Pho Hiep Hoa, Silver Spring, Md.

Robert and I found a new Vietnamese restaurant in downtown Silver Spring called Pho Hiep Hoa. I enjoyed the place a lot and will probably go back. We started with traditional garden rolls with peanut sauce and an order of something called shrimp paste. Ground shrimp is spiced and formed around a piece of sugar cane, then fried; the pieces were okay, but they had the feel to me of slightly overcooked shrimp. For our main courses, Robert had the daily special, "caramel shrimp," a casserole of large shrimp in a red, slightly sweet, chili sauce served with rice and a side plate of salad vegetables (we still don't know where the "caramel" comes from), while I had grilled meats on vermicelli. We washed everything down with Vietnamese 33 beer, a very light lager-style brew. For dessert, we had Vietnamese iced coffees.

Silver Spring, by the way, is in Maryland, and Maryland has several swine flu cases. I wonder if we were exposed to the virus at dinner and now we're going to start oinking?