Vietnamese Cuisine

The Best Thing I ate This Month – May 2026
Hai Phong crab spring rolls from La Nhau Viet Kitchen & Bar

Hai Phong crab spring rolls from La Nhau Viet Kitchen & Bar, at 108 Murray Street, Ottawa, ON

Every month there is usually one dish that refuses to leave my brain. Not the most expensive thing. Not the most elaborate thing. Just the thing that keeps resurfacing days later, nudging aside newer meals and reminding you who actually won the month.

This month, it was nem cua bể, the Hai Phong style crab spring rolls, at La Nhau Viet Kitchen & Bar in Ottawa’s ByWard Market.

A friend had read an enthusiastic online review, which I decided to follow as a guide. Normally, I prefer making my own mistakes, but this seemed like a reasonable exception.

One of the first dishes to arrive was the spring rolls. I thought little of it. Spring rolls rarely announce themselves as the best thing you will eat all month. Then these arrived.

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Grilled Pork Chop Over Rice
Grilled Pork Chop Over Rice

Grilled Pork Chop Over Rice excerpted from Madame Vo: Vietnamese Home Cooking from the New York Restaurant by Jimmy Ly, Dan Q. Dao, and Yen Vo. Photography by Andrew Bui.

Madame Vo: Vietnamese Home Cooking from the New York Restaurant by Jimmy Ly, Dan Q. Dao, and Yen Vo

From Vietnam to the East Village, husband‑wife duo Jimmy Ly and Yen Vo, chef and owners of critically acclaimed restaurant Madame Vo, bring big, bold southern Vietnamese flavours to homestyle cooking in this cookbook

Madame Vo, which opened in New York City’s East Village in 2017, quickly became a destination, changing how the city enjoys Vietnamese food. This cookbook features the authentic, modern recipes that made Madame Vo famous, alongside Ly and Vo’s story of how their families fled war and built a life in the United States, how they met and fell in love, and how they launched and now run the restaurant together.

With more than eighty simple-to-follow recipes, Madame Vo will teach you everything you need to know to start cooking Vietnamese food at home.

This cookbook features the recipes that made Madame Vo a household name, including:

* Signatures dishes like Madame Wings (spicy chicken wings with fish sauce)
* Sườn Kho Pork Pibs
* The Perfect Phở
* Caramelized Pork Belly and Pineapples
* New innovations like Chè Bắp Sweet Corn Pudding
* Bánh Bò Nướng Honeycomb Cake

Madame Vo is a restaurant rooted in family recipes and Vietnamese history. Ly and Vo’s stories were shaped by their parents’ decision to gather their families and leave everything they knew for America—Vo was born in a refugee camp in Thailand and Ly was born in Queens after his parents fled their home during the Vietnam War. (more…)