Ethnic Eats – Sampling the World’s Cuisine Without Leaving Vancouver

Every country has some form of dumpling and meat on a stick shows up all over the world too, from Indonesian satay to American county fair corndogs. Why? Because somewhere along the line we discovered that skewering a piece of meat was a handy way of cooking and eating our protein. And also because it tastes good.

“Meat on a stick week” lost some ground when I left my camera at the beach, but I have it back now and we will resume with some Vietnamese skewers. Last up was Japanese yakitori.

Vietnamese brochettes are something of a staple, alongside your pho. My preference is pork, though chicken and beef are also common, accompanied by Nước chấm dipping sauce.

I stopped into A Taste of Vietnam to order some pho and got an order of brochettes to go with, but then something else caught my eye. Prawn “supreme” on sugar cane. Not to be intimidated by eating 2 different meats on sticks in one day, I ordered both.

I should have known better. The brochettes were tender, juicy and the Nước chấm sauce was sweet and tangy. The pho was even ok. But if there’s one rule I already learned, it is to not order anything called “supreme” ever. Pressed prawn meat wrapped weakly around a piece of sugar cane with satay sauce  did nothing to endear me to different types of stick-meat. But it sounds so good in principle, I’m sure I need to try it somewhere else. Preferably where it’s not on special and doesn’t have the words “supreme” anywhere near it.

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A Taste of Vietnam
1016 West Broadway, Vancouver