Last Saturday, my girl cooked this Vietnamese pork rice noodles salad…
…for lunch except that she substituted the pork with the ribeye beef that we still had in our freezer. It reminded me of those dishes that my blogger-friend, Phong Hong, would prepare to take to the office for lunch, very pretty but not really something up my alley even though she does seem a whole lot more generous with her lunch bowls.
No, I don’t think this was supposed to be healthy as there was red meat – beef, which is probably worse than pork. Chicken would be healthier, breast!
She did use brown rice noodles…
…though, instead of the regular bihun (rice vermicelli). Other than the meat and the noodles, there were the julienned carrot and cucumber, lettuce and Thai basil leaves plus a special sauce…
…of calamansi lime juice, fish sauce (I saw in a CNA documentary that day that it has a higher sodium content than soya sauce) and dunno what else to toss them with and she did make a special sauce for the beef too.
I guess this is meant to be a salad, something to be served by the side and not as a main dish but I did enjoy it for my very very light lunch. It probably would need a bit more to be more substantial and for dinner, I threw in some prawns, mussels, sliced hardboiled egg and sprinkled a bit of crushed peanut for the taste and fragrance. We did not have any tofu or tau kua (bean curd cake) or those would be nice to add as well, deep fried and sliced thinly.
Well, whatever it is, I certainly would not ask my girl to cook this again as it looked like hard work, very tedious and time-consuming
...STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS! 
For a small eater, the Vietnamese pork rice noodles would be the main dish and not side dish. Good to have if you are cooking for a light lunch. Chicken breast meat?.?…the healthiest part but unfortunately that is the part I hated most.
Good thing you do not live overseas – chicken breast is the most expensive part of the chicken. Not a fan but I may not mind, depending on how it is done – like shredded and served in Sarawak laksa or chicken hor fun, roast chicken breast is ok and soy sauce ginger chicken breast too,,,but I do not like it with Foochow red wine and ginger chicken soup.
Ooh! I love that Vietnamese salad. But I have never attempted it because as you said, too much work!
Oh? So you do know about it! Have to cut this, cut that…so many things to cut. I am so lazy, so don’t expect me to do it! LOL!!!
It does sound tedious. All the cutting, arranging, boiling. Phew.
…for so little! Not too bad if you send up with a lot of enjoy!!!
I love those types of salad, prefer it always compared to the Western ones. They are much filling and full of flavours
…and I like salads minus the rich creamy dressing!
My favourite part of Vietnamese food is the greens.
Ummmm…I’m more a meat person, I guess but yes, I do enjoy some greens with my meals.
Chicken breast meat, if shredded would be ok for me but not so in one big piece.
It depends on how it’s cooked. I don’t mind breast in roast or fried chicken, for instance.