The Slanted Door – Charles Phan

I love all types of ethnic foods — I think I prefer it because we never had any as children. Pretty bland food in our home –and a big outing was McDonalds — hopefully back in the dark ages when I was a child – the burgers and chicken nuggets really had beef and chicken as the ingredients.

Charles Phan’s new book – The Slanted Door – has the perfect mix of Vietnamese food mixed with American favorites. The Slanted Door is Phan’s famous restaurant in San Francisco – another one I wish we would have visited back in July.

Of course, the book is beautiful – the photographs just pull you in.

The recipes that stood out for me —

Pork and shrimp wontons with spicy chile oil
Crispy green beans (these are not your TGIF fried green beans)
Vietnamese chicken salad
Spicy lemongrass soup (I love lemongrass)
Dungeness crab with cellophane noodles
Ginger beef vermicelli
Phan’s fried chicken looks amazing
Corn and mushroom side dish
Cashew chicken

Phan even includes some desserts —

No bake cheese cake with walnut cookie brown butter crust
Crème brulee
Chocolate soufflé cake
Spiced beignets (hello fried dough!)
Lemon meringue tarts look killer

I made the ginger beef vermicelli – it was relatively simple, quick and so intensely flavorful and I’m not a huge fan of beef. I used spaghetti because I didn’t want to run back out for vermicelli or rice noodles in the rain. Big hit here tonight. Pictures aren’t the greatest – stormy and dark but this dish is killer.