Boun's menu a mixed bag with some standout dishes

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Boun Sayavong (left), son Jimmie and wife Khamphoy with selection of dishes.

The reason for the move remains a mystery. I never could find out why the former owners of Vientiane moved, especially since they didn't go very far, just down to the other end of the little strip mall. They have a new name too -- Boun's, obviously necessary since Vientiane still exists at the other end of the mall, under new ownership, but still serving Laotian-Thai food. It's a possible source of confusion.

Although the decor is almost as simple in this new location, it is softened by a few pretty artifacts on the walls, and the half-wall that divides the room down the centre makes for a cosier feeling. The whittled-down menu offers a mixed bag of Asian dishes -- Laotian, Thai and Vietnamese still, but in limited numbers -- plus a few Chinese dishes. One thing hasn't changed though; prices remain modest, with $11.95 tops.

The cool summer rolls are an ideal summer starter -- soft, fresh and dewy, plump with shrimp, pork, lettuce, flecks of cilantro and not too much rice vermicelli. They come with a particularly light version of the tangy nuoc cham dipping sauce, so good I could drink it on its own. Spring rolls, on the other hand -- stuffed, minimally, with minced chicken -- yielded a satisfying crunch, but nothing more.

Of course there is a pho on the menu -- one only, with meat slices and meat balls -- but I couldn't resist opting for a soup held over from the past incarnation, which is listed simply as Laotian chicken noodle, but which I remembered as tom kao peak -- a fragrant, delicate broth crammed with seductively soft house-made rice noodles and slices of white meat chicken. It is rivalled by the Chinese fish maw soup, a silky and only slightly garlicky broth; the fish maw doesn't taste in the least strange, and the streaks of pollack/crabmeat come in such teensy bits their sweetness isn't intrusive.

The barbecued beef short ribs are a must -- sliced thin across the bone, slightly charred, pleasantly chewy and wonderfully flavoured by a slightly sweet garlic and soy sauce marinade (other similarly prepared barbecues are skewered shrimp, pork ribs and boneless short ribs). They come on their own, ungarnished, which I preferred to the perfunctory version of the do-it-yourself rice paper wrap, which offers a skimpy number of similarly seasoned boneless beef slices, along with lettuce and fillers of unmarinated shreds of carrot and cucumber, bean sprouts and no cilantro, basil or mint whatever.

The only curries on the menu are yellow (no red, no green), and when it comes to spicing I'd suggest that three degrees of heat (out of ten) would be quite enough for most palates -- I suspect anything over four might challenge even some fire-eaters. I know that three was perfect for a marvellous yellow curry of stir-fried beef with potatoes, the kind known to some of us as matsuman. The meat was tender, the sauce simultaneously creamy with coconut milk and nippy, with bits of crunch added by roasted peanuts.

Another good entree was ginger fish, i.e. a fillet of crisply deep-fried basa, sprinkled with ginger and green onions and splashed with soy sauce.

Shrimp with lemongrass tasted like an unsuccessful fusion of Chinese and Vietnamese. The shrimp were excellent, but the dish was overloaded with that standard mixture of chunky veggies (mostly broccoli, cauliflower and carrots) and was drowned in a salty brown sauce that was dark, spicy and overwhelming, with little, if any taste of lemongrass.

If we had read the menu more carefully we would have realized that, in order to have our usual strips of pork in the Shanghai noodles, we would have had to specify. But the vegetable only version we ended up with was exemplary -- thick, chewy, fresh noodles, streaked with cabbage, bean sprouts and red peppers, and beautifully seasoned with just the right amount of hoisin sauce, and an underlying kick of chili.

Breaded wee spare ribs tasted pretty much like standard Chinese take-out ribs, but were at least edible. Not, however, another noodle dish, which is listed simply as thin rice noodles with vegetables -- a gluey mass that tasted oddly sweet, and of nothing else. And a stir-fry of thin-sliced mushrooms (which actually tasted more boiled than stir-fried) that seemed to have been simply tossed over bland pieces of chicken was a flavourless disgrace, its only signs of life an occasional basil leaf.

Bubble tea (if made with one of the fruit juices, not a powder) doubles as a cool, satisfying dessert. Service is genial, helpful and attentive.

marion.warhaft@freepress.mb.ca

Boun's

208 Marion St., 231-3005

Licensed

Wheelchair access

3 1/2 stars out of 5

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 23, 2010 D3