Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

Pork-Neck Soup

Place

Trieu Chau

4653 University Avenue, San Diego




You never know what you’re eating. Not really. That’s my thought as I dunk my congee/cruller/dja kwai/you tiao/Chinese fried breadstick into my Cambodian/ French coffee (the kind with sweetened condensed milk at the bottom). The dja kwai, as they call the breadstick at this place — because it’s mostly Cambodians who come in here — is basically deep-fried dough. Delicious? You betcha. Healthy? Get back to you on that.

I’m at Trieu Chau, this bright, open, lattice-windowed eatery. It’s 8:30 on a Tuesday morning. I catch voices and laughs coming from the orange room in the back. Truth is, I’ve been dropping in to the Trieu Chau every now and then for the longest time, just to sip ’n’ dip this great combo and, if I’m lucky, get enmeshed with the crowd of Cambodians who come in for morning coffee, loud, raucous conversation, and lots of laffs. Lao, Vietnamese, and Chinese come here too, but this time of day, in the orange-painted room in back, is Khmer (meaning Cambodian) time.

I look, but no room in the room yet, so I sit down up in front, right next to the laughing Buddha. I order up my dja kwai coffay dok ko — fried bread stick with the Cambodian/French coffee — from Jing, the Vietnamese server, and ask if he can heat the dja kwai. Pretty important because the default position is to serve it cold, and it can be kinda clammy and doughy like that.

“Do you know the story of the dja kwai you’re eating?” says Kathy, the Chinese-Cambodian gal who runs the place.

Sponsored
Sponsored

“From the days of the French in Indochina?” I ask. “It looks like two croissants joined at the waist. The French are great bread-in-coffee dippers.”

“Oh, no,” says Kathy. “The Chinese have been making dja kwai since before there was a France. The two sticks of dough represent a boy and a girl who fell in love long ago in China and ran away together after their parents had forbidden it. To punish them, the older people tied them together and threw them in the lake, and they drowned. That’s why it’s two breadsticks joined in the middle. That’s them.”

Wow. I look at my dja kwai in a different light. Feel bad about leaving them tied together or ripping them apart or eating them at all. As Carla says, “Ed, you’re such a sensitive soul.”

While I’m hesitating, I have to order something else. Long day ahead. Nat’ral thing at breakfast time would be to have jork, the famous Chinese breakfast rice soup with chicken ($5.50) or fish ($6). Bit of soy, hot sauce, can’t beat it. But I start looking at the big list on the menu, anyway. Kathy says Cambodian customers go mostly for the lemongrass chicken or beef steak with rice, plus a pork-neck soup on the side ($7), whereas the Lao customers go for the lard na, wide noodles with chicken or, say, tofu, plus broccoli and other veggies, and dousings of sweet soy, fish sauce, and — the part that I think makes it delish — sprinklings of sugar. Kathy says it’s a Chinese dish but one that was first made popular by Chinese settlers in Laos.

Or I could go for char quay teow, pan-fried wide rice noodles with seafood such as shrimp, imitation crab meat, broccoli, and bean curd ($7); or the famous spicy Lao beef salad, larb ($7). Or, just a soup, like wide rice noodle soup with seafood (shrimp, fishballs, squid, $6). The broth’s savory and interesting with the spices of Southeast Asia thrown in.

Then, kinda on a whim, because I haven’t ever had it before, I order up Number 5: duck thigh with egg noodles and salad ($7). Like everything here, it comes quick, before I’ve had a chance to finish my dja kwai. I drop the bread stick and go straight for the duck, to get it hot. I dunk in some sliced peppers in vinegar and splots of Sriracha hot sauce and chomp in. There’s plenty of skin and duck flavor, a bit like turkey but with more attitude. I like it, and the egg noodles are nice and fresh, but, honestly, jork would have been easier to face, this time of day.

