Vietnamese and Japanese inspired feast

The Central Markets in Adelaide have a lot to answer for!! The "old" food court as we refer to it, on the Western side of Moonta Street, has the best place for Vietnamese food I've come across. Over the years I became a great fan of dish #11, or, bun cha gao, and consequently I have developed my own version of the meal to suit my tastes and cooking styles.

Essentially I see the dish like a big cold roll opened out in to the bowl! We have shredded lettuce, cucumber, mint leaves and bean shoots under some rice vermicelli, julienned carrot, snow peas, a beef and onion in lemongrass mixture, and topped with fried shallots and crushed cashews.

As mum doesn't eat a lot of meat, I also make the dish with spring rolls to either top the noodles or to serve on the side.

A chilli vinegarette is poured over the dish and by the time you finally get to the bottom of it, the remaining vegetables and noodles are in a sweet and sour soup.

 
A meal at a Japanese restaurant on Brisbane's Southbank inspired the tofu dish I make to accompany the Vietnamese feast. Agedashi tofu is a fried (age) tofu in a fish (dashi) stock sauce. Because of mum's intolerance to fish I avoid the dashi component. But I have developed a gorgeous silky sauce to pour over the potato starch fried firm tofu pieces - equal parts mirin and ponzu (citrus soy), with chopped spring onions and chilli. 
 

By the time the hot starchy crust on the tofu has softened in the sauce, it leaves a sticky gooey texture on the bottom of the tofu piece and it absolutely melts in your mouth.

The meal is very fresh, very 'clean' eating (apart from the fried tofu - but it's hot, shallow oil so it doesn't absorb much). It's also the kind of meal which expands as you eat it... and there never seems to be an end in sight!

 The final feast: