Fantastic fungi fill the menu at Ashima

At Ashima Mushroom Hotpot restaurant, even the most reluctant diners end the night begging for more. Hong Van samples cow spunk mushrooms, and an old man of the woods.

Asked to dine by his mother and aunts at a restaurant specialising in mushrooms, Harry Watson glumly replied: "I never eat mushrooms".

As the host, I had invited the 13-year-old and his relatives to sample the Ashima Mushroom Hot Pot Restaurant during a recent visit to HCM City from Australia.

Despite his reservations, as soon as we opened the front door, Harry was captivated by the tantalising aroma of mushrooms.

He kept breathing it in, saying "it smelled good" as we entered the packed restaurant and met three girls dressed in traditional brown shirts and black skirts who escorted us to our table.

For newcomers, it can be difficult to decide which dish to choose from the menu of 24 kinds of mushrooms, 10 hot pot broths, and more than 10 kinds of meat and vegetables which are cooked in the pot.

For novices like us, the waitress suggested the nam gan bo sua do (cow ‘spunk’ mushrooms), nam gan bo den (old man of the woods), nam tram vang (velvet shank) and nam huong (field mushrooms), accompanied by a healthy mushroom soup, a plate of pigeon and Australian beef, and vegetables.

We wanted to order more mushrooms but the waitress said that was enough for the five of us.

As we sat back to enjoy the red wine and wait for the food, we realised that the sound of a miniature waterfall and the green ornamental plants made us feel as if we were in a remote area about to eat the daily food of many indigenous people the world over – mushrooms gathered from the forest.

Within 10 minutes, the waitress brought out the hot pot with the broth, placed it on the cooker and put in the mushrooms. She explained that the mushrooms should cook for 10 minutes after the water returns to a boil.

Pham Kim Anh, Ashima’s regional manager and a co-founder, says that many people mistakenly believe that mushrooms are a vegetable (they’re actually edible fungi) and should be cooked for a short time.

"Some mushrooms need to be cooked long enough to absorb the flavour from the broth, which is a mixture of mushrooms, Chinese herbs, and pork bones that have been cooked for more than 10 hours," Kim Anh said.

When the mushrooms were ready, the waitress poured some soup into a small bowl of seasoning powder and then placed the mushrooms and meat into our bowls.

The powder, Kim Anh says, includes 13 different seasonings including salt, sesame powder, pepper and ginger.

When the first Ashima Restaurant opened in Ha Noi more than a year ago, a dipping sauce of salt, pepper and lime juice, fish sauce or soy sauce was used instead of the special seasoning.

"When some monks tried our vegetarian hot pot, they told us that mushrooms go best with sesame and peanut sauce," Kim Anh said, explaining why they switched the seasoning.

After taking the first sip of the mushroom soup, Harry became adventurous, professing a desire for unadorned soft mushrooms.

His mother encouraged him to do so, telling him that the mushrooms tasted very different from those in Australia.

All of us watched as Harry sampled the mushrooms, the first that he had tasted in many years.

We sighed with relief as he nodded his head, declaring them "tasty" and asking for more. If he was just being polite, then Harry has a future in acting.

The food was delicious, but the service could have been better if the waitress had asked us if we wanted the pigeon head, as Harry’s mother was not amused when she spotted the head in her bowl.

Imported mushrooms

Although Ashima also uses Vietnamese mushrooms, most of the mushrooms are imported and were discovered by Kim Anh and her friends while travelling.

She and a group of young entrepreneurs who share a love for travelling, eating new food and venturing into something new founded the restaurant.

Kim Anh, who speaks four languages and holds a master’s degree in information technology from Australia, says her previous job had a higher income.

She says her partners shared her enthusiasm for introducing a new cuisine to Viet Nam. "They are like me. Ashima is not about moneymaking," she said.

After touring many places in China, Japan and Korea, she and her team decided to launch the mushroom hot pot restaurant, with custom-made soups based on the ones they had tried during their travels.

Ashima uses mushrooms from China, Japan and Korea, and invites Chinese chefs to work in the kitchen.

Kim Anh says her team wants to build a brand name that is recognisable for its speciality, friendly and caring service and artistic design.

They opened the first Ashima in November 2005 in Phan Dinh Phung Street in Ha Noi and later, another in Trieu Viet Vuong Street in Ha Noi, and the one we visited on Nguyen Dinh Chieu Street in HCM City.

Plans are to open more in HCM City and in the central region of the country, but finding a spacious central location, Kim Anh says, is difficult as many suitable places have already been leased.

The fully booked room in HCM City, however, attests to the restaurant’s popularity, even converting Harry, the mushroom-hater, into a fan of some of the world’s best edible fungi.

Ashima Mushroom Hot Pot

Address: 35A Nguyen Dinh Chieu Street, Dist 1, HCM City

Tel: (08) 9 824 1966 (reservations are recommended).

Ambience: Casually elegant Eastern decor.

Prices: Mushroom soup for the hot pot averages VND100,000 (US$6) for two, and meat is VND40,000 ($2.5) a dish. The mushroom menu ranges from VND65,000 ($4) to VND125,000 ($8) a dish.

Source VNS