This is one of the more "regular" restaurants that I find myself going back to. As much as I like it, J.S. seems to think I like it too much and eat too much of it. But the last time we (or I) ate there was last December, which is nearly a quarter ago! He is still under the perception that we are always eating there. He must be eating Vietnamese food every day in his dreams *slurps*.
Gold Train Express II is the full name of the restaurant, and it's quite a bizarre and unconventional name for a Vietnamese restaurant. I think of gold bars and bullet trains when I hear it. But you can't judge a restaurant by its name right? I first discovered this place when I was still studying at UBC, where my friends liked to go to eat on occasional Friday evenings. I rarely ate out when I was in school because it was so expensive, but this is an affordable place with everything priced around $6 to $8.
They have two branches, one on West 10th and Sasamat, and the other one is at West Broadway and Blenheim. I have been to both several times and I find that the Sasamat branch serves bigger portions as it is situated closer to the university and caters more to students who are always looking for a tasty, inexpensive meal. The Blenheim branch is a little larger in physical size and is usually less crowded.
Last night, we went to the Sasamat branch for our Friday night dinner. It was almost full but we did not have to wait. There are numerous TV screens dotted around the restaurant, each showing different channels. It is a casual dining atmosphere and most of the crowd are university students.
The Sasamat branch is a tight little space with only 2 servers running the table orders. The waitress today looked different, and so did the food, which led us to thinking if the owner/manager had changed. Let's find out!
Usually I order the rice and J.S. orders the vermicelli, but today somehow we switched brains and he ordered the fried rice with lemongrass chicken, while I got the beef/pork vermicelli with spring roll.
It doesn't look very big but it really is larger than you think. The vermicelli is hiding under the mountain of fried onions, spring onions, pork strips, beef slices, pickled vegetables and the spring roll.
The pork strips have a very interesting texture, something between regular pork and spam (a.k.a luncheon meat). The beef was in small, thin slices but they were very dry and tough to chew. The spring roll was crispy on the outside with lots of filling of meat and vegetables on the inside. I'm sorry I did not take a picture of the vermicelli, but it was rather bland at first. There were also pickled vegetables in the mix.
The dish is meant to be eaten lukewarm/cold, and they usually provide their special dipping sauce for you to pour it over your dish. Today, there was no dipping sauce on the side and it turned out to be at the very bottom of the bowl. I was eating tasteless vermicelli for a while until I discovered the sauce at the bottom. Oops, my bad.
The pickled vegetables usually consist of short, julienned radish, cucumber and carrot. Today they were extremely long mounds of radish and cucumber. The carrot was missing, clearly indicated that the owner of the restaurant was no longer the same as before. The dipping sauce and the spring roll interior also tasted slightly different, but still good. I enjoyed it very much, as I usually do.
And on to the fried rice with lemongrass chicken. Two whole boneless chicken thighs/breasts steaks with a huge mountain of rice and a generous helping of pickled vegetable. here in this picture you can see how the vegetables looks like. It looks more like a serving of spaghetti than a delicate side dish.
The fried rice was merely more spring onions and white rice fried with soy sauce, not typical Chinese fried rice with eggs and other vegetables. The chicken is grilled and tastes nothing like lemongrass. That's how it is -- I dislike the aroma of lemongrass but I taste no lemongrass in their chicken. It is their unique way of cooking that brings customers back for more. Again, I was disappointed by the missing familiar little dish of dipping sauce. But very good bang for your buck, especially if you are a meat lover!
Since this is such a casual dining spot, service is definitely not top-notch like what you get in fancy restaurants. When they see that you are halfway into your meal, they bring you a dish with a slice of orange and a fortune cookie for each guest. That may seem like an indirect way to hurry customers to finish their meals, but it is almost like a fast-food joint and they do not expect people to linger on for long chats. Just a warning for those who are planning on sitting there for post-meal conversations.
The bill came to $16.80 including taxes, and the portions were so large we had to take some of it home. If we had finished it, we would be bursting at the seams so we decided not to. Definitely a good place to go if you are looking for something filling, affordable and FAST! They are popular for takeout too!
They are also more well known for their Pho noodle soups -- the Vietnamese national dish -- a large steaming bowl of warm rice noodle soup with beef, in 3 sizes (small, large, extra large) for different stomach capacities. Delicious as well! I just prefer their rice dishes as I am less of a noodle person.
Time to visit the Blenheim branch in the near future, to see if anything has changed over there too! I really prefer their original taste, especially the dipping sauce and the pickled vegetables!
Gold Train Express II (Sasamat) is located at 4530 West 10th Ave, Vancouver, B.C.
P.S. - Trusty Google tells me there are other branches around Vancouver too, which does not surprise me. I just happen to know of these two branches around my vicinity :)
♥ Nikki
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