Nights of the Mad Cow
It's what's for dinner... and dinner... and dinner again...

By Dan Engber

ON DEC. 9, 2003, a Holstein with a brain like a block of Swiss cheese was slaughtered at a farm in Washington state. It was raining in San Francisco that night, and the runoff election was drawing to a close. Christmas music played from a hidden radio in the otherwise empty Golden House Restaurant off Larkin Street, and Christina poked a chopstick at the glistening platter of raw beef in front of us.

"Hmm," she said.

We hadn't finished the lemon beef with peanuts by the time our second course showed up, the sliced tender beef fire pot. The third course was called "grilled beef," and by the time we were working on the la lot beef that came after, I had gotten a telephone update: 87 percent of the precincts reporting; Gavin Newsom was going to win. The lemongrass barbecue beef turned out to be stringy, and the onion beef rolls tasted like dry leather. "Nnnnmm," Tim said, staring glumly into his bowl of watery beef porridge. Several hundred miles away, a cow was about to be dismembered, deboned, and prepared for shipment to California.

We all ate seven courses of beef that night, the Night of the Mad Cow, and I had eaten seven the night before. I ate another seven the next day, and again the day after that. Over the course of the week that followed, I consumed 49 courses of beef with 12 different people in seven Vietnamese restaurants, in an exhaustive and exhausting attempt to find the best Bò 7 Món, or Seven Courses of Beef, in the Bay Area.

The beef odyssey began at Pagolac Restaurant at Larkin and Ellis Streets, an intimate spot with Christmas music playing quietly from a hidden speaker. Tricia, the daughter of the restaurant's owners, was happy to give an orientation and tutorial for the seven courses. Most are meant to be eaten with a dipping sauce: either the familiar nuoc mam cham (a sweetened fish sauce diluted with lime juice and vinegar, often served with carrot shavings) or mam nem (a chunky dip made from anchovies and pineapples). Tricia explained that the anchovy-pineapple sauce is not usually served to non-Vietnamese people unless they ask for it; it's likely this discretion has more to do with its soupy, brown appearance than its sweet and tangy flavor. Tricia's parents also run a manufacturing plant that bottles and sells Pagolac-brand versions of these sauces in Asian supermarkets throughout the city.

At Pagolac, as at Golden House, the first course was bo tai chanh, or raw beef marinated in lemon juice and sugar, served with mint and peanuts. This was very sweet and about as refreshing as strips of beef can be. The next five courses were served with rice pancakes, the dipping sauces, and a plate of lettuce, carrots, and herbs. The bo nhung dam, or beef vinegar fondue, was a plate of thinly sliced raw beef you cook at your table in a pot of boiling vinegar, shabu-shabu style, and wrap up with veggies in a piece of rice paper. A similar technique was used with the third course, bo nuong vi, in which the pot of vinegar was replaced by a hot plate for grilling strips of marinated beef topped with sesame seeds.

Courses four through six are generally brought out together, a platter of thumb-sized meatballs in various preparations. A beef roll wrapped in a wild-pepper leaf is bo la lot, bits of beef wrapped around scallions are bo cuon moi, and grilled ground beef wrapped in a casing of fat is bo mo chai. Dessert is served after the meatballs; the rice pancakes and vegetables are replaced with a bowl of hot chao bo, or rice porridge with beef, cilantro, and ginger.

By my third day, and my 21st course of beef, I had seen three methods of serving rice pancakes. Pagolac had served a plate of dry discs alongside a bowl of hot water in which to soften them. This worked well at first, sparing us the inconvenience of trying to peel apart a stack of pre-steamed rice papers. But as the bowl of water cooled, the process became slow and tiresome. I much preferred the system in place at New Pagolac in Oakland, where rice pancakes are served steamed in what looks like a pink, plastic CD rack, each rice paper given its own dispensing slot.

At New Pagolac we were seated near an unassuming lobster tank and not far from a big-screen TV and enormous six-foot speakers blaring Vietnamese pop. The English-language menu handed to me by the waiter made no mention of the Seven Courses of Beef, but soon I was able to obtain an alternative menu, also in English, and in every way identical to the first except that instead of sections for beef, chicken, pork, and wontons, it had listings for frog, eel, goat, and multicourse specials. The seven courses were outstanding; in addition to the pink pancake dispenser, they came with a plate of vermicelli and an unusual arrangement of condiments that included sweet-and-sour lemongrass and chalky strips of young banana. An alternate course number three comprised several gray boulders of peppery ground beef pâté, or bo cha dum, while a sweet beef salad, goi bo, replaced the raw beef appetizer. Our beef porridge dessert tasted of garlic and had the goop and glop of a nicely turned risotto. My only regret was not having come for one of their weekend karaoke nights.

