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Rockin' Roll is Better at a Dive

To find the absolute best in Asian food in Southern California, one rarely ventures to the chic, contemporary fusion restaurant in the corner of a fashionable shopping mall or the neon-studded take-out place proclaiming its authenticity boldly on the signage. No, for the real, authentic, no-frills good eats of Asia, you have to venture outside your comfort zone, really weave yourself into the grimy fabric of our cities, and find hidden treasures where you’d least expect them. For instance, an unassuming business park on Valley Blvd in San Gabriel hides Lu Din Gee, an establishment offering crisp, golden-skinned peking duck unlikely to find a suitable rival outside Beijing. Shady used car dealerships and tacky furniture shops almost suffocate the tiny storefront of Yabu, a Japanese restaurant on Pico & Bundy making fresh soba noodles in the traditional method that are nutty, chewy, and showcase all the subtleties lost in the packaged stuff. A tiny, red brick building on Olympic Blvd, devoid of any English lettering or building numbers, houses Ma San, a mecca for Korean seafood lovers and the only place in Los Angeles where you can enjoy a live octopus dinner that fights back.

Brodard is just this type of place. Situated behind a 99 Cent Only store on Westminster Blvd in Garden Grove in the empty lot used as a shipping dock for shops in the front, Brodard is the epitome of hole-in-the-wall. The main road in cuts through a small neighborhood of ranch houses before leading you through a pothole obstacle course. (Sports cars beware!) The building doesn’t actually have the Brodard name on it, only a dingy maroon awning with the letters BR and the restaurant’s main attraction, “Nem Nuong”, written above. The interior is just what you’d expect. Cheap faux-granite tables and vinyl covered chairs, no doubt sourced at a bargain from the local restaurant supply, in a dingy room accented only by the tacky, excessively gaudy wall décor of gold and red that Asians seem to love so much. But forget the atmosphere. If you were looking for ambience and convenience, you could’ve saved you car’s suspension from all that strain and driven to Cheesecake Factory for their wonderfully bland “Vietnamese” Shrimp Summer Rolls, right? We’re here for the food.

Although known for their Nem Nuong, like many Vietnamese restaurants, Brodard has a rather large menu. One item you won’t find, though, is Pho, the ever popular beef noodle soup with hundreds of numbered restaurants dedicated to it throughout SoCal. This, for me, is a very good thing. With so many other restaurants devoted to Pho, it’s refreshing to see that they want to separate themselves from the pack and be known for more than the old standard. What they do have are noodle dishes like the Bun Bo Hue, a rich fragrant soup smelling of slowly simmered pork, lemongrass, lime, and mint. It comes with luxuriously gelatinous chunks of slowly braised pork hock, beef brisket, tendon, and pork blood pudding on top of thick tubular rice noodles. It is sour, spicy, savory, and intensely aromatic, showing culinary influences from nearby Thailand and its popular Tom Yum Goon.

Another specialty is Banh Xeo, a very traditional dish rarely seen on restaurant menus, and Brodard does it better than anyone. A stir fry of succulent shrimp, crunchy bean sprouts, and slivered onions is wrapped in a huge half-moon rice flour and coconut milk crepe. The crepe is pan-fried until golden brown and crispy, and the coconut milk's richness perfumes the whole dish. It’s served with piles of lettuce leaves, mint, red shizo, pickled turnips, and a bowl of Nuoc Cham, a sauce of garlic, chilies, sugar, vinegar, and fish sauce used on everything from egg rolls to rice. The proper delivery system is to cut off a piece of the stuffed crepe, put it on a lettuce leaf, add whatever extras you like, and dip the entire device in nuoc cham before shoving it into your mouth. Crunchy, crispy, and tender; Sour, sweet, savory and fragrant… The tastes and textures attack from all sides, but all in perfect balance, which is exactly the time-tested food philosophy of Southeast Asia.

Brodard’s menu is not without its misses though. The platters of broken rice and grilled meats known as Com Tam are decent, but lack the magic achieved by places like Com Tam Thuan Kieu down the street. Most of the noodle soups are outshined by their counterparts at Thanh My a few blocks over on Brodard Ave. Their Banh Mi, the baguette and deli meat sandwiches made famous by the Lee’s Sandwiches chain, are also better left to the experts. This fact is a small reminder of the road-side stalls in Asia where many of these recipes originated. Vendors made one item and nothing else, but their one specialty was mindblowingly, out-of-this-world delicious.

This holds especially true for Brodard. Nem Nuong are pork meatballs made from finely ground pork paste marinated in garlic, fish sauce, and honey, grilled to a dark char over hot coals. They are served in rolls known as Nem Noung Cuon, wrapped in sheets of thin rice paper that look like frosted glass. Inside, accompanying the meatballs, are shredded leaf lettuce, julienne carrots, mint leaves, and a thin fried eggroll. The mini-eggroll adds an amazing crunch in the center of a texture profile that includes chewy rice wrapper, tender meatballs, and crispy vegetables. The Nem Nuong Cuon eaten on its own is already worth the drive, but the real magic comes in the small bowl of dipping sauce that accompanies it. The sauce is treated like a real industry secret. The owners make it at home everyday and bring the finished sauce in large vats, for fear that unscrupulous employees will reveal its secrets to competitors, and for good reason. The sauce is a viscous, glossy, orange liquid, deeply fragrant and intensely flavored. Some customers rumor that it’s made with over fifty ingredients. Others speculate that there are illegal substances added to create life-long addiction. Only the owners know for sure, but ground pork, ground shrimp, and chili paste are visible in the mix. I wouldn’t even dare to describe its flavor here because words can’t really do justice to that level of alchemy. All I know is, I can’t stop dipping the rolls in it, and when the rolls are gone and the crowds aren’t looking, I like to bring the magic potion to my lips and slurp in the deliciousness straight-up. Pure and utter bliss.

If you live in Southern California and find this sort of Asian culinary elation still eluding you because you’ve been spending too much of your time and hard-earned money eating Sweet & Sour Pork at P.F. Chang’s or boxes of Orange Chicken & Chow Mein at Panda Express, maybe it’s time to stray away from the brightly lit boulevards and expand your gastronomic geography a little. If it’s true indulgence, real ecstasy you seek, then travel outside your comfort zone, traverse a few dark alleyways, and get a little lost. Inside a dirty, little hole in the wall, you may just uncover a real gem like Brodard, waiting to offer food that will send your palate to new heights and deliver you from mediocrity.

Brodard
9892 Westminster Ave.
Garden Grove, CA 92844
(714)-530-1744

Open 8AM-9PM
Closed Tuesdays