la.foodblogging

Every lunch group has one curmudgeon who takes lunch very seriously and is hard to please. We’ve named ours Dr. No for his habit of rejecting new restaurants out of hand even though he has a fairly good record of enjoying them once he has eaten there. After we read a review of Houng Vi at The Culinary Detective, the rest of us couldn’t wait to try it. But we had to drag the good doctor there kicking and screaming because they serve pho, which he insists is merely glorified tap water.

The broth used to make pho at Houng Vi is a little lighter and less greasy than served elsewhere. Plenty of varieties are offered, and, as Dr. No was pleased to see, Houng Vi also has a large menu of non-pho dishes on its snazzy picture menu. These range from a very nice shrimp, mint and lettuce wrap served with peanut sauce to a crab soup with rice noodles to various stir fries and fried rice dishes.

Every dish I have tried here has been tasty, but the general consensus is that The Thing To Get is the #32: barbecue pork over rice noodles with vegetables, peanuts, a sweet and sour dipping sauce and an egg roll. (The #33 adds a generous helping of the more interesting parts of the pig to the above.) Dr. No started off griping that his Thai iced tea was too strong but once the #32 arrived there was no complaining to be heard, only chewing and noodle slurping.

Good food is even better if it is cheap: lunch runs about $7 with tax and tip and a friend got dinner for four, including two beers, for under $30 inclusive.

Usually a restaurant gets its blessing if Dr. No comments, “That was adequate,” or “That was reasonable sustenance.” But it was outside Houng Vi that we heard him say, for the first time, “That was a good lunch.” There is no higher praise than that.

Houng Vi, 15180 Prairie Ave, Lawndale, CA 90260. (310) 978-8999

By Maribeth (see more of her posts).