Everyone knows that Chicken rice and Chilli Crab are Singapore’s national dishes but do you know what is Vietnamese’s national dish?
Vietnamese Pho Noodle (image via)
For the uninitiated, Pho aka beef noodle soup is widely regarded by Vietnamese as their national food and it has been around for more than 100 years. Pho(pronounced as ‘phir’) is actually a fusion food between the Chinese and the French with the flavour of the soup deriving from the way French cook their beef soup which is called ‘pot au feu’(pot on fire) or what others called the French Beef Stew. And of course it all happened when French was colonizing Vietnam from 1858 to 1954.
For those who have lived in countries like Australia, America, Canada or UK, one would have realised that Vietnamese food thrives in these places and one may wonder, why not in places like Singapore?
Vietnamese food hasn’t taken hold here because for any foreign food business to be viable, there need to be enough of their fellow countrymen to be around to ’support’ the business and Singapore just happen not to be the land of Vietnamese immigrants. That is also the reason why you will be hard-pressed to find really authentic Singaporean food outside of Singapore.
I am not a big fan of Vietnamese cuisine for the simple fact that a lot of their foods use raw herbs like mint leaf or different types of basil leaf(there are 3-4 types) which I dread and they don’t just use the leafy parts but the stems and in some cases, even the roots! Apart from Pho, the other food that is very a ‘national’ food to Vietnam is the Vietnamese Spring(Goi Cuon) Rolls while something that I personally liked a lot is the Vietnamese Pork Chop Rice(Com Suon).
Long Phung at 159 Joo Chiat
I was introduced to Long Phung, a Vietnamese cafe along Joo Chiat Road by my local Vietnamese friends as one of the few places in Singapore to serve really authentic Vietnamese food so I can’t resist not checking it out and see how authentic it really is.
My agenda is the Vietnamese Pork Chop Rice which I thought should be fairly easy to excel since most that I’ve eaten abroad tasted very good. In it’s most authentic form, broken rice are normally used. If you’re wondering, yes broken rice are lower grade rice and definitely cheaper but a lot of Vietnamese like it because it seems to be a little stickier. But no mistake there, broken rice didn’t look good hence are normally discarded therefore these cheaper rice are popular amongst the poorer folks back in Vietnam but today, Vietnamese pork chops serve with broken rice has become a tradition. I guess it’s just like how Indians or Malays will tell you that eating Nasi Lemak with hand is more shiok.
Com Suon(Vietnamese Pork Chop Rice) $5
My Com Suon(pork chop rice) arrives in style, nicely decorated on a big plate. What was missing though are pork fats thin strips which I thought are one of the essential ingredients in an authentic Com Suon, anyway this just looks like a healthier version.
om Suon(Vietnamese Pork Chop Rice) Chilli Sauce
One of the things I like about Vietnamese Pork Chop Rice is the chilli sauce. It taste like one of those sweet and sour Thai chilli sauce that you eat with Thai spring rolls, however the Vietnamese version is more watery and a little more sour. The chilli in Vietnamese Pork Chop Rice will come separate on another bowl and the correct way to eat it is to pour the sauce over the rice and mix it with the fats strips.
Vietnamese Pork Chop
If you have never eaten Vietnamese porkchops before, you’ll be glad to know that it is something Singaporeans can resonate with easily because it is technically satay flavoured grilled pork with a stronger tumeric thrust. I love Vietnamese porkchops a lot and at Long Phung, it’s got that familiar flavour and taste. Vietnamese food can be fairly expensive when eaten at other foreign cities, so $5 for a plate of Vietnamese Pork Chop here is worth every of your penny .
Goi Cuon(Spring Roll) $2.50
Vietnamese spring rolls cost $2.50 for 2 at Long Phung. These are wrapped using dried rice paper wrappers(slightly wetted to make it soft but very chewy) with raw herbs, some rice, bee hoon, some pork, prawns and nothing else. These spring rolls have very little shiok flavour by itself but if you dip it into the chilli sauce(which is the same as the pork chop rice chilli sauce), it can be very shiok(not something I like though).
Goi Cuon(Spring Roll) $2.50
Vietnamese Kopi $2.50
Of course if you are coming to a Vietnamese eatery, you can’t finish a meal without a cuppa of Vietnamese kopi. For $2.50, it was a little expensive but the flavour is strong and very unique.
Long Phung is a cafe that sells good Vietnamese food at affordable prices. Every other dishes go for something like $5-$6 and I guess the big crowd(mostly Singaporeans) at lunch time is a testament to the food here being quite acceptable to locals. Having not eaten at other Vietnamese eatery in Singapore , I don’t know how good this really is by local standard but compared to what I’ve eaten before in other countries, it is quite close to the standard I know. A strange fact is that this is one of the cheapest Vietnamese meals I’ve eaten and I’m just suspecting that one may have a hard time finding anything cheaper than this in Singapore. Vietnamese food is really scarce in Singapore but I’m glad to say that my virgin experience of eating Vietnamese food in Singapore is quite shiok and Long Phung is definitely a very good place to get my Com Suon(Pork Chop Rice) fix in the future.
Com Suon(Vietnamese Pork Chop Rice) $5
Price: $10
Recommendation: Vietnamese Pork Chop Rice
Conclusion: If you ever find yourself stuck at Joo Chiat pondering what to eat, Long Phung might just fill the gap for you. It is affordable and the quality comes really really close to what I know.
Likes: Pork chop.
Dislikes: Pork chop rice no pork fats strip.
| Address | Overall Rating | ||
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Food: 7.5/10    Authenticity: 7.5/10 Value: 8/10 Service: 7/10 Ambience: 8/10 Cleanliness: 8/10 Overall: 7.75/10  |
