In the appetizer called banh mi chien tom, shrimp, scallions and garlic are pureed into a pink paste that's spread on baguettes and deep-fried to a light tan. It makes a snack that's as irresistible as a jar of cashews in a hotel mini-bar. And the thin cigars of ground beef, lime, onion and crushed peanuts, bound in vine leaves and sprinkled with fried onions and more nuts, don't stay for long once they hit the table. Of the soups, I prefer the lemony broth with shrimp, bites of pineapple and snips of fresh basil to the pho, a timid bowl of beef slices and rice noodles in beef broth. Whole restaurants devote themselves solely to preparing that classic Vietnamese soup, and many of them do it better than Green Papaya.
Vietnamese food makes itself accessible even to people whose tastes run conservative.
Its rice noodles are soothing, its slender skewers of grilled chicken and beef seem familiar, and using one's hands to eat a soft rice paper-wrapped roll of pork or shrimp lends a little informality to a meal. A little excitement comes by way of the optional lemon-pepper sauce. This is not to suggest that the kitchen waters down its cooking. Lean, thin-sliced beef, enlivened with lemon grass and grilled until its edges have a caramelized crispness, is what I imagine perfumes neighborhoods all over Ho Chi Minh City. One night the shrimp on my seafood skewer with rice vermicelli were grilled to stiffness.