rustypants speaks

as a boy, i was not an adventurous soul when it came to food. i knew what i liked and the menu was short. as i grew older, i got a bit more open-minded to culinary things that i’d not have even looked at in the past.

when we moved to washington d.c. 16 years ago, i quickly found that the huge array of cultures & nations represented in that area meant that you could literally eat any different type of ethic food you wanted – sometimes you just had to go looking for it.

my friend kevin helped open things up for me. he and i met at gallaudet, and he took me for my first indian food at taste of india – i’ve never stopped thanking him for that. we hit lebanese, chinese, japanese, african, italian, and too many others to remember or name. we shared a fondness for unique foods and had a unique friendship to boot.

i was introduced to soul food in d.c. as well and holy cow, do i miss it. cincinnati had one really good spot called millie’s in madisonville, but since millie had a stroke, are they even open any more?

lise and i have scoped out a lot of different ethnic foods over the years. we know all the best indian places in cincy. for greek, there’s only sebastian’s on glenway. mexican goes to el rio grande in n. ky. millie’s for soul food.

but there was one type of food we’d not tried yet. several weeks ago we went to tu-do, a vietnamese restaurant here in pensacola. it’s somewhat like chinese or japanese, but not really.

much lighter. more dependence on light sauces rather than thick syrupy ones. strange but tasty combinations of vegetables, meats, and noodles. they have some wonderful shrimp / vermicelli spring rolls that are wrapped in a semi-transparent rice paper and served with a peanut sauce that is just out of this world. when i eat chinese, i usually feel too full afterwards. after a visit to tu-do, i feel just right.

the meat is present but it’s not the bulk of the meal – more of those veggies and vermicelli / rice than anything. their sauces are also light and on the sweet side. each dish is described in detail (and there are 100+ dishes to choose from) and has its traditional vietnamese name (thankfully for us, they include numbers, so we don’t have to make fools of ourselves).

put away whatever stereotypical complaint you may have heard about vietnamese food and find somewhere near you serving it – you’ll thank me later.