I took courses 22 through 28 at Saigon Restaurant in Oakland, a quiet and classy business-lunch spot not far from City Hall. Swept away by the luxurious tablecloths and reusable napkins, I found myself dreamily ordering a drink made of club soda, raw eggs, and condensed milk – an egg cream without the U-Bet. The beef salad was full of cabbage, like cheap, fusion coleslaw, but the beef fondue and pepper-wrapped beef were quite good.

To this point I wasn't eating anything except beef dinners and defrosted birthday cake, and by day five the birthday cake was almost gone. I had my first and only beef-related dream that night, between courses 28 and 29 – a nightmare of sorts, in which I found myself in a Vietnamese restaurant eating Seven Courses of Beef that had been served out of order.

At times seven can seem like the loneliest number. On a Friday night I sat by myself near the rain-streaked window at Anh Hong Restaurant, across from a tank where two fish chased each other's tails under a glowing beer sign. Descended from a famous Bò 7 Món restaurant in Vietnam, and with relatives in San Jose and Milpitas, Anh Hong is supposed to be the local standard for Seven Courses of Beef, but the food was below average. Fishy and flavorful mam nem was offset by egg-heavy beef pâté and limp, damp pancakes, while the beef porridge tasted of cheap chicken stock. All seven courses were served at once, and all were cooked before they arrived at the table.

By the following day, beef trimmings from the slaughtered cow in Washington had been sold to three dozen Asian and Mexican facilities in Oregon, Nevada, and California. I ate with friends that night, at the popular Le Cheval in Oakland. Surrounded with security cameras and faced with a drink menu that read like Infinite Jest, we felt inclined to kick things off with Seven Courses of Whiskey. A hierarchical color-coding of employees – with busboys in black and white, waiters in white and black, and managers in black and white and black – seemed designed to confuse both customers and servers. Our hot-water and sauce dishes were taken away halfway through the meal, and despite numerous requests, it was almost impossible to get a bowl of mam nem. Despite Le Cheval's stellar reputation and posh decor, the beef courses were, for the most part, very disappointing. The raw, marinated beef starter was the best I've had, but after 42 courses of beef, I needed more than one good dish. The most expensive Bò 7 Món restaurant in the Bay Area was far from the best.

I had heard from an inside source that the staff at Le Cheval get their Seven Courses at a place around the corner. With just a few large tables and a TV stuck on Fox News, May Hong has the best Bò 7 Món around. Here the menu bypasses the beef salad and starts right in with an exceptional version of the beef fondue. For the second course the pot of vinegar is replaced by a sizzling hot plate and pats of butter, alongside a dish of beef in a delicious lemongrass marinade. Unique to May Hong, the meatball courses that follow are also served raw and are cooked to taste by the diners. The homemade beef sausage (bo mo chai) was peppery and flavorful, notably better than the competition, and the hot bowl of beef porridge that ended the meal came graced with a delicate and welcome touch – a sprinkling of toasted chives. Among all my 49 courses of beef, only those at New Pagolac came close to May Hong's for quality and service. And at $12.95 a person, these two Bò 7 Món restaurants were not only the best but also the cheapest.

For seven days I ate only beef and birthday cake, and it happened to be the week that bovine spongiform encephalopathy was released into the American food supply. For me caution comes too late, but the rest of you may want to hold off on your Seven Courses of Beef until this whole melt-your-brain thing blows over. In the meantime be thankful for your alternatives – Nha Trang in Oakland offers the Seven Courses of Fish, which might be even better than the beef version. I've also heard there's an extreme-tourism destination near Hanoi where the restaurants are known for their 10 Courses of Snake. It's something to keep in mind for when the cattle industry falls to pieces.

Golden House Restaurant. 366 Golden Gate, S.F. (415) 775-3577. Mon.-Sat., 10:30 a.m.-9 p.m. $13.95 a person.

Pagolac Restaurant. 655 Larkin, S.F. (415) 776-3234. Mon.-Sat., 11 a.m.-10 p.m. $13.95 a person (minimum two).

New Pagolac. 831 International Blvd., Oakl. (510) 465-0936. Sun.-Mon. and Wed.-Thu., 10 a.m.-10 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., 10 a.m.-11 p.m. $12.99 a person.

Saigon Restaurant. 1526 San Pablo, Oakl. (510) 465-4545. Mon.-Sat., 10 a.m.-9 p.m. $16.95 a person.

Anh Hong Restaurant. 808 Geary, S.F. (415) 885-5180. Daily, 3-10 p.m. $14.95 a person.

Le Cheval. 1007 Clay, Oakl. (510) 763-8957. Mon.-Sat., 11 a.m.-9:30 p.m.; Sun., 5-9:30 p.m. $19.95 a person (minimum two).

May Hong. 417 Seventh St., Oakl. (510) 268-9099. Daily, 11 a.m.-11 p.m. $12.95 a person.

Nha Trang. 1611 Second Ave., Oakl. (510) 663-0818. Mon.-Sat., 11 a.m.-11 p.m. $21.95 a person.