Ah, food. I LOVE food. There are times that I'm ashamed to say that it seems I live to eat, rather than eat to live. But it's who I am, and I've decided to embrace this, as well as the extra pounds that go with it.
My name is Lina Bierker. I'm the new food critic for the Sunday News.
So why am I qualified to tell you anything about food? I'm not. I just have a lot of opinions about what I'm eating, and I think that's pretty much all that's required to be a food critic. But to make you feel better ...
I've moved around quite a bit in my life. Grew up in Chicago, spent a lot of time in Asia as a foreign exchange student in both high school and college. I made my way west to California for a year after I graduated, then ended up in Minneapolis, Minn., for another four. I know what you're thinking. What kind of person goes from warm and glowy to freezing and miserable? The crazy ones.
After that, I moved to Michigan for grad school and traveled Europe extensively before finding a home in New Jersey, which afforded me great access to New York City; then I finally landed in Lancaster, where my fiancé-at-the-time told me stories of great riches and adventure. All this to say that I've eaten a lot of food in a lot of different cities around the world. Oh, and I watch the Food Network channel religiously.
Now for a bit of disclosure. I work for The Hershey Co. and yes, I eat a lot of chocolate. It's refined my ability to smell and taste flavor nuances, which helps in my capacity as a food critic; but, rest assured, my palate isn't THAT refined. I wouldn't know which brand of chocolate a chef used in a dish unless it was topped off with chocolate that clearly had the brand name on it. And then, I would refrain from reviewing it. And by the way, "The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer and not The Hershey Co." Ah, lawyers.
In the movie "Ratatouille," food critic Anton Ego says, "I don't like food, I LOVE food. And if I don't LOVE it, I don't swallow." I can totally relate. Well okay, I still swallow, but I completely understand the sentiment. Good food is an experience to savor and enjoy. This column, "No Reservations," which will be published biweekly, is to celebrate exactly that.
For my first review, I thought I'd give a shout out to the small guy — the guy who doesn't have the huge advertising budget, but who puts out great food that's worthy of notice. Savor and enjoy!
There's a little Vietnamese noodle house on Prince Street. It's across the street from the Clipper Magazine Stadium and, if you blink, you'll miss it. It has a bit of a marketing problem in that I don't know how to pronounce the name, but it's worth the effort of my saying, "There's a great little Vietnamese noodle house across the street from the Clipper Stadium."
It's called Pho Thanh Thuy. This noodle house ROCKS! Start with the fresh spring rolls. These are not fried. Rice paper is filled with rice noodles, assorted vegetables, shrimp and pork slices, then dipped in a wonderful peanut sauce. Yum!
Then it's on to the
pho — some of the best I've ever had. Pho is a noodle soup that's classically Vietnamese. It's street food. The working man's food. The key is the broth. It is a beef stock that's usually made with oxtail, beef brisket and a whole lot of other spices. Made right, it has a rich and complex flavor that needs little doctoring by the slurper. Rice noodles are placed in a bowl, topped with raw slices of beef — you can also get it with beef tripe and tendon, my favorites! Don't worry about the raw beef. The piping hot broth gets poured over everything and cooks it all. Another plate full of fresh vegetables comes separately. Put that into the entire mix, and you've got a meal in a bowl.
My husband usually gets
bun. It adheres to the same meal-in-a-bowl principle, but it's not a soup-based dish. Vermicelli noodles are topped with vegetables, barbecued pork (or any alternative meat they offer) and an egg roll. The key ingredient here is the pungent fish sauce that comes on the side as a condiment. Fish sauce is a key Vietnamese ingredient that is used in almost every dish. Pour it all over everything and mix it in. If you find yourself tentative about wanting to use it after taking a sniff, I guarantee you that it tastes deliciously better than it smells!
To top it all off, this place is extremely inexpensive. They raised their prices just slightly in the past few months, but a meal for two hardly ever breaks the $25 mark.
Park across the street at the stadium. At least that's what we do. Gee, I hope that's not illegal. But beware on game days. Then you're on your own. The only negative we've been able to find is the hours. They close at 8 p.m. most nights and they're not open on Sundays. So I guess that means they're open most of the time. Okay, maybe the problem isn't theirs.
Write to Lina Bierker at living@lnpnews.com.
