During the late fall and early winter, we made several road trips to revisit Mountain House. We decided to stay the evening and make a stop for lunch on the way home. We revisited places I've already posted on, so I thought I'd just post mostly photos of those meals. So, here I go C(learing) O(out the) M(emory) C(ard) again
Bistro Na's:
Good lord, how many posts have I done on the place since our first visit in 2019? There have been some changes over time. Bistro Na's lost their Michelin Star in 2022 and many of the dishes we'd enjoyed in the past are no longer on the menu. We've also noticed some inconsistencies in execution and quality as well.
But, on this visit, the Tofu Skin and the Smoked Duck Breast were as good as ever.
What we consider to be their signature dish, the Crisp Shrimp was not however.
The shrimp lacked the plump tenderness of what we'd had before and the shells seemed to have been fried differently as they were hard instead of being light and crisp.
And did we really spend $22 for a tiny portion of under seasoned Ong Choi? It was listed as having fermented bean curd, but there was not much of the cheesy-salty-savory-sweet flavor present.
After this visit, we decided to give Bistro Na's a rest for a while. There's no much more to explore in the SGV.
Bistro Na's
9055 Las Tunas Drive
Temple City, CA 91780
Canton Restaurant – Cháo Cá Chợ Cũ:
Well, this is now our default stop for Cha Ca. Ever since that initial visit, the Missus has been wanting to return. We've been back three times….I basically have stopped taking photos here. The food has been consistent on all our visits.
Tons of fresh herbs and veggies.
Funky mam nem, a generous portion of bun……extra onions which we put on the sizzling plate.
And we usually get the Cha Gio as well.
Plus, they open at 930am, which is great for our return trip home.
Canton Restaurant – Cháo Cá Chợ Cũ (Cash only)
8550 Westminster Blvd.
Westminster, CA 92683
Well, this is about the same as Phuong Nga. The bread is very crusty which I like, though a bit more chewy than I prefer. These days, many banh mi shops don't even include cucumber in their sandwiches; but it's present here. The jalapeno was pretty mellow on this sandwich. Of course, one of my pet peeves; the cilantro was mostly stems….I already floss daily; I don't need to have my sandwich doing it as well. The proteins are sliced on the thicker side and there are less pickled veggies than before. What I really liked about this sandwich was the amount of pate. Upon biting, the pate basically oozed out…a funky, earthy, creamy, savory "puss" of the most delicious sort.
I was interested to see if things had changed much. So, like before, the Hu Tieu was in the bottom of the dish, where the savory-mildly salty and sweet sauce resides. There have been times when the hu tieu was over cooked and mushy. But gladly, this was not one of those days has the noodles had some good al dente pull to them.
The plate of sprouts, greens, and herbs were fresh, the bun slippery and nicely textured. For some reason, the broth seemed more spicy than usual; or perhaps I'm just getting wimpy in my old age. That combined with an assertive lemongrass flavor and singeing heat really set my lips on fire.
There was one thing I quickly noticed when my bowl arrived; the portion size seems a bit larger than before. Also, the sauce was a lot "redder" in color and while it had a decent savory-nutty – pungency, was also saltier than I recalled. The beef was not quite as nicely velveted and was on the chewy side, though I've had that happen on previous visits.
The Missus ordered the combo with banh cuon trung, with eggs folded into the wrapper and the ground dried shrimp. First things first, the nuoc mam cham was way too sweet and really watered down. It was in dire need of more fish sauce and spice. In fact, the Missus was hatching a plan to possibly sneak in our own stuff next time.
This was interesting in a way. The banh mi was nicely heated, a light crusty-flaky-yeasty, all that better to soak up the rather mild tomatoey "sauce-gravy".
The hot dog cracked me up. It was….well, a hot dog, like something you bought at the grocery, a salty-sodium laden, tubular mystery meat. My favorite item by far were the meatballs which, while laden with filler were moist, tender orbs of beefy goodness. The eggs had a bit of "fishiness" to them and lacked seasoning, obviously not of the best quality, but decently sunny side up.
When all the planets align this is a good dish….of course no one wants to only have a dish be good once every 30 years, right? This was actually better than 
My order was waiting when I returned. Overall, for eleven bucks this wasn't bad at all. The rice wasn't of the best quality, but was cooked decently. There was a standard green salad which was on the verge of heading south.
This was not bad at all. A humble dish, decently flavored, and nicely priced for this day and age. Nice folks working here too! There was a steady flow of folks eating in and picking up takeout. I'm happy that business, at least to me seems to be doing well.
I quickly noticed that some of the basil had gone south already and the portion of sprouts was even smaller than on 
I'm used to Pho Fusion being a bit miserly with the sprouts and basil and they lived up to that reputation; though at least it was of decent quality.
The noodles were in the typical clump, but were not over-cooked. As mediocre as this bowl was, it was still better than what I'd had at Duyen Mai. Kinda sad….
Whoa, this was by far the largest "small bowl" of the three places as well. The soup had a good amount of cilantro and onions.
Man, these were super stuffed, full of porky goodness, hint of sweet- savory tones, and wrapped with rice paper. It was slightly more chewy than I prefer, but man, the overall package was much better than anything here is San Diego. This also heated up well in the air fryer!