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more pictures
and other Oriental-Occidental mixed cuisine.The new contender is a Vietnamese-French International dining house of striking beauty and appeal (in food as well as in decor) in west Santa Ana. The name is Favori, a play on our word "favorite." Duc Ngyuen is the owner and manager-mainspring is Tom Bui, a Hanoi native who grew up in Paris and became a restaurant entrepreneur for several decades in France.
Bui has assembled a crackerjack kitchen corps under Henri Fournie, a native of North Vietnam who perfected his art for many years in France and became chef for several restaurants in Montreal en route to Favori. Favori's top lieutenants are French sous chef Jerry Phat, 27, from Saigon and Viet-Chinese sous chef Guy Phang.
Favori's glamorous pink-and-burgundy, art-deco chic ambience replaced a simple Mexican sandwich shop. Opposite a completely mirrored wall is a pink-lavender surface carrying glass-encased still lifes. Glass-top tables are covered by burgundy tablecloths, proper napkins, live flowers and waiting wineglasses. At both ends of the room are ledges bearing wine bottles.
Soft music flows into the chamber, and and an acoustically styled ceiling helps keep sound under control. Muted spotlights overhead suggest the neo-modern. By some magic the visitor seems transported to Paris itself.
Two separate Vietnamese vs. international French menus post delightful dilemmas to guests bent upon ordering dinner. My Viet connections rate the Indo-Chinese presentation one of the county's best. The French department here is worthy of attention also, although Favori's French chefs go overboard at times with their penchant for the rich, caloric, creamy extremes of Gallic cookery.
Our Vietnamese dinner started with self-made Viet burritos
comprised of garlic shrimp and angel-hair pasta splashed
with peanut sauce, wrapped by lettuce leaves then wrapped
again in thin rice tortillas. This was a munching marvel,
pure and simple. Barbecued shrimp were served with shrimp
paste and another flavor of sauce plus sugar cane sticks.
Clams sauteed with oyster sauce in Tu Xuyen (Szechwan) style came hot and spicy -- unwaveringly good. Thin rare beef slices, which we dubbed "Vietnamese carpaccio," were served with shrimp marinated in delicate lime sauce.
Perhaps the most stimulating exotic was the baked whole catfish with green onion. You cannot expect to find a more convincing whole fish rendition around.
Desserts included sticky rice and mango, a Thai contribution, plus flambeed fried banana and a fantastic flan our table judged "good enough to make a flanatic out of anybody."
Another night we zeroed in on the French carte, which in the price column seemed more Oriental than Gallic with all quotations under $7 except for $7.95, for chateaubriand including crab and $9.95 for the Western world's most remarkable bouillabaisse. Arithmetic like that for French fare is news.
We opened with an incredible garlic toast plus rouille --
Provence garlic mayonnaise sauce. Although it looked as tame
as plain mayonnaise, it tasted potent as gunpowder -- a
perfect dip for sopping up with the toast.
Described on the menu as as "Southern French seafood soup," the bouillabaisse was accompanied by chunks of white sea bass, which we promptly shunted aside upon finding it jammed with tiny bones that made it seem more like a porcupine. The broth itself rippled with flavor spooned down with more garlic bread and rouille.
Salade verde of lettuce, tomatoes, zucchini and onion slices was saturated with enough soy sauce to make it in truth a "salade verde Asien." No wonder that, even without a single chicken slice, it had a direct flavor resemblance to Chinese chicken salad.
Notwithstanding its saturation with butter and cream, lobster thermidor tasted wonderful -- although a little bit of it would go a long way.
Double Vietnamese coffee, a Southern Asian version of cafe espresso, tasted stronger than tanning acid until they showed us the trick -- dilute with hot water from the little thermos that came with the java. Then it became a coffee easy to love.
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