Head Tale

Photo from Regina Leader Post web site

Very sad to hear that Lang’s Vietnamese restaurant burned down in an early morning fire yesterday.

Along with Bushwakkers and Copper Kettle, Lang’s was one of my three “go to” Regina locations that weren’t just restaurants but local institutions.

Way back in 2007, I wrote this about Lang’s in a post about my 10 favourite Regina restaurants:

2.  Lang’s
– if Thai Garden is Dave’s default comfort food place, Lang’s Vietnamese is mine.  As with brew pubs, Regina has an abnormally high number of Vietnamese places but Lang’s is my personal favourite with Viet-Thai on Albert St. as a close second and Ankor which Dave mentions as an even closer third.  (Urban legend has it that all the Vietnamese places in Regina with “Garden” in their name  are owned by the same family.  Not sure if it’s true.)

As for the urban legend that all Vietnamese places with the name “Garden” in their name are owned by the same family, this Leader Post profile of Lang’s owner, Tran Van Mihn, sheds some light on that as well:

After Minh’s father had handed over ownership of Lang’s Cafe to him, Minh helped his siblings start their own restaurants.

Five more Vietnamese restaurants opened in Regina under the same family name: Viet Thai, Thai Garden, Vietnamese Garden, Saigon by Night and Vietnam Mekong.

Oh, and my funny sriracha story?  Not sure if I ever tried Lang’s while in University but if we did, it was likely delivery, not sitting down.

So I’m not sure if this was the first time I ever went to actually sit in the restaurant but soon after I started my first job with the Saskatchewan Publishers Group in 1997, my bosses (two co-directors) suggested going to Lang’s for lunch after a downtown meeting.

I was trying to play it cool and impress my new bosses so after ordering the lemongrass chicken noodle bowl (#86 if memory serves), I decided to put some ketchup on it (in hindsight, putting ketchup on noodles isn’t going to impress anyone!)

And of course, the red “ketchup” bottle in that Vietnamese restaurant actually had sriracha hot sauce in it.

I was surprised at how hot the “ketchup” was to say the least but managed to still “play it cool” (probably with sweat running down my forehead and an urgent need to blow my nose repeatedly!) and finish my meal.

The story has a happy ending though.

At the time, I confused sriracha with ketchup and now I often find myself eating it like it *is* ketchup – dipping french fries in it, putting it on my hamburgers and slathering it on when I order noodle bowls anywhere!