Quan Hy's Xoi Ga - Westminster
Xoi Ga is sticky rice with chicken, a Vietnamese street dish that, if I wanted to oversimplify, closely mirrors Hainan chicken--boiled or steamed hen presented in pieces over rice. And that's what I was expecting when a friend ordered it at Quan Hy one night.
But what the menu described it as and what it actually was are entirely different. Quan Hy's Xoi Ga ($9.50) is far and away better than the words on the menu make it out to be. Contrary to the description, the chicken isn't so much "shredded" as it is compressed and fried--fried to be one of the most delectable pieces of poultry I've had in recent memory.
To look at it is to marvel its inception.
In its uniform flatness is a shape as sleek as an iPhone. An entire, intact chicken thigh is squeezed into this compact frame like a contortionist. The flavor is concentrated through and through, an aromatic marinade that tastes as familiar as what is used in traditional Vietnamese fried chicken called ga chien.
What's more, the meat is well-cooked, crisped to dark brown on the edges exposed to oil, moist everywhere else. The rendered skin crackles, slit like gills at strategic locations on the patty so that it stays attached during cooking.
Equal to the wondrous discovery of the chicken is the reinterpretation of the sweet rice. Formed into rectangular spears and also deep-fried, the eyes expect either a tater tot and a French toast stick. However, the mouth experiences something even better: it has an oily, Rice Krispy-like crunch leading to a soft, rice-pudding-like center, an ooey-gooey substance that absorbs the sweetened soy dipping sauce like a sponge.
The lesson from all this? Like all Little Saigon's restaurants, Quan Hy's menu descriptions undersell what it actually offers. After all, does "steamed rice-cakes with shredded shrimp" even begin to represent the miracle of their banh beo, their most popular Hue dish?
Quan Hy Restaurant
9727 Bolsa Ave
Westminster, CA 92683
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