The Half Smoked Dry Aged Duck sells out every night (because it was a Saturday and we had a 7:00 reservation, it was nothing short of miraculous that we still got one.)  The service makes you feel like royalty and then the food absolutely blows your mind away, and you know you’ll never be the same again.

We explored some fabulous dishes.  I want to thank our server for suggesting we try things that we otherwise wouldn’t, that ended up being some of our favorite food of the night.

Beef Tartar

Beef Tartar bite with all the fixens

We started with the beef tartar – which had all kinds of tasty, crunchy and pickle-y things in it. I forgot I was eating beef, or raw beef at that.  The flavors just popped.  It reminded me a lot of my favorite Thai dish, Larb, which has a lot of the same spicy flavors, fresh herbs and lime.  We could not get enough of this dish!  It was served with lettuce, fresh mint and basil and crunchy sesame rice crackers.  It felt like every bit of that plate was meant to be eaten together.  This one I will order again and again.

Wild Mushroom Congee

Our modo was “get something you can’t get anywhere else,” which was how we landed on the Wild Mushroom Congee and the Vietnamese Curry.  The Congee completely intrigued us. It ate like a porridge with fresh morel mushrooms, fried garlic and fresh herbs.  It was comforting like a risotto but lighter in the consistency with a wild flavor profile.  I admittedly would not let the server take the bowl, which had about 1/3 teaspoon of congee left, but it was mine, damnit!  The Vietnamese Curry, a vegetarian dish was a pure delight, and included some of my favorite vegetables like morning glory and cauliflower.  Served with a baguette of French bread which was perfect to soak up the delicious curry sauce.

Vietnamese Curry

Our next dish was the Snake River Farms Waygu Skirt Steak.  Served on a bed of fresh corn, tomatoes and watercress, the steak came perfectly sliced and spiced with a Thai chili chimichurri.  I loved scooping it up with a bite of the corn and tomato succotash, the cool vegetables allowed you to beat the heat of the Thai chilis – which were fantastic.  Get it.

Waygu Skirt Steak

For the finale of this amazing dining experience – the Smoked Dry Age Duck.  It came out on a lovely platter with the perfectly smoked and sliced duck and all the fixings to make your own duck spring rolls: lettuce, rice noodles, cilantro, mint, basil.  The duck is cooked to perfection and is so beautiful when eaten with the bright, fresh ingredients of the spring roll.  What a beautiful dish.  Now I understand the hustle to reserve this masterpiece before it sells out!

Smoked Dry Age Duck

Because we were prompted by friends to order dessert, we decided on the Vanilla Flan with a salt miso cream and coffee syrup.  I wouldn’t say I was particularly hungry at this point. Let’s be real, I just ate the crap out of those dishes and hoarded the last of the Congee.  I was ready for bed.  But when the flan came out, coffee sauce pooling over the top, I found my overstuffed self eating again, with enthusiasm.  The flan was light and enchanting.  There was something about how that sour miso and coffee just perfectly offset the bright, sweet vanilla of the flan.  The two flavors bitter/sweet just keep tossing over in your mouth. 

Vanilla Flan with salt miso cream and coffee syrup

So, my friends, you must make it to Kingfisher if you haven’t already. And even after you’ve eaten all that you think you can, please follow the guide of our friend and order at least one of the desserts, maybe both. You won’t be sorry.

Kingfisher

2469 Broadway | San Diego, California 92102