Rating: 
Summary: Best Vietnamese-Thai
Review: Mai Pham has done it again! I am fortunate to live in Sacramento, and have eaten many wonderful meals at the Lemon Grass Restaurant. Mai combines the best of her native cuisine with the best fresh vegetables and ingredients California has to offer. Her approach to southeastern Asian cuisine is fresh and delicious! Her previous book - "The Best of Vietnamese and Thai Cuisine" - is also a wonderful book. I have a very well-worn volume and expect this new book to join the ranks of my favorites.
Rating: 
Summary: One of the best books.
Review: Mai Pham's "Pleasures of the Vietnamese Table" is one of the best international cookbooks that are available today. Of all those cookbooks pertaining to Vietnamese cuisines, this is the most authentic so far. As a Vietnamese American, living within the spitting distance from Little Saigon (Westminster), I want to learn how to cook such delicate dishes as Bun Bo Hue (Hue spicy noodle) and Banh Beo (Rice cakes).
The recipes are quite easy to follow, contrary to those reviewers who claim that the directions are difficult to comprehend. I did several dishes from this book, such as Pho and Cha Gio (egg roll), they come out all right (not perfect).
I truly sympathize those who do not live near a Vietnamese supermarket. All the ingredients are readily available at most Vietnamese supermarkets (not Chinese, not Japanese, nor Thai, nor Cambodian, and so on). Vietnamese cooking is mostly based on improvisation. That means taste as you go. If you have not tasted some of the dishes that you try to cook, I strongly suggest that you should have some knowledge of those dishes. Be patient! First time never comes out exactly right. As you practice, it will get better.
Finally, I love those narratives of Mai's childhood with Vietnamese foods. Those are precious and rare, especially concerning Vietnamese culture. After all, food is a great part of one's culture.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best books.
Review: Mai Pham's "Pleasures of the Vietnamese Table" is one of the best international cookbooks that are available today. Of all those cookbooks pertaining to Vietnamese cuisines, this is the most authentic so far. As a Vietnamese American, living within the spitting distance from Little Saigon (Westminster), I want to learn how to cook such delicate dishes as Bun Bo Hue (Hue spicy noodle) and Banh Beo (Rice cakes).
The recipes are quite easy to follow, contrary to those reviewers who claim that the directions are difficult to comprehend. I did several dishes from this book, such as Pho and Cha Gio (egg roll), they come out all right (not perfect).
I truly sympathize those who do not live near a Vietnamese supermarket. All the ingredients are readily available at most Vietnamese supermarkets (not Chinese, not Japanese, nor Thai, nor Cambodian, and so on). Vietnamese cooking is mostly based on improvisation. That means taste as you go. If you have not tasted some of the dishes that you try to cook, I strongly suggest that you should have some knowledge of those dishes. Be patient! First time never comes out exactly right. As you practice, it will get better.
Finally, I love those narratives of Mai's childhood with Vietnamese foods. Those are precious and rare, especially concerning Vietnamese culture. After all, food is a great part of one's culture.
Rating:
Summary: I finally found the recipes I have been looking for!
Review: My best friend recently gave me this book for my birthday. As a keen fan of Vietnamese cuisine, I was rather excited and could not wait to try out the recipes. Unfortunately, I was very disappointed after my third attempts. The recipes I tried (seafood stew with lemongrass, beef stew with star anise and basil, and braised duck with pineapple) are mostly strongly-falvored, but did not taste too great. In addition, as indicated by another reviewer, the ingredients are difficult to find. This cookbook lacks the pictures that would help entice one to make the dish. If I wanted to look at photographs of a country, I would result to National Geographic, not in a cookbook. As for most the recipes in this book, I find them to be too extravagant and require too much time. This book is definitely not for me. I am glad I did not buy it.
Rating: 
Summary: This book is not for me!
Review: My best friend recently gave me this book for my birthday. As a keen fan of Vietnamese cuisine, I was rather excited and could not wait to try out the recipes. Unfortunately, I was very disappointed after my third attempts. The recipes I tried (seafood stew with lemongrass, beef stew with star anise and basil, and braised duck with pineapple) are mostly strongly-falvored, but did not taste too great. In addition, as indicated by another reviewer, the ingredients are difficult to find. This cookbook lacks the pictures that would help entice one to make the dish. If I wanted to look at photographs of a country, I would result to National Geographic, not in a cookbook. As for most the recipes in this book, I find them to be too extravagant and require too much time. This book is definitely not for me. I am glad I did not buy it.
Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Book
Review: Pleasure of the Vietnamese Table is a gorgious book, full of color photos of Vietnamse life as well as the mouth-watering recipes.But then, we've all seen beautiful cookbooks which focus too much on illustration and too little on food. Not this one. Delicious, practical recipes; information and tips on ingredients; and instruction on various cooking methods are woven through with the author's personal anecdotes about Vietnam (a story of bringing a wheelchair to her housebound grandmother is particularly touching). The book includes many recipes for dishes popular in Vietnames recipes here in the U.S., as well as more traditional fare. I have made a number of them and they have all been relatively easy to make and tasted delicious. I highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Another success story.
Review: The author left Saigon right before its fall in 1975 and twenty six years later she is an author, a chef, and the owner of the Lemon Grass Restaurant in Sacramento, CA. In this book, she shares with us her ways of cooking Vietnamese foods. Although her recipes appear to be simple and basic for a Vietnamese, they are not always straightforward for an American. What a native might find simple such as rolling an egg roll or preparing "pho" noodle soup could be very confusing for a foreigner. The best way to utilize this book (and any other cookbook) is to learn the basics from a native (Vietnamese in this case) before delving into the cooking of a complex meal.
Rating:
Summary: Educational
Review: The Pleasures of the Vietnamese Table is an educational, touching, well-written book. I was born in Malaysia, grew up in Southern California and had my first bowl of pho in my early twenties. Ever since then, pho and bun (rick sticks with grilled pork) are two of my favorite vietnamese noodle dishes. In this book, Ms. Pham gives an encompassing historical, geographical, culinary background of Vietnamese cuisine. Her personal trips back to Vietnam reminds me so much of my own family in Malaysia. Her visits to special stalls known for only 1-3 famous dishes are like those of Malaysia too. For the reviewers that are "annoyed" by the personal and geographical information should be ashamed. Enjoying different ethnic cooking is much more than relishing the food. It is understanding some history, culture, and influences of the people that have created it. With this book, I have a greater understanding of the regional differences and also some interesting history of how/why pho has a beef broth base. I am disappointed with some of the illustrations in the book. The section on ingredients and especially herbs should be in photos. It was hard to see the differences in the herbs sometimes (although some are similar to Malaysian herbs-we call it by different names and a photo would clarify lots). I am eager to try some recipes that I am hankering for (hard to find a good Vietnamese restaurant in Michigan) and will share what I learn with readers in the future.
Rating:
Summary: Educational
Review: The Pleasures of the Vietnamese Table is an educational, touching, well-written book. I was born in Malaysia, grew up in Southern California and had my first bowl of pho in my early twenties. Ever since then, pho and bun (rick sticks with grilled pork) are two of my favorite vietnamese noodle dishes. In this book, Ms. Pham gives an encompassing historical, geographical, culinary background of Vietnamese cuisine. Her personal trips back to Vietnam reminds me so much of my own family in Malaysia. Her visits to special stalls known for only 1-3 famous dishes are like those of Malaysia too. For the reviewers that are "annoyed" by the personal and geographical information should be ashamed. Enjoying different ethnic cooking is much more than relishing the food. It is understanding some history, culture, and influences of the people that have created it. With this book, I have a greater understanding of the regional differences and also some interesting history of how/why pho has a beef broth base. I am disappointed with some of the illustrations in the book. The section on ingredients and especially herbs should be in photos. It was hard to see the differences in the herbs sometimes (although some are similar to Malaysian herbs-we call it by different names and a photo would clarify lots). I am eager to try some recipes that I am hankering for (hard to find a good Vietnamese restaurant in Michigan) and will share what I learn with readers in the future.
Rating:
Summary: Easy Tasty Recipes!
Review: This book is full of wonderful recipes. They are easy to make and taste just like they would if you ate out at a place that specialized in this cuisine. The Quick Pho recipe is wonderful and way too easy. There is also a wonderful five spice chicken recipe. If you have a dish that you love to eat when eating out at a vietnamese place then it should be in here. I was happy to see all my old favorites in here
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