Great Vietnamese fusion at a west end brewery

• Name + address: Le’s Fusion Kitchen, 2265 Robertson Rd.

• Type of food: Vietnamese Thai

• Appetizers:$6.50-$10

• Mains: $11-$15.50

• Diet: Meat, seafood, some vegetarian options

• Wheelchair accessibility: Not in winter. Yes, in summer

• LCBO Licensed: Yes

• Website: Le’s Fusion Kitchen

During my visits to Kichesippi I noticed the modest menu on offer in the taproom and became curious about the Banh Mi sandwiches and spring rolls.

Dung Le (pronounced Yung Lee) came to Ottawa with the majority of his family when Mayor Marion Dewar welcomed Vietnamese “boat people” to the city in the late seventies. Mayor Dewar may have been guided by humanitarian principles but it was also a visionary act. To this day Ottawa benefits greatly from the presence of our Vietnamese brothers and sisters.

Sharing traditional cuisine in their new homeland became the way that many immigrants integrated and Ottawans learned about other societies, their languages, religions and traditions. The fastest shortcut to such an education turned out to be through food. Everybody needs to eat and at the table we tell stories and those stories are human stories.

Mr. Le has a number of stories to tell and when you hear them it’s enough to rattle you into a new consciousness.

Four years after arriving, Dung’s mother opened Ottawa’s first Vietnamese restaurant Miss Saigon on Booth St in 1982. Years later he and his mother opened Quê Hùóng on Somerset Street W. and to this day others in his family are active in the food business. His brother, for example, still cooks at Pho Kam Long on Rivergate Way.

So I started with his spring rolls. I admit I’ve seldom seen such a perfectly constructed roll. I suggested he must have had training rolling cigars but it turns out they were made by his wife. Those who’ve read my take on spring rolls, know that I consider the vietnamese spring rolls at Saigon Boy to be Ottawa’s best example. Le’s Fusion Kitchen rolls are every bit as good.

He then came out proudly proffering one of his signature dishes: Thai beef rice paper rolls. A Thai chef friend gave him the recipe and the beef is so delicious that it appears in a variety of incarnations. If you go, I can strongly recommend these especially since the dipping sauce is so very good.

Also worth trying, albeit less traditional, are the Banh Mi sandwiches. Here the ingredients are stuffed into a mini-baguette. On my visits the bread has always been fresh but the bread is narrow and it has a density that doesn’t allow for the ingredients to stay put. A Banh Mi bun needs a certain width and softness to allow for the bread to fully lock the ingredients in place so they don’t shoot out from all sides.

These are very appealing sandwiches but this was the wrong bread to make for care-free eating.

I have yet to try the vermicelli bowls but I know there will be other visits.

Suggested stories

• Foodicle has a quick history of the Banh Mi sandwich.