These San Francisco style noodles are an American mashup of Vietnamese and Italian cuisine

The other evening, I made the most popular recipe of the year, at least according to the New York Times. The recipe, which was viewed more than 1.2 million times, is a San Francisco-style noodle dish from food writer J. Kenji López-Alt.

Among its simple list of ingredients is an eye-opening 20 cloves of garlic, as well as fish sauce, oyster sauce, soy sauce and Parmesan cheese. Since garlic is pretty much a food group in my house, and I always have parm, fish sauce and oyster sauce in my fridge, I figured I would give it whirl.

What Are San Francisco-Style Vietnamese American Garlic Noodles?

This garlicky noodle recipe is a twist on a classic San Francisco dish, created by Helene An at her Thanh Long restaurant in the early 1970s, where it has been famously served with baked Dungeness crab for the past five decades. An fled Vietnam during the war, settling in the Bay Area and eventually launching a restaurant empire.

In the early days, as López-Alt writes, An “felt that the restaurant would find more success by eschewing authenticity in favor of dishes that were designed specifically to appeal to the local clientele.” She was inspired by a disappointing garlic pasta dish at an Italian restaurant to create her own rendition.

Though popular, the real recipe remains a secret. In López-Alt’s interpretation, he calls for spaghetti rather than Asian noodles and intuitively the use of Southeast Asian sauces such as fish sauce and oyster sauce as ingredients. Coupled with soy sauce, Parmesan cheese and all that garlic, it’s an intense, unique dish.

Why Do You Need 20 Cloves of Minced Garlic?

Since this dish became so popular this year, there has been online debate on how to make it. One of the biggest points of discussion is how to handle the 20 cloves of garlic, which are to be “minced or smashed in a mortar and pestle.”

Minced garlic can be achieved in a number of ways. Mincing with a knife can be tricky if you don’t have good knife skills, and you run the risk of not having uniform pieces that cook evenly. Smashing the garlic before you mince makes things faster and slightly easier. I choose to use a microplane grater instead of a knife for ease. The risk with a grater is that the garlic can be a little more spicy or bitter, but since I’d be cooking the garlic for a few minutes, I wasn’t worried about that. If you have a mini food processor, that works too. But avoid a larger food processor, which will chop the garlic too big and unevenly.

How to Make San Francisco-Style Vietnamese American Garlic Noodles

The great thing about cooking this dish is that once you learn the basics, you don’t really need a recipe anymore. Two quirks of the recipe involve cooking the spaghetti. First, the Times’ suggests cooking the pasta in a skillet or sauté pan, covered by 2 inches of boiling water, rather than a big pot of boiling water. The reason here is to get starchier pasta water, which you’ll want to reserve to toss with the pasta. The other quirk is to remove the pasta from the boiling water before it’s totally al dente (about 2 minutes less than the time on the package). The pasta will continue to cook as you add it to the sauce to toss over high heat.

Ingredients

• 4 tablespoons of unsalted butter
• 20 garlic cloves, minced
• 4 teaspoons oyster sauce
• 2 teaspoons soy sauce
• 2 tea spoons fish sauce
• 1 pound dry spaghetti
• ¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese
• One bunch of scallions, thinly sliced

directions

Step 1: Combine ingredients

Melt butter in a saucepan or wok over medium heat. Add garlic and cook for 2 minutes, being careful not to brown. Add oyster sauce, fish sauce and soy sauce, stir to combine, then remove from heat.

Step 2: Cook the pasta

Bring a couple of inches of salted water to a boil in a skillet or saucepan, over high heat. Add the spaghetti. Stir the pasta a few times as it cooks until it’s almost al dente (about 2 minutes less than the recommended cook time on the package).

Step 3: Bring it all together

Using tongs, transfer the cooked pasta to the garlic-umami sauce, along with whatever water clings to it (be sure to reserve the pasta water!). Bring heat to high, and add cheese. Stir and toss vigorously until the sauce is creamy and emulsified. Add reserved pasta water if it looks too greasy or dry. Stir in scallions and serve immediately.

Vietnamese Dishes Everyone Should Know

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Banh mi

Loved around the world, these Vietnamese baguette sandwiches together cold, grilled or roasted meats, along with pickled daikon and carrots, chiles, cucumbers, cilantro, smears of pâté, mayonnaise and Maggi seasoning for a multidimensional bite each time. You can make this Chicken Banh Mi at home.

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Banh xèo

With its golden crispy edges, this pan-fried crepe of rice flour, coconut milk and turmeric envelopes minced pork, bean sprouts and shrimp. Wrap with lettuce and fresh herbs and dunk in sweet, sour and salty nước chấm sauce for best effect.

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Lettuce wraps

There are many Vietnamese dishes that are best enjoyed wrapped in lettuce and herbs before dipped into a sauce such as Bánh xèo, Cuốn giấm bổng (pork and shrimp wraps) and Chả giò (fried spring rolls). If you’re feeling inspired by crisp emerald leaves and zesty sauces, make our Vietnamese Pork Lettuce Wraps.

