Uyen Uyen Vietnamese Restaurant - Calgary, Alberta

After a 3:30 wake-up in DC, the level of comfort one can always expect from a DC-Denver flight on a legacy carrier (i.e., not much), and finally meeting up with the MKD for the Denver-Calgary leg, we found ourselves cruising through the sketchy neighborhoods near the airport in our Lincoln Mark Z, looking for food. Despite the promises of a reliably bad meal offered by all your North American chain favorites (they have Denny's! and Hooters!), the MKD spied a Vietnamese place in a particularly beaten-down strip mall. As far as Vietnamese goes, that's usually a good sign, and Uyen Uyen was no different.

I went with a Tofu Sate Sub, which was enormous on a perfectly toasted bun, and at $5.95CN was definitely a bargain. The tofu was fried crispy outside, tasty and tender inside, and the sub was piled high with sliced carrots, bean sprouts, cilantro, peanuts and cucumber slices. Topped with the sweet and savory tamarind sauce and the a-bit-sweet-but-not-way-too-spicy chili sauce, it was pretty much exactly what I was looking for.

MKD went with #52 - pork chop and fried egg (two of each) on rice - and was quite satisfied, the eggs barely sunny side and fairly seeping into the rice from the first; JD with the shrimp wonton soup, a nice mild broth and wonderfully delicate wrappers on the wontons; and BK with the Bun Nem Nuong - grilled pork balls and spring rolls on vermicelli. More sausage or salami-y than "balls," he nonetheless walked away happy.

The only slight disappointments were fried spring rolls that didn't off too much beyond being hot from the frier, and Vietnamese iced coffee that came pre-prepared and wasn't either that strong or that sweet. MKD's jackfruit bubbletea, however, was "just like" he remembered jackfruit from Hawaii.

This will, I'm guessing, be the only Vietnamese food on this trip, but I head out into the prairie with at least a modest fortification of veggies.