June 4, 2016 Lunch – No. 21 at Vietnam 2000, champagne and oysters at Gruet, and Red Grouper baked in Foil

June 4, 2016 Lunch – No. 21 at Vietnam 2000,  champagne and oysters at Gruet, and Red Grouper baked in Foil

Willy and I ate lunch at Vietnam 2000.  We both ordered no. 21, which is fried pork egg rolls and grilled pork laid on top of vermicelli rice noodles laid on top of fresh chopped lettuce, mung bean sprouts, cucumbers, basil and cilantro, served with a sweet fish sauce.  I usually request extra mung bean sprouts, basil, and cilantro, for which I am usually charged $2.00, in addition to the normal price of $8.25.  If you prefer additional quantity you will prefer Vietnam 2000’s No. 21 mtHuong or Café Trang’s comparable dish.  I was satisfied with ½ of my lunch and took the other ½ home and Suzette and I ate it for lunch on Sunday.

After lunch we went to TaLin and I went a little crazy.  I bought a $38.00 piece of fresh salmon for Gravad lax at $7.95/lb., a 1.25 lb. piece of fresh Pink Grouper at $6.98/lb. for dinner, red and white Miso, Chinese eggplants, Shanghai Baby Bok Choy, German deli mustard, sweet soy sauce, three kinds of dried noodles (bean thread, soba, and wheat), 1 shallot, Shitake, beach, and enoki mushrooms, water chestnuts, bamboo shoots, tofu, and a few other items.

We then drove home.

Suzette was waiting to go to Laurent’s Birthday Party at Gruet.  I took him a bottle of 1997 Gilbert Reserve Vintage Champagne, which was Gruet’s first vintage champagne.  The event was catered by the new owners of Nantucket Shoals, who had brought in boxes of six different oysters, two from the Atlantic, 1 from Mexico, and three from the Pacific all the way up to Vancouver Island, Canada.  I did not remember all their names but we both liked a Canadian oyster named something like Fanny Blue that had consistency and flavor a little like butter.  

Gruet was featuring its zero residual sugar Sauvage champagnes.  The rose’ was released today and Laurent was pouring glasses of the yet to be released Sauvage Rose’ Reserve, which is richer and a more full bodied champagne than the regular Sauvage Rose’, more like the 2011 Vintage Sauvage.  We sat with one of the staff, who told us that Gruet is increasing its annual output and that Gruet has now achieved the distinction of being the largest winery in the U.S. under one roof, which I find hard to believe.

Anyway we ate two dozen oysters and drank about ten glasses of the four different Sauvages.

Then we went home and fixed dinner, red grouper wrapped in Hoja Santa leaves, baked in aluminum foil with chopped poblano chili, mushrooms, tomato, and onion doused with white wine and garnished with pats of butter.  

 

  An Hoja Santa leave

  The packets on the grill

  A photo of the garden from the grill

 

  An opened cooked packet after rice was added

Suzette baked the packets on the propane grill.  We heated PPI rice and served the fish with beers, a la Mexico.

The fresh red grouper in the Hoja Santa leaves was wonderful. Mother Hoja Santa goes into solution a bit which adds flavor to the sauce and the added rice.

Bon Appetit