I’m about to chomp off the head of my second side of my dja kwai stick when another customer says, “You know who you are eating?” He looks Eurasian. Bookish, businessman, maybe, in a well-used jacket and loose tie. The guy’s eating jork.

“Yeah, I know, one of the two young lovers,” I say.

“No,” he says. “You are eating the oil-fried devil, the oil-fried ghosts of Chin Hui and his wicked wife. This double bread represents them shackled together after they betrayed the national hero, General Yue Fei, and had him executed. Now they are boiled in oil millions of times a day, eaten as punishment by people like you.”

“When was that?” I ask.

“Under the emperor Gaozong. In China. In 1142.”

Wow, 868 years later and they still haven’t forgotten? What’s next? Every burger is Benedict Arnold’s head? I dip Chin Hui’s head in my coffee, then bite it off. At least his ghost’ll know: long as people are hungry, he’ll be famous.

The Place: Trieu Chau, 4653 University Avenue, East San Diego 619-280-4204
Type of Food: Chinese, Southeast Asian
Prices: dja kwai (Chinese fried bread stick) and coffee, $3.50; jork, Chinese breakfast rice soup with chicken ($5.50); with fish ($6); lemongrass chicken or beef steak with rice, pork-neck soup, $7; lard na, wide noodles with chicken, beef, or tofu, broccoli, soy, fish sauce, sugar, $7; pan-fried wide noodles with shrimp, imitation crab meat, broccoli, bean curd ($7); Lao beef salad (larb), $7; wide rice-noodle soup with shrimp, fishballs, squid, $6; duck thigh with egg noodles and salad, $7
Hours: 8:00 a.m.–8:00 p.m., daily
Buses: 7, 10
Nearest Bus Stops: 47th and University (7; and westbound 10); University and Euclid (eastbound 10)

The latest copy of the Reader

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

San Diego Holiday Experiences

As soon as Halloween is over, it's Christmas time in my mind
Place

Trieu Chau

4653 University Avenue, San Diego




You never know what you’re eating. Not really. That’s my thought as I dunk my congee/cruller/dja kwai/you tiao/Chinese fried breadstick into my Cambodian/ French coffee (the kind with sweetened condensed milk at the bottom). The dja kwai, as they call the breadstick at this place — because it’s mostly Cambodians who come in here — is basically deep-fried dough. Delicious? You betcha. Healthy? Get back to you on that.

I’m at Trieu Chau, this bright, open, lattice-windowed eatery. It’s 8:30 on a Tuesday morning. I catch voices and laughs coming from the orange room in the back. Truth is, I’ve been dropping in to the Trieu Chau every now and then for the longest time, just to sip ’n’ dip this great combo and, if I’m lucky, get enmeshed with the crowd of Cambodians who come in for morning coffee, loud, raucous conversation, and lots of laffs. Lao, Vietnamese, and Chinese come here too, but this time of day, in the orange-painted room in back, is Khmer (meaning Cambodian) time.

I look, but no room in the room yet, so I sit down up in front, right next to the laughing Buddha. I order up my dja kwai coffay dok ko — fried bread stick with the Cambodian/French coffee — from Jing, the Vietnamese server, and ask if he can heat the dja kwai. Pretty important because the default position is to serve it cold, and it can be kinda clammy and doughy like that.

“Do you know the story of the dja kwai you’re eating?” says Kathy, the Chinese-Cambodian gal who runs the place.

Sponsored
Sponsored

“From the days of the French in Indochina?” I ask. “It looks like two croissants joined at the waist. The French are great bread-in-coffee dippers.”

“Oh, no,” says Kathy. “The Chinese have been making dja kwai since before there was a France. The two sticks of dough represent a boy and a girl who fell in love long ago in China and ran away together after their parents had forbidden it. To punish them, the older people tied them together and threw them in the lake, and they drowned. That’s why it’s two breadsticks joined in the middle. That’s them.”

Wow. I look at my dja kwai in a different light. Feel bad about leaving them tied together or ripping them apart or eating them at all. As Carla says, “Ed, you’re such a sensitive soul.”

