While researching Little Saigon’s choicest quan nhau (watering holes) this past weekend, I tasted the very best cha gio I’ve had since living in and traveling throughout Vietnam at Bến Lạ Restaurant.
Stuffed plump with crab, shrimp, and pork, then deep-fried twice for maximum blistering, these rolls induced swoons from everyone at the table. Even when tightly wrapped in lettuce and herbs and dunked with abandon in chili-spiked nuoc cham, the cha gio remained unbeatably crisp, the translucent rice paper wrappers shattering with each bite.
Soon after devouring the platter of glorious cha gio, I learned from William Du, Bến Lạ’s chef and owner, that they will only available from now until April 16. After six years of serving up icy Heinekens and superb Northern Vietnamese-inflected pub grub to Little Saigon’s older male set, he is selling the place and venturing into the world of real estate. Ugh.
Consider me completely devastated, and this post a bittersweet ode to the one that got away.
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Bến Lạ Restaurant
8461 Westminster Boulevard
Westminster, CA 92683
Phone: 714-891-6111
Opens at 3:30 PM daily
Orange County, you’re pretty delicious:
- Brodard Restaurant – Garden Grove
- Bruxie Gourmet Waffle Sandwiches – Orange
- Cafe Artist – Garden Grove
- Disneyland: Home of the World’s Best Corndog
- Ha Noi Restaurant – Westminster
- Ngự Bình Restaurant – Westminster
- Sidecar Doughnuts & Coffee – Costa Mesa
- The Ramos House Café – San Juan Capistrano
- Viễn Đông Restaurant – Garden Grove
We’ve touched these cha gio. We’ve lived a better life, cc.
Looks good!! May have to try this weekend before they close. My other half has frequented this place in the past with his buddies but I have not… The men who frequent these places are all so fickle and with the plethora of new pub grub places popping up it’s probably hard to compete.
If you need another fried fixing the next time you are in town, you may just want to hop across the street to Hanoi Avenue (not to be confused with Hanoi restaurant on Bolsa Ave) for a taste of their nem ran cua be. A little different than cha gio, but still oh so tasty!
SO good, Anh. You must swing by before the 16th! And I will totally Try Hanoi Ave — love me some nem ran cua be.
His banh trang looks crazy — like old school rice paper from the 1970s and 80s. And, definitely not made with wheat-based lumpia wrappers.
Nooo, less than a week left? I don’t think I’ll ever make it 🙁
These sound SO DAMN GOOD! Bummed the shop is closing soon.