Rating: 
Summary: Great book but the recipes are not optimized
Review: This is a complete book with color pictures of beatifully prepared dishes. For non-vietnameses, you can find popular dishes like Hanoi soup, crab egg rolls, shrimp rolls, and the 7 courses of beef (with her modifications to adapt with the available ingredients from the supermarkets). For vietnameses, you can find the recipes for common meals like ca kho, canh chua, etc...The only dish missing here is the noodle soup from Hue (bun bo hue).Nicole Routhier was trained from the Culinary Institute of America, so her intructions are meticulous, elegant and easy to follow. Her instructions are two to three times longer than those found in typical cook books. She is obviously a talent chef who has grown up in vietnam and is familiar with the foods. However this book was written back in 1985-1989, so the taste is very strong with fish sauce and salt. My recommendation is to buy the book because it is cover all of the basics like techniques and ingredients. Except for the dipping sauce, you have to play around the amount of the fish sauce and salt used in seasoning. I usually cut down the amount called out in the recipes to 1/4 or none at all. If not, you will be intoxicated with fish sauce.
Rating: 
Summary: Keeping the Culture Alive
Review: When this book came out, I purchased 7 cookbooks as future gifts for my brothers and sisters (afraid of it being out of print one day). This book is very authentic and definitely good for the cooks of all cultures and ages. Younger vietnamese who struggle (like me) to read those rare cookbooks written in vietnamese, will love this book, for it is written in english, and just like what momma makes. Definitely authentic and an heirloom! I hope Nicole Routhier writes another book with more recipies - someone needs to archive all the great vietnamese recipies so I can pass them on to future generations!
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