While I’m hesitating, I have to order something else. Long day ahead. Nat’ral thing at breakfast time would be to have jork, the famous Chinese breakfast rice soup with chicken ($5.50) or fish ($6). Bit of soy, hot sauce, can’t beat it. But I start looking at the big list on the menu, anyway. Kathy says Cambodian customers go mostly for the lemongrass chicken or beef steak with rice, plus a pork-neck soup on the side ($7), whereas the Lao customers go for the lard na, wide noodles with chicken or, say, tofu, plus broccoli and other veggies, and dousings of sweet soy, fish sauce, and — the part that I think makes it delish — sprinklings of sugar. Kathy says it’s a Chinese dish but one that was first made popular by Chinese settlers in Laos.

Or I could go for char quay teow, pan-fried wide rice noodles with seafood such as shrimp, imitation crab meat, broccoli, and bean curd ($7); or the famous spicy Lao beef salad, larb ($7). Or, just a soup, like wide rice noodle soup with seafood (shrimp, fishballs, squid, $6). The broth’s savory and interesting with the spices of Southeast Asia thrown in.

Then, kinda on a whim, because I haven’t ever had it before, I order up Number 5: duck thigh with egg noodles and salad ($7). Like everything here, it comes quick, before I’ve had a chance to finish my dja kwai. I drop the bread stick and go straight for the duck, to get it hot. I dunk in some sliced peppers in vinegar and splots of Sriracha hot sauce and chomp in. There’s plenty of skin and duck flavor, a bit like turkey but with more attitude. I like it, and the egg noodles are nice and fresh, but, honestly, jork would have been easier to face, this time of day.

I’m about to chomp off the head of my second side of my dja kwai stick when another customer says, “You know who you are eating?” He looks Eurasian. Bookish, businessman, maybe, in a well-used jacket and loose tie. The guy’s eating jork.

“Yeah, I know, one of the two young lovers,” I say.

“No,” he says. “You are eating the oil-fried devil, the oil-fried ghosts of Chin Hui and his wicked wife. This double bread represents them shackled together after they betrayed the national hero, General Yue Fei, and had him executed. Now they are boiled in oil millions of times a day, eaten as punishment by people like you.”

“When was that?” I ask.

“Under the emperor Gaozong. In China. In 1142.”

Wow, 868 years later and they still haven’t forgotten? What’s next? Every burger is Benedict Arnold’s head? I dip Chin Hui’s head in my coffee, then bite it off. At least his ghost’ll know: long as people are hungry, he’ll be famous.

The Place: Trieu Chau, 4653 University Avenue, East San Diego 619-280-4204
Type of Food: Chinese, Southeast Asian
Prices: dja kwai (Chinese fried bread stick) and coffee, $3.50; jork, Chinese breakfast rice soup with chicken ($5.50); with fish ($6); lemongrass chicken or beef steak with rice, pork-neck soup, $7; lard na, wide noodles with chicken, beef, or tofu, broccoli, soy, fish sauce, sugar, $7; pan-fried wide noodles with shrimp, imitation crab meat, broccoli, bean curd ($7); Lao beef salad (larb), $7; wide rice-noodle soup with shrimp, fishballs, squid, $6; duck thigh with egg noodles and salad, $7
Hours: 8:00 a.m.–8:00 p.m., daily
Buses: 7, 10
Nearest Bus Stops: 47th and University (7; and westbound 10); University and Euclid (eastbound 10)

Comments
Sponsored

The latest copy of the Reader

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Live Five: Songwriter Sanctuary, B-Side Players, The Crawdaddys, Saint Luna, Brawley

Reunited, in the round, and onstage in Normal Heights, East Village, Little Italy, Encinitas
Next Article

San Diego Fix it Clinic, Gaslamp Holiday Pet Parade

Events December 14-December 18, 2024
Comments
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

This Week’s Reader This Week’s Reader