Ledo makes basic noodle soup taste extravagant
By Matthew Gray
Advertiser Restaurant Critic
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| Larry Tran, manager at Ledo, works the floor at the Chinatown restaurant, which serves Vietnamese cuisine.
Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser Ledo 1134 Maunakea St. 9:30 a.m.-9 p.m. daily 548-4188
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Pho, or beef noodle soup ($4.50 for a medium-sized bowl, $5 for a large), probably is the best-known dish of the Vietnamese. It's a long-simmered affair, often for more than 12 hours, with fresh marrow bones, brisket, flank steak, and several herbs and spices contributing to the unique flavor. Spices such as cinnamon, cloves and star anise, ones you might not often associate with savory dishes, are present here in the tiniest amounts.
The resulting clear, rich and aromatic consomme is served over rice noodles and garnished with slices of rare or cooked beef, tendon, tripe, chicken breast or meatballs. A side plate of fresh crunchy bean sprouts, sweet basil, chile peppers and a wedge of lemon accompanies each bowl for an additional vegetal component, adding brightness to the soup.
Other popular soups here include seafood noodle soup (called hu tieu nuoc, $5.75) with your choice of noodle (flat rice noodle, harusame saifun noodle or egg noodle). The topping of pork, shrimp, shrimp cake, calamari, scallop, deep-fried red onion and scallion makes a very tasty meal. The house special seafood noodle ($6.25) is basically the same dish, but the soup is served on the side. If you prefer your noodles fried, try the gau tau hu (fried noodles with chicken and tofu, $7.50) or the seafood version (tom muc, $8.50).
Obviously the soups and noodles are the most popular dishes here, as they are listed on the menu before the appetizers. But you definitely should try the Vietnamese crepe (banh xeo, $6) stuffed with either shrimp and pork, or just chicken, and filled with mung bean, bean sprouts and onion. Served alongside this is lettuce, mint, kaichoi, cucumber, pickled carrots, and the ubiquitous and delicious vinegar fish sauce.
Another starter worth ordering is fried imperial rolls (cha gio, $7.50) — long, thin and grease-free crunchy treats rolled in rice paper, filled with shrimp, ground pork and veggies.
The "roll-ups" (cuon banh trang) part of the menu gives you a fun thing to do, which is to create your own meal without having to cook the ingredients.
This is how it works: You'll be served lettuce, sprouts, mint, cucumber, pickled carrots, fresh herbs, rice vermicelli, rice-paper rounds, a bowl of hot water, and vinegar fish sauce (or peanut sauce, if you prefer). You order the meat you want to add to the rolls, such as grilled lemongrass chicken or pork ($8.75), grilled shrimp ($9.50), or shrimp cake on sugar cane ($9.50). To make the roll-ups, moisten the rice paper with the water until pliable, fill with whatever you want, roll it up, and dip into sauce ... yum-yum!
The bun (pronounced "boon") dishes are cold vermicelli noodles topped with all those wonderfully fresh veggies and herbs, along with a meat you choose, in a great big bowl. The best part about this noodle dish is all the condiments available at your table, allowing you to customize your levels of heat, or sweet or salty flavors. There's always a dark brown roasted hot chile paste, the fire-engine red Sriracha-brand chili sauce, a thick and sweet hoisin sauce, and salty fish sauce to choose from.
If you're a garlic lover, you must try the shrimp with garlic and black pepper ($8). Unlike almost all other restaurants, these people saute the garlic to the umpteenth degree, to a very dark brown, resulting in a sweet, chewy garlic candy. Only one other place (my favorite Thai place in Los Angeles) treats garlic in such a manner. In this case, it's the technique, not necessarily the ingredients, that makes this dish transcendental.
Ledo is a special place for a few reasons.
The food is very good, light and healthy for the most part, and the service is excellent and friendly. Can't beat that.
Reach Matthew Gray at mgray@honoluluadvertiser.com.
