Brodard Restaurant - Los Angeles

If you're from California and have any ties to the Vietnamese community, you will surely have heard of Brodard Restaurant. They're famous for one thing, the spring rolls with the orange dipping sauce. Being that I'm from California and have ties to the Vietnamese community, of course I've heard of Brodard's and of course we had to stop by on our way home from LA.

($4.50/3 rolls) We have the shrimp rolls in the lighter tan color on top and pork rolls in pink on the bottom. The ground meat is made into a sausage and grilled up. Then it's sliced and rolled into the spring rolls. The orange sauce in the middle is Brodard's specialty. It's served warm and has a slightly congealed texture. The taste is rich and fatty but oh so good. A great variation from the usual peanut dipping sauce.

Cross section of the pork roll. One of the specialties about Brodard rolls is that they roll green onion inside an eggroll wrapper, fry it, and put it in the middle of the spring rolls. It adds great texture to the roll.

Cross section of the shrimp roll after I already took a few bites. mm Yummy. I think between the two, the pork roll is my favorite.

($7.95) Of course the rolls weren't enough so we also got Bun Cha Gio, Thit Nuong (Vermicelli with egg roll and BBQ pork). I forgot who got this but everyone seemed to really enjoy their food.

I think this is my sister's dish and I forget the name. It's basically chewy clear noodles with pork and shrimp and greens, broth on the side and red tomatoey sauce on the side. A version of this is available at one of my favorite restaurants in Northern CA and its one of my favorite dishes. Price is about the same as the dish above.

($7.50) I was being daring and I tried the Hu Tieu Thai (a Thai style noodle soup) - a silver rice noodle with seafood and fried shallots. The broth was seasoned with lime juice. It was pretty good. I'm glad I tried it but also I wish I had one of my tried and true favorite dishes.

I forget the name of this but it's essentially the Vietnamese version of the dish above. The broth is less sour. Price is most likely the same.

OVERALL IMPRESSION

I always like my food at Brodard's. LA natives may review otherwise but I don't get this type of food all the time and it really impresses me to have good Vietnamese cuisine. I could eat an endless amount of the spring rolls with the crunchy middle. The prices are just a notch higher than in San Jose but Vietnamese food is overall still fairly cheap. If you're in LA, definitely try Brodard Restaurant, or Brodard Chateau as their website now says.

Brodard on Yelp