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| Madame Boi Tran with KF Seetoh, founder of Makansutra |
Our lunch at Boi Tran Garden was one of the highlights of our foodie trip to Hue, Vietnam - actually, one of my most memorable dining experiences ever.
Boi Tran Garden in Thien An Hills is about 20 minutes by car, 8 km south of Hue city centre.
The sprawling garden has a lotus pond, pavilions, and traditional houses nestled among lush leafy greenery and blooming flowers. It has an air of serenity punctuated occasionally by bird calls. It's an idyllic, calming retreat.
Madame Boi Tran who is an internationally renowned artist built this garden over 20 years ago (in 1999) to paint and to house her studio/ gallery. Besides lacquer and acrylic, Madame Boi Tran is also an accomplished sculptor, an art she especially likes because it allows her to express in 3 dimensions.
One of the traditional buildings in Boi Tran Garden is an altar house honouring Madame Boi Tran's son. In 2002, he rescued 2 drowning swimmers off Santa Cruz, California but drowned while trying to save a third person. He was 22 and a University of California student then.
Madame Boi Tran hosts her guests to her royal Hue cuisine here in this large, airy dining hall adorned with her beautiful paintings. Her much sought after works are sold through auction houses such as Christie's.
Among the many dignitaries who graced Boi Tran Gardens and its halls was Anthony Bourdain who featured Madame Boi Tran and her royal cuisine in an episode of Parts Unknown.
Madame Boi Tran is a descendent of Hue royalty and she has taken on the mission to preserve Hue royal cuisine by serving the dishes in Boi Tran Garden. At first, she hosted only family and friends, but later accepted public requests on popular demand. Now, the waiting list is 6 months long 😱
I am grateful to Nguyen Ngoc An of Connect Travel for the arrangements, giving me the privileged opportunity to visit Boi Tran Gardens.
Madame Boi Tran runs her estate and kitchen with some 50 staff, most with disadvantaged backgrounds whom she has undertaken to help.
Our starter was chạo tôm nướng mía - deep fried minced prawn meat wrapped around a stem of sugar cane.
The meat was removed from the sugar cane, folded into a large leaf together with cucumber, basil leaves, and other vegetables (many harvested from Boi Tran Garden itself). Add a bit of gently spicy sweet peanut sauce.
In the mouth, the fried shrimp tasted savoury sweet with an overlay of flavours and fragrances from the accompanying greens and fruits.
It was a great start to more flavours of royal Hue to follow.
Next up is Goi Hue - in the bowl, a bouncy tangle of glass noodles and slivers of julienned banana blossom topped with a couple of shelled prawns, basil and red chili pepper.
The dish comes with a bowl of soup made by boiling small goby (cá bống) from the Perfume River and pineapple. The soup has a smooth, mild savoury sweet taste with a bit of citrusy note from the pineapple.
It is emptied into the glass noodles, prawns etc and eaten together. It's extremely delicious with nice layers of crunch and tenderness, savoury sweetness and underlying pineapple taste.
Exquisite dish, rarely seen elsewhere so I think it is worthwhile coming to Boi Tran Garden just for this.
The goby fish used for the soup, looked limp with most of its flavours surrendered to the broth. I
Anthony Bourdain says it better, in his captivating style.
Cá sốt chanh or fish dressed with lemon sauce. Madame Boi Tran used cobia fish for this dish. The fillet was lightly battered, fried in a shallow pan and smothered in a thick gooey lime sauce.
My makan kakis (dining buddies) enjoyed this dish for the sweetness of the fish meat complemented by the gentle smooth, bright tasting mild citrusy flavour in the lime sauce.
I found the fish meat a little too soft and there was an underlying earthiness which is an acquired taste. Still, I enjoyed this dish because its finely tuned lime sauce made the fish taste good.
Xáo bò bánh uớt - beef soup with rice rolls.
The slices of beef were gorgeously tenderly juicy beefy savoury. The soup was rather robustly beefy savoury with mild spice and herby notes.
I thoroughly enjoyed the beef soup and beef with the soft rice rolls which seemed to unfurl itself when I dropped it into the soup. The soup and all its savoury flavours clung to the sheet of rice roll. In the mouth, it was a slurpy blend of beefy savoury flavours complemented by rice sweetness - gorgeous, I can't help repeating.
Xà lách rau, a vegetable salad dressed with crushed peanut and fish sauce. Reminds me of Thai salads but with a milder, smoother tasting dressing that allows the flavours of the slivers of carrot, raw mango, mint, saw tooth herb (culantro), banana blossom etc to shine through the savoury fish sauce.
Dessert was longan stuffed with lotus seed, chè nhãn bọc hạt sen. Longan and lotus seed pairs well together providing layered sweetness and complementary soft textures. Lotus seeds feature frequently in Hue dishes as lotus is abundant around the Perfume River that runs placidly through the imperial city.
Our food was paired with Vietnamese wine, both white and red. They were nice together - I enjoyed it. (Can't say much more lah. I donnu wines even though I've attended several wine appreciation workshops through the years....... 😂 ).
Recommended for you 👍 Our visit and lunch at Boi Tran Garden was one of the defining moments of our foodie trip to Hue. Food, ambiance, hospitality, everything was impeccable. We enjoyed every moment and every bite. Thank you Madame Boi Tran for having us.
Our visit to Boi Tran Garden was arranged by Nguyen Ngoc An of Connect Travel. The waiting list is 6 months long.
Read a description of Boi Tran Garden in A Fork in Asia's Road: Adventures of an Occidental Glutton by John Krich whom I had the honour to show the street food of Johor Bahru in 2014.
Restaurant name: Boi Tran Garden House
Address: Thủy Bằng, Hương Thủy, Thừa Thiên Huế, Vietnam
Tel: +84 234 3884 453
Hours: By appointment
Date: 2 Mar 2020
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