Samuel C.
Yelp
You can learn a lot about Vietnamese food by NOT eating in an air-conditioned Western restaurant.
* * *
Com Tam Pa Phi is in a fascinating food truck park at the corner of Parmer and Dessau.
The clientele here is downscale.
The food is downscale.
If you are looking for the Elizabeth Street Cafe, it is not here.
A lot of the places are fine for what they are.
But you have to get yourself into a downscale mentality.
* * *
Virtually every single truck has built a shack to eat the food in.
You are out of the sun.
You are in the shade.
There is some kind of a breeze - either from an electric fan or cracks in the wall or ceiling.
Housing is crude.
This is rough eating.
More importantly, there is no air conditioning.
So it is going to get hot, shade or no shade, fan or no fan.
* * *
Most of the patrons are Mexican or Central Americans.
They are also much much smarter than me.
They would show up in their trucks - often a giant pick up truck.
Someone would jump down from the passenger side ...
Go into a shack ...
Get their bag of food ...
And take it Home.
They were eating in air conditioned comfort.
I was the only idiot actually eating in the shacks.
I was roasting like a horned frog on a rock
That said, I ate like a king
I also got a huge lesson in what Vietnamese food is all about.
* * *
A lot of Vietnamese places are like the food trucks at Parmer and Dessau.
Vietnam is hot.
Vietnam is humid.
Lots of street food is served outside.
You eat on a folding chair.
Or you eat in a shack similar to what I was eating in.
In 105 degrees, things change.
* * *
a) In air conditioned restaurants, you get raw carrot and raw daikon and raw cucumber on the side.
You ignore those and eat your main dish.
Out in the shack in 105 degrees, the raw carrots, raw daikon and raw cucumbers were life savers.
They were a major contrast with the hot food straight out of the fryer.
Never have I enjoyed a raw cucumber so much.
b) In an air conditioned restaurant, you ignore the condiments that are served at your table.
You leave the Rooster Sauce and the Rice Vinegar alone.
Condiments become king in 105 degrees in a shack.
I was dipping my raw veggies in rice vinegar or alternatively in chili paste.
They were the absolute best part of the meal.
c) I will describe the two dishes I had next.
Keep in mind this is downscale Vietnamese cooking.
Lots of the ingredients are going to come straight out of the freezer.
In a brick and mortar air conditioned place, I would be unhappy if I was served food straight from the freezer.
In the shack, my meal actually worked.
d) One of my two dishes was a lemon salt and pepper fried shrimp.
This was straight out of the freezer and almost tasteless by itself.
But dipped in chili paste, it was just divine.
I chowed down my shrimp quite happily.
I was starting to get addicted to that chili paste.
e) The other dish was vermicelli with egg roll and grilled pork.
Once again, the egg roll was out of the freezer.
Once again, rice vinegar and chili paste would be the stars of the show.
The pork was what you would expect from an honest but downscale lower class place.
The pork was decent enough to eat. (No health violations here.)
But it was definitely gristly and fatty.
The pork was just acceptable all by itself.
It got better - but not amazing - if it was dipped in sauce.
f) In 105 degrees, iced Vietnamese coffee is GOD.
They serve theirs the old fashioned way where it brews in your tin cup before you pour it over ice.
The iced Vietnamese coffee extended by two hours the amount of time I could have sat comfortably in that shack.
I wish I had some of that iced Vietnamese coffee right now.
* * *
If you ate only one Vietnamese meal in Austin, would you want it to be Com Tam Pa Phi?
Probably not.
Do you want to replicate the experience of eating out on a road somewhere in rural central Vietnam?
Com Tam Pa Phi will do you for sure.
Can you eat well at Com Tam Pa Phi?
I had a great time.
But frankly, the Mexicans were more on top of things than I was.
If you live anywhere near the corner of Parmer and Dessau,
Picking your food up from the food court and eating it in your apartment makes a lot of sense.
And in your apartment, you can dip your veggies in anything you want that HEB sells.