BEST DISHES: Cool beef salad, beef with rice-noodle soup, sugar cane with shrimp paste, Vietnamese pancake with shrimp and mushrooms, spring rolls, summer rolls, barbecued beef with rice vermicelli, barbecued pork chop, grilled chicken, soft-shell crabs, chicken curry, water spinach.
One of the earliest examples is Picasso's "Still Life with Chair Caning" (1911 12), in which a piece of oilcloth with an imitation chair caning design was pasted onto the painting, and a rope was used to frame the picture.
Charbroiled shrimp paste on sugar cane.
Fermented fish paste and sugar cane for balance.
Perhaps one day I'll even wrap the paste around sugar cane sticks.
Noodle dishes and soups are excellent, as is chao tom, sugar cane wrapped in grilled shrimp paste.
You remove the shrimp paste from the cane, fold it in a wrapper with fresh herbs and dip it into rich hoisin sauce. 5. Mekong + (212) 343-8169 44 Prince Street Little Italy $ All major cards Mekong owes its allegiance more to SoHo than to Chinatown or Vietnam.
My portion of shrimp paste on sugar cane was slightly over-fried, rendering it a bit bouncy though flavorful, and Hue-style vermicelli, a heartier-style soup with a pig's foot and beef, was delicious on two tries yet not as assertively spiced as I had hoped, considering its typical base of chilies and lemongrass.
Sugar-cane shrimp, a traditional dish of shrimp paste broiled on sticks of sugar cane and served with rice pancakes, are fun to eat.
Chao tom ($8), grilled shrimp paste wrapped around sugar cane, comes with soft pancakes.
