100 Favorite Dishes, No. 18: Vermicelli Bowls at Dong Que

Leading up to September's Best of Dallas® 2017 issue, we're sharing (in no particular order) our 100 Favorite Dishes, the Dallas entrées, appetizers and desserts that really stuck with us this year. Look at that picture. Now doesn’t that look like a perfect balanced meal? Because the vermicelli bowls at...

By Brian Reinhart

September 16, 2017

A vermicelli bowl at Dong Que, under a shower of herbs and a crisply fried spring roll, makes a satisfying one-bowl meal. Brian Reinhart

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Leading up to September's Best of Dallas® 2017 issue, we're sharing (in no particular order) our 100 Favorite Dishes, the Dallas entrées, appetizers and desserts that really stuck with us this year.

Look at that picture. Now doesn’t that look like a perfect balanced meal? Because the vermicelli bowls at Dong Que absolutely are. A shower of herbs and scallions; carrot and cucumber slaw; a layer of tender beef; some crumbled peanuts — buried underneath all of it, a bowl of tender, slurpable noodles. It’s a satisfying one-bowl meal capped by a tiny spring roll that’s crisply fried, the wrapping shattering between your teeth.

I’ll never forget ordering this vermicelli bowl because it was Inauguration Day, and when my friend and I walked into Dong Que, the only white people in the place, the owners changed the TV channel from Vietnamese television to live coverage of the new president. It was exactly what we didn’t want. The noodle bowl, on the other hand, felt exactly right.

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Brian Reinhart has been the Dallas Observer's food critic since spring 2016. In addition, he writes baseball analysis for the Hardball Times and covers classical music for the Observer and MusicWeb International.

Contact: Brian Reinhart

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Twitter: @bgreinhart