Quê Hùóng
787 Somerset St. W., 613-238-7888
Hours: 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily
Prices: Vietnamese subs up to $5, taxes in, other dishes up to $8, taxes in
Access: one step to front door
Let’s just say that you don’t have a kindly Vietnamese grandmother, but for some reason you wish that you did. A trip to Quê Hùóng on Somerset Street West would be in order.
The two-year-old eatery, perhaps Chinatown’s smallest, is a quirky little charmer. That’s the case not simply because it is so tiny, but thanks to its friendly proprietor, Le Nguyen. She will turn 82 this summer, although she doesn’t look it.
Le Nguyen, owner and chef at Quê Hùóng on Somerset Street West in Ottawa.
Her restaurant, whose name means homeland in Vietnamese, is all of six seats at two tables, plus a small bench. I’ve only seen it verging on packed at one lunch-time visit. And yet, Quê Hùóng serves some solid, if no-frills, dishes at prices to make cheapskates smile. Plus, you might remember your encounter with its smiling, indefatigable owner long after the flavour of her food has faded from your palate.
Nguyen’s story is stirring. In 1978, she fled Saigon with her six children after her husband, a high-ranking officer in the South Vietnamese army, was imprisoned. It would be more than two decades before she saw him again. She and her children made their way by boat to a Malaysian refugee camp, landing there after a two-hour swim to shore. In 1979, Nguyen and her children arrived in Ottawa.
After settling here, Nguyen and some of her children began feeding Ottawans, at restaurants and at food trucks. Nguyen had a chip wagon near the Experimental Farm for more than three decades. A son runs a chip wagon near the Elgin Street courthouse.
But a few years ago, Nguyen balked at retiring. “Boring,” she told me. About two years ago, with the reluctant help of her children, she remade a former currency conversion business into Quê Hùóng. She works there daily, assisted sometimes by a family member or a friend, happy if the opportunity arises to make small talk with customers, even if her English is heavily accented.
In keeping with the restaurant’s size and staffing, its menu lists about 20 Vietnamese staples rather than the 200 or so that might be found at other places on Somerset Street West. But what I’ve tasted has been made with care and a clear desire to please.
Banh mi subs make up roughly half of the menu. Made with grilled pork, chicken or beef, the few I’ve tried have been reliably pleasing, seasoned to be especially savoury, offset by carefully pickled carrots and daikon, given a herbal hit of coriander. They can be made spicy with minced chili peppers or sriracha, or ordered “Thai” style with a slather of sauce that has hot, sweet and funky undertones.
Iced coffee and Thai beef sub at Que Huong-
At most, a sub is $5, taxes in, and if you order five, the sixth is free. Quê Hùóng’s other dishes are just as easy on a dining-out budget.
Salad rolls made with shrimp and crisp, ungreasy deep-fried pork rolls were both just-made good, as were their indispensable sauces.
Pork-taro spring rolls at Que Huong
Shrimp salad rolls at Que Huong
Nguyen makes just one vermicelli dish, a version with lemongrass-spiked morsels of beef. When I had it, it was another testament to a la minute fare, with tender meat right from the stove.
Lemongrass beef on vermicelli at Que Huong
Of two meal-sized soups, I’ve sampled a commendable pho of shrimp and pork with rice noodle, its broth sweetly scented from sugar cane.
Shrimp, Pork and Rice Noodle Soup at Que Huong
The most filling and pork-forward dish was a plate loaded with grilled pork, crisp in some places, fatty in others, with shredded pork, a meaty slice of quiche, and salad on rice.
Grilled pork, quiche and shredded pork on rice at Que Huong
Very crisp banh xeo (stuffed rice-flour pancakes stuffed with lots of bean sprouts and shrimp, which could have been more flavourfully seasoned) intriguingly straddled sweet and savoury. With the dish came a little primer from Nguyen, who emerged from behind the counter and insisted on instructing a neophyte how the crepe should be eaten — broken in pieces, wrapped with herbs in lettuce leaves and dunked in salty, slightly pungent nuoc mam cham sauce.
Banh Xeo, a pancake stuffed with shrimp and bean sprouts, at Que Huong
If you’re craving a beer or dessert, Quê Hùóng will leave you frustrated. But an iced coffee with condensed milk will be sweet and janglingly caffeinated.
During one visit, Nguyen told me that I should try Pho Kam Long, her son’s restaurant on Riverside Drive. While the food there is like hers, his restaurant is fancier than her tiny premises, she said, waving her hand, almost dismissively.
Of course, she was too modest to take into account the pleasure of her company.
phum@ottawacitizen.com
twitter.com/peterhum
ottawacitizen.com/tag/dining-out
