Kim Ba is a family-owned Vietnamese restaurant in Aurora (outside Denver). The restaurant has always been unassuming from the outside, sandwiched between a shoe store and a cleaners in one of Denver’s many unattractive strip malls. I revisited the restaurant after many years’ hiatus to find the decor completely unchanged, down to the fake plastic fish spinning through a neon-lighted bubble tube and the miniature shrine near the bathrooms. Allegedly the restaurant was founded by two sisters, Kim and Ba, whose three-dimensional caricatures are mounted in wood on either side of the small dining room.
Kim Ba has somehow managed to create an eggplant dish that -- with the sole exception of undercooked slabs of white onion – is about as perfect as it gets. Their eggplant in bean sauce contains coconut milk, pepper flakes, a hint of fish sauce and soy sauce, and Vietnamese-style fermented beans (which are larger, milder, and lighter in color than their Chinese counterparts).
Though I can discern many of the ingredients in this dish, I doubt I can ever replicate it. My mother (whose improvisational cooking abilities are far superior to mine) has been attempting to recreate this dish for a long while, and though the attempts are always delicious, it never turns out quite right. I’ll either have to keep trying, or simply make sure to visit Kim Ba every time I'm in the area.
And though this doesn’t have to do with eggplant, I’d also recommend the seitan noodle bowl for vegetarian Kim Ba customers. It’s some of the most delicious fake meat I’ve ever had (probably because it’s cooked on the same grill as the pork... alas).
No comments:
Post a Comment