Ha Long Bay is a wonderful Vietnamese specialty restaurant in Madison where you can take a large diverse group to dine and yet everyone will be satisfied. Ha Long Bay is in the hip willy street neighborhood and features a vast menu of vietnamese, thai and Laotian dishes with quite a few selections for vegetarians. The place is almost always crowded which is the sign of a good eatery. Although this has been the case the food never misses the standards we have come to expect and hence it is worth the wait.
There is quite a sprinkling of vietnamese, thai and Laotian restaurants in Madison. And there are many things which are featured in all the menus in Madison. Hence when at Ha Long Bay we tend to order dishes which we feel are done exceptionally well at Ha Long Bay or are not that easy to find in restaurants close to home and sometimes are not found in such category restaurants around US.
The ordering game for us here is rigged because both our minds are already fixated on the dessert which we are unwilling to share with each other. This normally results in us ordering from the small plates or appetizer menus at Ha Long Bay. However, this is not such a bad thing because this has quite a few treasures for us.
The curry puffs are triangular pouches of spring-roll wrappers filled with a sauteed filling of potatoes, spinach, onions and carrots which are lightly flavored with curry powder. They are not very hot and the flavor of turmeric dominates. The wrapping is crispy and golden and tastes of fried caramelization and the sweet chilli sauce on the said is an apt dipping sauce.
The vegetable fresh spring roll wrappers are a treat with aromatic and flavor packed cilantro and mint refreshing your taste-buds. These are fresh springrolls and are made with the soaked rice paper so are not fried. The rice paper stretches as it is filled with tofu, vermicelli noodles and the crunchy bean sprouts. when you bite in the bulging spring roll there is a explosion of flavor from the fresh green duo of cilantro and mint. Then when you dip the roll in the soy, peanut and sweet chilli flavored sauce the rice paper soaks it and you get a sweet sour salty flavors mixed with the tofu and the crunch of moong beans.
The chicken satay is done very well at Ha Long Bay and has the deliciously nutty peanut marinade and the meat is cooked to be tender that pulls apart easily from the satay sticks. The side of cucumber and carrot salad with crushed peanuts is also a treat withing itself and is dressed with vinegar. This can be ordered separately on its own as a salad at Ha Long Bay and we sometimes do just that.
Seasoning and balancing clear soups is an art. At Ha Long Bay they have two versions which are vegeterian to boot and are just absolutely delicious and perfectly balanced. The stock is rich and flavorful for both of these. The first one is a simple tofu soup where the tofu is silky and delicate and is contrasted by the brightly red tomatoes which also bring some acidity.
The vegetable soup has a bunch of lovely sliced, chopped and diced cuts of fresh vegetables like celery, broccoli, carrot, mushroom, pea-pods. there is also julienned ginger which flavors the broth and it warms the throat as you sip it and is something you absolutely enjoy when you have just walked in from the polar vortex colds Madison sees in winters. The pots that Ha long bay serves these in are earthen beauties and for me add a charm while sipping my soup.
This along-with the other side dishes usually gets us full up to the point that we can each down a plate of our favorite dessert here. Granted this is not to everyone’s taste because some of our friends wont touch it and some don’t feel the same passion for it like we do. But we do love our coconut sticky rice with mango at Ha Long bay. I will have to find it out some day but i suspect i would love it more than the one i would have in Vietnam. The reason being this is done very simply with crisp clean flavors with just a hint of sweetness. The sweetness comes from the coconut milk used which is lightly caramelized along with the starchy sugars from the cooked sticky rice. There is just a hint of coconut and just a hint of sugar which leaves you mystified and going back for the next bite. The bright yellow chunks of mango really perks the dish up and the difference in sweetness or tartness of every chunk of mango keeps you interested for more. The sticky rice is more chewy while the mango yields and melts quickly. This to us is a simple playful dessert with sweet, creamy and sour flavors with chewy and fruity textures.
We urge you to try the coconut sticky rice with mango here and granted it might be new and different experience which you might not like as much as you do, but then you would have tried something new for your taste buds. Other than that there is enough deliciousness on the menus to not let anyone go hungry.