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Gỏi cuốn

Often called “fresh spring rolls,” Gỏi cuốn are soft, translucent rice paper rolls stuffed with rice noodles, fresh herbs, leafy greens and shrimp or pork. Dipped in nước chấm or peanut sauce, they make a great lunch or dinner party appetizer. Learn how to make spring rolls at home.

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Bun Cha

Although there are several amazing Vietnamese dishes that feature Bún (vermicelli noodles), Bún Cha is a refreshing noodle bowl topped with warm grilled pork, fresh herbs and drenched in nước chấm sauce. It’s an all-day favorite in Hanoi!

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Phở

We bet that pho is one Vietnamese recipe you’ve already heard of. So, what is pho? With its fragrant broth seasoned with star anise, cinnamon sticks, cloves and cardamom, this rice noodle soup is widely enjoyed across the country. You’ll find a myriad of toppings, from paper-thin slices of raw beef to handfuls of fresh herbs like coriander, sliced ​​onions, basil and mint all doused in a spritz of lime juice.

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Bun Bo Hue

With notes of lemongrass, shrimp paste, chili and rock sugar, this spicy noodle soup features vermicelli noodles with an assortment of beef and pork cuts. Garnished with onions, scallions, Vietnamese coriander and banana blossoms, this dish is characteristic of the Imperial cuisine of Huế.

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Cơm Tấm

This “broken rice” dish typically pairs softer steamed rice grains with different types of grilled meats and either a fried egg or Chả trứng (Vietnamese steamed omelet). It is usually served at any mealtime with a side of sliced ​​cucumbers, tomatoes and scallion-infused oil.

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Thịt Kho Tau

Blending sweet and savory, this warming stew of caramelized pork and eggs braised in coconut water is a beloved lunch or dinnertime staple with an accompaniment of steamed jasmine rice and tangy Dưa giá (pickled bean sprouts).

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Canh

A true Vietnamese meal is not complete without Canh, an everyday Vietnamese soup made from water instead of stock. While some can be simple, more complex Canh recipes marry together either meat or seafood with an abundance of different vegetables to create sweet, sour and savory profiles.

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Che

Why choose one type of dessert when you can have them all in a singular, multi-layered, rainbow? Chè are traditional Vietnamese sweet beverages, puddings or dessert soups that mix fruits, beans and jellies soaked in sugary syrup or coconut cream. They are served hot or cold.

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Cà phê trứng

Although only served at cafes in Hanoi, Cà phê trứng is where a quick pick-me-up meets delightful dessert decadence. Made with robusta coffee, egg yolk and creamy condensed milk, Cà phê trứng is an experience simultaneously reminiscent of tiramisu, eggnog and fluffy egg custard.

The post San Francisco-Type Vietnamese American Garlic Noodles Are the Most Standard Recipe of the 12 months appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

San Francisco’s real estate market is notorious for obvious reasons: home prices nearly doubled in a decade, with not enough new housing being built to keep up with demand.

But the city’s affordability crisis might not be so very unique going forward: one impact of the pandemic appears to be far more metropolitan areas where the real estate market looks increasingly like San Francisco’s.

According to a Chronicle data analysis, there are at least 10 metro areas that could soon become “the next San Francisco” in terms of housing affordability and availability, including San Diego, Raleigh, NC, and two areas in Montana.

“Two years into the pandemic, the US housing market is virtually unrecognizable from before, with nearly half the number of homes for sale, prices a third higher and rising,” said Zillow spokesperson Tyrone Law in an email. “Basic supply and demand principles are the primary driver of current housing market conditions.”

What’s driving the national trends?

Home prices in unexpected areas have shot up in the past two years, leading to housing scarcity as people left big cities in search of more space and cheaper prices in suburban and rural areas.

Nationally, home values ​​accelerated in January by a record 20% in annual gain, and inventory dropped to a record low of 42% over the same period, according to Zillow. When looking at the two year period between Feb. 2020 to Feb. 2022, the values ​​are even more shocking: inventory is down 48% and home values ​​are up 32%, said Zillow’s Law.

He said a main factor driving up home prices is the inventory shortage from more than a decade of underbuilding after the Great Recession, as well as competition for homes among millennials and baby boomers. Low mortgage rates and more people able to work remotely during the pandemic has “supercharged demand.”

A real estate agent stands in front of a home in suburban Salt Lake City.

Rick Bowmer/Associated Press 2019

In San Francisco, underbuilding started long before the Great Recession. The dearth of new home building – particularly affordable and multi-family housing — has been a problem for decades, in part due to the city’s strict zoning regulations and difficult approval process.

The typical home value in the San Francisco metro area in Jan. 2022 was just under $1.4 million, second in the nation to San Jose, and the inventory rate is 0.11% (inventory refers to the number of homes for sale), making it 32nd in the nation out of 917 regions, according to Zillow housing data. From Jan 2010 to Jan 2020, San Francisco’s home values ​​nearly doubled at 90%, and from Jan 2015 to Jan 2020, they jumped 39%.

