For nearly four decades, New Saigon, a now-closed family restaurant on South Federal Boulevard, was where Coloradans got their first taste of Vietnamese food. For many, the experience began by clumsily dipping a sheet of rice paper into water, piling on beef or shrimp paste, mint or cilantro, and then rolling it all together into what they hoped was the perfect bite.
Building Vietnamese spring rolls at the table in this way can be an icebreaker, whether it’s on a date or with out-of-town in-laws. It’s also fun for both kids and adults, and every person at the table can customize each roll to their taste by picking different ingredients off the platter.
“Someone might make a really nice roll and someone else could make an ugly one, and it’s funny, and you can talk about that at the table,” explained An Nguyen, whose parents, Ha Pham and Thai Nguyen, ran New Saigon from 1987 until they sold it in 2017. (An’s sister Thu Nguyen still runs New Saigon Bakery next door, selling banh mi sandwiches and pastries.)
Spring rolls at Dan Da in Aurora, Colorado on Thursday, June 27, 2024. The signature Dan Da tower comes with an assortment of options including pork, chicken, beef, shrimp and soft-shell crab. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)
Spring rolls at Dan Da in Aurora, Colorado on Thursday, June 27, 2024. The signature Dan Da tower comes with an assortment of options including pork, chicken, beef, shrimp and soft-shell crab. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)
Sue Yang (left) and Linda Vang eat a tower of spring rolls at Dan Da in Aurora, Colorado on Thursday, June 27, 2024. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)
Spring rolls at Dan Da in Aurora, Colorado on Thursday, June 27, 2024. The signature Dan Da tower comes with an assortment of options including pork, chicken, beef, shrimp and soft-shell crab. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)
Owner An Nguyen serves a tower of spring roll fixings at Dan Da in Aurora, Colorado on Thursday, June 27, 2024. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)
Owner An Nguyen dips rice paper before making a spring roll at Dan Da in Aurora, Colorado on Thursday, June 27, 2024. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)
A variety of spring rolls at Dan Da in Aurora, Colorado on Thursday, June 27, 2024. The signature Dan Da tower comes with an assortment of options including pork, chicken, beef, shrimp and soft-shell crab. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)
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Spring rolls at Dan Da in Aurora, Colorado on Thursday, June 27, 2024. The signature Dan Da tower comes with an assortment of options including pork, chicken, beef, shrimp and soft-shell crab. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)
In the end, though, it always comes down to that “perfect bite,” she said. “You are always searching for one that encompasses all of the flavors, all of the textures.”
In April, An and another of her four sisters, Thao, along with their husbands, opened Dân Dã, at 9945 E. Colfax Ave. in Aurora, serving rustic Vietnamese dishes with some modern twists. It is actually An’s second restaurant (her first, Savory Vietnam, closed in December 2023), and there was no way that the familiar do-it-yourself spring rolls wouldn’t be on the menu.
Especially since the three generations of Coloradans who grew up eating spring rolls and dozens of other dishes at New Saigon, 630 S. Federal Blvd. – where An learned every detail of how to cook from her mother – were left wondering where else they could find them.
“This is comfort food now. Maybe not 30 years ago, but it is now,” she said.
In truth, most Vietnamese restaurants – even those that previously specialized in other dishes, like pho – now offer some form of build-your-own spring rolls, An said. But it wasn’t always that way, When An’s parents moved here as refugees from the war, almost no one was familiar with Vietnamese food, and they had trouble finding the ingredients to make dishes from back home.
But her mother wasn’t a fan of fusion or substituting local ingredients, An said, “She made sure we knew what real Vietnamese food was. What they had there, they brought over here.”
At Viet’s Restaurant, owner Hiep Thai, who has been serving spring rolls for many years, did the same. Thai moved to the U.S. in 1990 from southern Vietnam, where his family was also in the restaurant business, and he said the concept of spring rolls is intrinsic to Vietnamese cuisine.
“It’s very traditional,” he said, adding that a benefit of ordering spring rolls in a restaurant instead of making them in your own kitchen is that you can get more variety on a single platter. “The combo is really hard to make at home” – and more expensive, Thai pointed out.
“If a new customer doesn’t know how to roll, we show them. So, the next time, they are excited,” Thai said, something that is true of people of all backgrounds. “At first, [the rolls] look really funny,” so to make a good one, you have to be patient. “If you are patient, it won’t be messy.”
Other restaurants that serve them in the metro area include Saigon Bowl, located with Viet’s in the Far East Center at 333 S. Federal; Golden Saigon, at 648 S. Parker Road in Aurora; Saigon Bistro, at 12303 E. Mississippi Ave. in Aurora; and Pho 95, with two metro locations.
Gỏi cuốn, which translates to spring rolls, or “salad wraps,” take their name from the fresh vegetables that are used to pack them with flavor. Unlike fried egg rolls or other kinds of spring rolls, they are served fresh rather than fried – and are nearly translucent.
“Vietnam is always about the rice fields,” An said. “So, this is just a different way to eat rice. And since herbs are so abundant, you can consume them this way instead of in a salad.”
At Dân Dã, the ingredients for make-your-own spring rolls are served on a three-tiered tower, and the rice paper is presented dry and stacked sideways in a plastic container. To make a spring roll, you carefully extract a sheet of rice paper, gently dip it in a bowl of warm water, set it on your plate and then layer on whatever fillings you want from the tower.
In addition to the ingredients listed above, that could be vermicelli noodles, chicken, basil, pork sausage, perilla leaves, daikon radish, bean sprouts, lemongrass, tofu, salmon or softshell crab.
Once that part is complete, you roll it up and fold over the sticky ends. Then you dip it in any number of sauces, including peanut, hoisin, fish, chili, anchovy or bean curd.
“That is what is so beautiful about Vietnamese food,” An said. “That variety. Everyone can make it exactly how they want it.”
No one knows that better than the Nguyen sisters, who grew up making and eating spring rolls at home, often using thin strips of beef and butter over a griddle and several dips. “It was our family’s favorite dish, and everybody would get super excited,” An recalled.
These days, their tastes range from beef or fried shrimp paste to sriracha sauce, lemongrass or fermented fish sauce. Both An and Thao prefer to leave out the vermicelli noodles.
To create that “perfect bite,” An said, don’t overfill the rice paper, and it’s important not to roll it too loosely. “It needs to be taught. It needs to have that snap, like a hot dog.” Proportions are also important, and a mix of textures, “so that when you take a bite, it encapsulates them all.”
Originally Published: August 8, 2024 at 6:00 a.m.
