San Jose Viet Food Adventure: Fun Snacks, Asian Markets and Fresh Tofu

We did something very exciting this week: we drove out of town to San Jose and it was like going on a mini vacation! San Jose is located about 35 miles away from our home, and getting there requires driving up and over the Santa Cruz mountains through the redwoods. The drive was spectacular but I was more excited about the prospect of going to Little Saigon. My mission was to buy groceries and pop into a bakery for snack “research.” 

In before times, I took the Vietnamese community in nearby San Jose for granted. It’s among the largest in America and would always be there when I was in the mood for ingredients or a quick bowl of pho. But since mid-March 2020, when things locked down in the Bay Area, I’d only gone grocery shopping “over the hill” twice.When I did, the trips were short and frankly, manic, given the pandemic circumstances. 

I missed its funk and homey-ness. I also miss the lessons learned as well as the cultural reminders of who I am. Visiting Little Saigon is like going to Vietnam but not. It’s Viet-America, a bicultural experience that’s unique and different from my daily life in the Monterey Bay. 

Now as there’s a glimmer of light and great hope for things to resume to some level of normalcy sooner than later, I’m writing this post with little tips in case you want to do the same. Overseas travel remains complicated but maybe you’ll explore a Little Saigon and/or Chinatown near your home.  

When to Go

If possible, go on a weekday and in the morning or mid afternoon when there’s a lull. You won’t feel rushed or have to hustle for parking. This morning, I arrived at my first stop, a bakery, around 10:15am and it was sleepy. 

Ditto for markets where fewer people means you’ll get better service and can better peruse the inventory. Plus, crowded aisles these days can be awkward. 

Bakery: Dzui’s Cakes and Desserts

I started with snacks because I didn’t want to get crushed in a lunch rush. That’s why I was the only person at Dzui’s, which is tucked into a corner of a mini mall. The cool vibe and outdoor patio area filled with plants reminded me of coffee and bakery spots in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) where lots of young people gather for coffee, boba, and savory and sweet snacks. 

I was interested in Dzui’s banh trang tron (tossed rice paper salad), banh mi muoi ot (salty spicy bread) and baked bao. I’d seen them online and was curious about what’s trendy these days.

Modern Viet Snacks

All the food was done up to be Instagram ready, which I thought was nice. (It photographed oddly pinkish above.) The spicy salty banh mi muoi ot was crunchy (bread), slightly cheesy (a bit of orange-ish cheddar melted in the center), salty shrimpy (pork floss with some ground shrimpy-ness), fatty (fried shallot, scallion oil and mayonnaise). It was a mouthful to eat and made to share with friends. It’s fun food. It would be good with beer (which I didn’t have handy in my car!). 

The rice paper salad is a street food item made of very thin strips of tapioca-based banh trang tossed with chile sauce, a fatty spicy sauce (scallion oil and sweet chile sauce, perhaps), green mango, beef jerky bits, fried shallot, peanuts, boiled quail eggs, rau ram (Vietnamese coriander). Viet food isn’t typically super spicy but this was. I would have loved a beer alongside this. It needs to be eaten immediately or the rice paper gets gummy. I tried it in my car and when I got home a couple hours later.

Dzui’s baked bao turned out to be made of Hokkien/Teochew (Chaozhou, Tieu Chau) flaky pastry filled with savory-sweet ground pork plus a quail egg or salted egg. The topping was scallion oil, or pork floss and scallion oil.

The flaky pastry is the same as what is used in banh pia, pastries made of rich, delicately layered dough containing a sweet or savory filling. If you’re unfamiliar with it, here’s a great history of banh pia from Saigoneer. The bao would have been good with hot tea. 

Fresh Vietnamese Tofu: Alvin An Dong Tofu

A few doors down from the bakery stood a line of people waiting to get into An Dong Tofu Shop, which I’d never been to. Of course, I had to line up to figure out what was up! 

Fresh tofu is tender and flavorful. Viet tofu is usually coagulated with fermented whey from prior batches. The texture tends to be chewy tender (or chewy tender/firm). I got a slab of tofu, lemongrass tofu, and freshly fried tofu made with wood ear and glass noodles. The older ladies in front of me nabbed most of the fried tofu as soon as it appeared so I bought some as well, a very large amount for $3. (The deal at this shop for the to-go food is you tell them how much you want to spend, say $2 or $3 dollars. Then they get the portion for you. Cash only.)

An Dong isn’t swank or accessible (there’s no menu or prices displayed) but I liked the experience. It was a bit like being in Vietnam: I rarely don’t fully know what’s going regarding protocol, but the prices are modest and the food is fresh. Moreover, I supported a small business. Other tofu shops in the area include: Hung Vuong, Thanh Son, and Dong Phuong. 

Vegetable Grandma

Outside the shop, a grandmotherly lady sold a small array of fresh vegetables. Again, I watched the older women in front of me select the choicest chayote. Then a younger woman squatted down to find the nicest bunches of tender mustard greens.

On my way out, I purchased fresh tia to (Viet shiso), rau ram (Viet coriander), and rau tan o (chrysanthemum greens). The woman didn’t grow them she admitted, but her wares turned out to be fresher than what I saw at the Asian market, my last stop.

Grocery Shopping: Lion Foods

This is not my favorite Vietnamese market because it’s dark and claustrophobic. There’s little joy at this market. 

That said, the location on Tully has more Viet ingredients than the swankish one in Saratoga that I usually go to. I was looking for Bamboo Tree rice paper, which some people like as much as Three Ladies and I wanted to try it out. It can be hard to find, but there it was, on an end-cap display. My regular Lion Foods doesn’t have this brand. This location is in the heart of the San Jose Vietnamese community. That explains the range of Maggi Seasoning sauces, including knockoffs from Vietnam (on the far right in the photo at the top). 

I also found a nice range of bun rice noodles in large quantities, and I swooped down on bananas -- creamy baby bananas and chubby chuoi su, the latter is sold at hardcore Viet markets like this Lion Foods. While green papaya (du du xanh) is sold pre-shredded, I prefer to buy the whole fruit and shred it myself for green papaya salads like this one. 

More Asian Market Love

Other Asian markets I frequent include Dai Thanh in San Jose, where the vibe always reminds me of being in Vietnam ) but the parking can be hard. I like Lion Foods in Saratoga because it’s lower-key, brightly lit, and there’s a Mitsuwa Japanese market plus Daiso only five minutes away! 

The parking at H-Mart is killer crowded on the weekends but the market itself is fun, clean and orderly. The inventory is nicely pan-Asian; there’s an India Cash & Carry across the way. Hankook Supermarket in Sunnyvale does not have a pan-Asian inventory but a few doors down is another India Cash & Carry. 

Great snacks abound inside these markets and around them in nearby shops. 

Now that things are relaxing a bit, I hope you’ll go out a bit to check out what’s going on in local Asian communities. I double mask and socially distance and other shoppers do too. 

Outside of California and formal Chinatowns and Little Saigons, I’ve adored checking out C Fresh Market in Des Moines, Hometown in Birmingham, plus Buford Highway Farmer’s Market and Hoa Binh outside of Atlanta. There are many many other Asian markets to venture to and I look forward to them. 

If you have a favorite spots to explore and shop, share them with the rest of us! That way we may support those businesses too.