How to Plan a Vietnamese Food Crawl in Westminster, Garden Grove

The Westminster and Garden Grove shopping centers often feel like cities in their own right. Even the smallest malls are densely populated with stores that supply everything you need to survive the apocalypse.

There's Hanoi Plaza, a compact center with its own pho ecosystem, an herbal shop, a vegetarian restaurant, fried chicken, a place to buy a cell phone, a bakery, and a feng shui shop.

Across the street is Bolsa Plaza with two cosmetics stores, a pharmacy, a salon specializing in eyelashes and a restaurant that serves the excellent Bun Bo color. You could spend an entire week eating along this particular stretch of Bolsa Avenue, between Magnolia and Euclid streets, and barely scratch the surface.

One recent Saturday I packed up my cooler for leftovers and decided to give it a try. I chose three restaurants in the area, as well as a tea shop and a market, to visit in a single afternoon.

First stop: chicken wings at Mama Hieu's

The first time I had Mama Hieu's, it was outside Nho Thi Le and her son Jimmy Le's home in Garden Grove. After losing their restaurant jobs in March 2020, the two decided to start a small catering business in their backyard. Most often, they prepared large trays of the garlic butter Vietnamese chicken wings that Nho Thi is known for at family gatherings.

The family now runs a restaurant with a small dining room in Hanoi Square. I arrived shortly after it opened, there was a line out the door and every seat was taken. I watched as dozens of cars pulled up to pick up large foil trays of chicken for various celebrations, some containing 100 chicken wings.

In addition to the original garlic wings, Nho Thi's restaurant now offers spicy garlic, fish sauce and salted egg yolk. There are also tater tots, garlic noodles and mounds of white rice garnished with fried onions.

The garlic wings were smooth with melted butter and generously sprinkled with minced garlic and scallions. Beneath the ounce of topping, the coating burst, a massive crunch created by the combination of cornstarch, egg, and rice flour in the dough.

The spicy garlic wings started off with a respectable heat that built to a breathtaking climax as I removed the last bits of meat from my second drum.

Little strands of chopped red chilies clung to the garlic bits, stuck in the sticky glaze of the fish sauce wings. They're equal parts sweet and salty, with the familiar addictive funk of reduced fish sauce.

The salted egg yolk wings were almost completely coated in the bright yellow sprinkles. The egg yolk enhanced the richness of the butter-covered wings and provided a flavor strongly reminiscent of Parmesan cheese.

I understand the urge to order the wings in 100 pieces.

Second stop: Bánh uớt Tower in Quan Nhii

Next I drove a mile east to Quan Nhii, in the northeast corner of Bolsa Mini Mall. I squeezed into one of the parking spaces that felt about a foot too small and added my name to the waiting list outside. It doesn't matter when you arrive, there will be a wait.

Everyone at Quan Nhii orders one thing. On each table are towers of Bánh Uớt, presented as 10 pieces of steamed rice paper, still warm from the steamer, spread out on colorful plates. You choose your protein and vegetables, then spend the majority of your lunch making your own bánh cuốn with every possible combination of fillings and sides.

The rice papers are firm and tough like al dente noodles, but significantly less resilient. It took some work to keep the foils from tearing when removing them from the panels. I filled mine with grilled pork, bean sprouts, cucumbers, fresh herbs, and fried shallots, rolled them up as best I could, then dipped them in a bowl of nước chấm.

First I looked around to see the guests at the surrounding tables filling their boxes. A woman next to me seemed to be having fun trying to fit as much as she could into the thin paper without tearing it. Mine cracked frequently, but they were no less excellent.

Third stop: Sizzling steak at Khởi Hưng Restaurant

For my final restaurant stop, I headed northeast to Khởi Hưng Restaurant, in a strip mall with a parking situation that makes the Whole Foods lot in West Hollywood look like a Thomas Cole painting. Here you can order meat in the form of bò lúc lắc and sizzling rib-eye platters.

The glaze on the Bò lúc lắc is similar to a sauce and is a little sweet, dotted with chopped garlic pieces and heavy with black pepper. It might be my favorite version of the dish in the area.

My sizzling ribeye ended up in a pool of garlic butter that splattered and splattered on my forearms. Drenched in butter and tender enough to forego my knife, I vowed never again to a steakhouse chain that sounded like Naestro, Puth Chris, and Glemming.

I opted for a baguette with my steak, with tomorrow's leftover steak sandwich in mind. It was the kind you found at your favorite banh mi shop, pale in color, with a crust that fell apart into a fluffy center. I tore off a piece and dipped it into the garlic butter that was now swimming under the steak with meat juices and grilled onions. Then I ate another until the leftover steak sandwich from tomorrow turned to crumbs.

Fourth stop: Sunright Tea

I visit this tea chain's San Gabriel Valley locations more than twice a week, alternating between the classic brewed teas and one of the seasonal fruit flavors. The name is a portmanteau of “Sunny” and “Right” and the color scheme for each store is appropriately yellow and bright. During the summer months there is a watermelon cooler with fresh watermelon, ice cream and tea. Or a peach jasmine tea with pureed peach. The temperature was around 93°, so I chose the watermelon cooler because I was craving the feel of slush in the heat.

Fifth stop: Hoa Binh supermarket

The best way to end a food tour is with a visit to the market to pick up snacks for the drive home. At Hoa Binh you will find the full range of Irvins snacks, cookies, crackers and salted eggs as well as a wide range of products. The day's victory came in the form of Buldak-flavored seaweed snacks. The man at the checkout took one look at the bag, which had a panda bear with flames shooting out of its eyeballs, the logo, and the word “spicy!” was written on the front in bright yellow letters under three chili peppers and told me to “watch your ass.”