We wanted to see specifically which US metro areas have experienced significant increases in home values ​​and decreasing housing inventory over the pandemic, using Zillow’s data for metropolitan areas.

In our data analysis, we narrowed down the list to areas where home values ​​rose 40% or more from Jan. 2020 to Jan. 2022, inventory from the same time period fell by 40% or more, and inventory is now at two homes or fewer per 1,000 people. Inventory data was not available for every metro area, so about a dozen or so were left out of the data analysis.

What we found was a mix of both large and smaller metro areas whose housing markets have become less affordable and scarcer over the past two years.

The next San Francisco?

Two California metros appear on the list: Merced and San Diego. Housing inventory declined nearly 50% during the pandemic in Merced, with an average of about 1.5 homes per 1,000 people. Typical home values ​​increased about 42% there from Jan 2020 to Jan 2022.

Matt Kreamer, a data spokesperson for Zillow, said the attraction to Merced and other parts of the San Joaquin and Central valleys is in large part due to people exiting the Bay Area in search of more affordability and space.

“I think that’s why Merced makes this list, and I’d be surprised if other Central Valley cities from Sacramento to Fresno aren’t close behind,” he wrote in an email. “For years now as the Bay Area has become more unaffordable, we’ve seen shoppers from there looking at homes in the Sacramento area especially.”

Kreamer called San Diego the “hottest major market in California,” and one of the top in the country.

“Home values ​​there have risen 44% in the past two years, compared to 25.8% in the Bay Area,” he said. “Prices are still lower than in Los Angeles, but have quickly caught up as people have turned to it as the less expensive Southern California option for sun and year-round outdoor living.”

Also on the list are several cities in Washington state that are outside of the pricey Seattle metro area with “more affordable home prices and natural beauty.” Salt Lake City also appears on the list, along with Provo that sits south of the big city and is home to Brigham Young University.

Missoula, MT has seen its housing market skyrocket during the pandemic, with home values ​​increasing and inventory declining, according to an analysis of Zillow data.

Courtesy of Shannon Hilliard

Where the trends are most extreme

The metro area with the most extreme values ​​in each category was another college town, Missoula in Montana, the second largest metro area population in the state of just under 118,000.

“People have more freedom than ever to live their preferences, and it’s safe to say that a fair share of people who worked in downtown big-city offices preferred a more rural or smaller-town life that they couldn’t have before, and can now,” Kreamer said. “And it doesn’t take a ton of movement to move the needle on data in some of these smaller cities.”

From Jan. 2020 to Jan. 2022, housing inventory in the metro declined 58% with about 1.4 homes per 1,000 people on average. Home values ​​shot up 57% during the pandemic.

Shannon Hilliard, a broker and partner for Ink Realty Group who has been in the Missoula real estate market for 17 years, said according to data collected by the Missoula Organization of Realtors, the median single family home price increased about 45% from the end of 2019 to the end of 2021.

A home in Missoula, MT

Courtesy of Shannon Hilliard

The data shows the median home sale price was over $480,000 with an average of 75 days on market in 2021, compared to a median price of $332,000 and an average of 93 days on market in 2020.

“I have a listing that last week got 17 offers, and 17 isn’t healthy,” she said. “A healthy market is six months of inventory, and right now we’re under a month of inventory based on demand.”

In fact, the state data shows there was around 2.5 months of supply at the end of 2019, with a gradual increase throughout the pandemic. The latest estimate was nearly three weeks of supply in the fourth quarter of 2021.

Hilliard isn’t surprised by the growing interest in living in Missoula, a place that she called “awesome.” Home to the University of Montana, the city flanked by beautiful mountain ranges and scenic national parks. And, like many places across the country during the pandemic, more people who aren’t tethered to office jobs have been drawn to Missoula.

“When people have the ability to bring their incomes to a place they’ve always wanted to live, where price was a prohibiting factor before,” she said, adding that it opens up the possibilities, including beautiful places like Missoula that offer plenty of outdoor activities, a “vibrant downtown” and a mix of “gritty” and “luxury.”

She’s had clients all across the board, from families looking for bigger homes, retirees wanting to downsize, or first-time home buyers. While she doesn’t have concrete data, Hilliard said anecdotally she’s seen people move from Washington, Texas, California and Colorado. And many people buying homes are in-state who are looking to make a life change, or people who grew up or went to school in Missoula and have finally found a way to return.

But the housing demand and rising costs has priced out the previously affordable city for many people. Hilliard said she is not optimistic for clients looking to spend $300,000 on a home, and even the rental market is tough. Plus, because Missoula is the intersection of five valleys, there is not much room for sprawl, which limits the housing supply further. Hilliard doesn’t think this is changing any time soon.

“I think with the world changing and many people able to work for higher paying corporations, they can live where they want to be,” she said. “I think it will keep going for a little bit.”

Kellie Hwang is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kellie.hwang@sfchronicle.com

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