Starting off the day with 7 courses at La Pagode...

One morning after picking up my sister from the airport, I got ambitious and decided that today would be the day we order the house special 7 dishes of beef, or Bò 7 Món ($38), at La Pagode on the west side. I've visited the vietnamese restaurant numerous times, mostly sticking to the usual pho, vermicelli bowl, or stir-fry combo if I really wanted to change things up. This time, I let my stomach do the thinking and felt it was the right thing to do. Don't let the description fool you. Even though it's listed that the special is for two people, there's actually enough to maybe feed up to four. From what I've seen, La Pagode is the only vietnamese restaurant besides Pagolac that offers Bò 7 Món on their menu. They're prepared almost the same way at both restaurants and I remember that it was very tasty at Pagolac.

Nuoc Cham dipping sauce consisted of fish sauce, vinegar, sugar, water and grated carrots. Eating spring rolls, salad rolls, and grilled meat vermicelli just wouldn't be the same without this MVP.

I couldn't go to a vietnamese restaurant and not order spring rolls ($6), especially at La Pagode. Their spring rolls, I found, are bigger, crispier and packed with meat filling than most places. I usually enjoy them but the one problem I have with them here is that I found a few times that they have arrived overcooked, and this was another occasion. After fashioning them with some veggies, and dunking them in Nuoc Cham sauce, they were still doable.

The first beef dish to arrive is fondue/hot pot style called Bò nhúng dấm. A plate of thinly sliced raw beef is meant to be cooked in a pot of aromatic lemongrass and vinegar broth. This fondue/hot pot method allows you to control the doneness of the beef while the lemongrass and vinegar add fragrance and flavour to the beef. My sister was wondering if she could drink the soup after but she was warned that it will be very sour since it is mostly vinegar.

Uncooked rice paper and a bowl of warm water to dip them into, with a plate of vermicelli noodles. I find it somewhat a hassle since mine usually ends up sticking together, and would prefer them arriving already cooked and separated like at Hoang Long's (or better yet, someone wrap it for me! HA!)...

My massive DIY beef salad roll. Basically, we would put anything that arrived and assemble them into giant delicious salad rolls. This was one out of at least ten that I made for myself.

The second dish was Bo Luc Lac, a stir-fry of cubed beef tenderloin with mushroom, onion, and green pepper. It's probably my favourite one since the beef is really tender and I've always liked the flavours of the stir-fry at La Pagode.

The third dish arrived with three variations of grilled beef. The first piece is called Bò lá lốt, a ground beef sausage wrapped with la lop leaf. The middle pice is called bò nuớng mỡ chàia, beef sausages wrapped by a fatty membrane casing, which was still visible on the outside. The last piece is Bò nướng hành, which was grilled beef slices wrapped around a piece of onion. They all tasted okay, maybe a little bit dry. After comparing them to a vietnamese place in Thailand, these just didn't come close.

The last 2 dishes were my least favourite. Bò chả đùm is made of seasoned steamed ground beef patty mixed with vermicelli, garlic and onions. It was meant to be served with rice crackers, but none was presented. After trying it a few times, I'm not really a big fan of the texture of this dish.

Finally the last dish, the beef congee made with beef broth made its way to the table. Nonetheless, it was rather tasteless and even salt wouldn't be able to save it. I prefer Thai or Chinese style congee over this and, despite the freezing weather, I still couldn't pretend to enjoy it.

After we stuffed our bellies, I felt like we were not as satisfied with the 7 dishes as we had imagined. The dining experience ended off with a sour note when I saw an extra "salad tray" being charged on the bill. We had run out of lettuce and asked for a few more pieces of lettuce, and were charged for a whole thing. Seriously? if you were going to charge me for the whole tray then the least you could do is bring me that other salad tray you charged me for!

The verdict: The meal took a while to assemble and complete, so unless you're really hungry and want to try something new, stick to the regular pho and vermicelli bowls. I'm still a fan of their stir-frys.

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