Spring Rolls

Its brittle skin cracks between the teeth like a single sheath of porcelain, but underneath, amid corkscrewed sprouts and chunks of shrimp, percolate juices so spicy and sweet as to turn a spring roll into one of the tastiest tidbits in all cuisine. Neither substantial enough to be called an entree nor elaborate enough to rank as serious food, spring rolls are little more than taste teases. But fun food doesn't come any better. Spring rolls (which are cousins of the familiar egg rolls from many Chinese restaurants)

Editor's note: Our new dining feature, "My dinner with . . . " takes us each week to the favorite restaurant of an interesting person from our town and beyond. They were tough times, those years before Meredith Rainey discovered Vietnam restaurant. These were days without those spring rolls and plum sauce concoction. Hours spent without the curative benefits of thick black coffee laced with even thicker milk. Weeks without seeing rice vermicelli worth its salt. Finally, a friend took Rainey, a Pennsylvania Ballet dancer, to try this great place on 11th Street.

Outlet: HARRY THE K'S We were there : 5:37 p.m., pregame. Wait to get seated: 19 minutes. Order: Appetizer sampler and chicken Caesar salad. Cost: $28, plus tax and tip. Phindings: The Phoodster wanted a change from standard CBP dining (read: Using a trash can as a table). Harry The K's is the full-service eatery at the base of the left-field scoreboard. It's named in honor of legendary Phils' "voice" Harry Kalas. My $16 appetizer sampler consisted of four chicken wings, two cheesesteak spring rolls and the queso fundido, a nacho-esque bit of business.

Somsak Pramojanee and his wife, Pam, spend a lot of time on the road - driving between their two Thai restaurants, the original in Voorhees and their second location in Cherry Hill. Both restaurants have the same menu and chef Pam's commitment to preparing authentic Thai cuisine, without the use of MSG or other artificial flavor enhancers. A recent visit to the restaurant's newer location delivered a first-rate experience, rich with the flavors that dominate Thai cuisine - basil, curry, coconut, garlic, lemon grass and plenty of chili.

Kadoya, at the tucked-away Center City intersection of Juniper Street and Drury Lane, is a diminutive and delicate restaurant that is as Japanesque as possible. The restaurant is so tiny (even though it boasts it can seat nearly 30 patrons) that if all of the diners coughed at the same time, the partitions that separate the tables likely would come tumbling down. What Kadoya lacks in space, it makes up for in content. It not only serves some pretty decent Japanese food at reasonable prices, but when the cost of various menu items are compared with prices at other Japanese restaurants, they actually appear quite inexpensive.

At first meeting, Didier Corlou seems as French as a chef born along Brittany's rocky coast could ever be. His English is thickly accented, his gestures reminiscent of everyday Breton life. Yet it doesn't take long to discern that Corlou, by nature, is also Vietnamese, born of a deep love for his adopted home. Corlou, 48, the executive chef at the famed Sofitel Metropole in Hanoi, was in Philadelphia the first week of June to share the cuisine of his beloved Vietnam. Working with executive chef Sylvain Harribey at the Sofitel Philadelphia, Corlou created a menu that demonstrated his ability in the kitchen and his deep regard for unadulterated Vietnamese ingredients.

Shing Kee, a new restaurant on the southern fringe of Chinatown, might not win any awards for its decor or surroundings, but what it lacks in atmosphere, it more than makes up for in its food. The restaurant is housed in a modest and unadorned rectangular room. Outside, huge mounds of construction earth line the curbside. Comfortable booths occupy one side, while family-style circular tables are arranged along a mirrored wall on the other. What brightens up this otherwise drab dining room are the colorful plates of well-prepared food.

It's always nice when a restaurant's atmosphere and attendant nuances match its cuisine. Hard rock in a Viennese cafe would make as much sense as stuffing pinatas with shoofly pie. Sometimes, however, obstacles caused by authenticity pop up. And there is no tougher restaurant hurdle than a language barrier. At a first visit to Pho Huy, a new Vietnamese restaurant in South Philadelphia, my meal mate and I discovered that the English word was as rare as steak tartare. It took three visits just to assemble some necessary notes.

It's always a bonus to find a neighborhood Chinese restaurant that is a cut above the chow mein chuck wagons that too often pass for the real thing. Despite its decor of red dragons and paper lanterns, Haddonfield's Oriental Pearl offers a fresh take on standard Chinese fare, with an extensive menu of traditional dishes spiced up with a few Vietnamese entrees. Our recent dinner visit to the Oriental Pearl was on a summer night pleasant enough to find two tables of patrons dining al fresco in front of the restaurant's front door.

It's Saturday night of the most sluggish week of summer, and nearly every table is spoken for at Yangming in Bryn Mawr. That says plenty about this gorgeous, globally minded Chinese restaurant, which replaced the Conestoga Mill restaurant last year. I don't know how many of those customers were repeaters, but I would certainly like another go at Yangming's long and inventive menu. You'll need more than a visit or two to explore the ways the kitchen uses lamb, veal, artichoke hearts and capers - ingredients not normally found in Chinese meals.

With another solid, across-the-board effort, the Spring-Ford girls' basketball squad avenged an early-season defeat and moved closer to the program's first state championship. The Rams, also boosted by their size and defensive prowess, pulled away from Cheltenham in the third quarter and breezed to a 71-44 triumph Friday night in a PIAA Class AAAA quarterfinal at Norristown. Back in December, in the nonleague opener for both teams in Hazleton, the Panthers prevailed, 60-46.

While other teams walk through layup lines and free-throw practice before games, Spring-Ford runs suicides to half-court and intrasquad 5-on-5 games. "If you want to play fast," coach Jeff Rinehimer said, "you can't warm up shooting free throws. You have to get your motors started. " The Rams' motors have been revving nonstop for three months. And, based on Friday night's 46-33 win over North Penn in the District 1 Class AAAA championship game at Villanova's Pavilion, Spring-Ford has lapped its competition.

If the idea of an evening outing along eatery lane appeals, consider trekking to the next Baltimore Avenue Dollar Stroll, 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Sept. 1 in University City. Launched two years ago, the Baltimore Avenue Stroll shares some similarities with Night Market - both feature bands, D.J.s, crowds, gourmet food trucks, and specials at the local eateries. In fact, the most recent Baltimore Avenue Stroll coincided with the Mount Airy Night Market, on Aug. 4. But Night Market, sponsored by the Food Trust, and the Baltimore Avenue Dollar Stroll, a project of the University City District, are pals, not competitors, says Lori Brennan of the University City District.

Outlet: HARRY THE K'S We were there : 5:37 p.m., pregame. Wait to get seated: 19 minutes. Order: Appetizer sampler and chicken Caesar salad. Cost: $28, plus tax and tip. Phindings: The Phoodster wanted a change from standard CBP dining (read: Using a trash can as a table). Harry The K's is the full-service eatery at the base of the left-field scoreboard. It's named in honor of legendary Phils' "voice" Harry Kalas. My $16 appetizer sampler consisted of four chicken wings, two cheesesteak spring rolls and the queso fundido, a nacho-esque bit of business.

In soccer, perhaps more than any other sport, looks can be deceiving. Lining up for the national anthem, Spring-Ford could have been mistaken for a JV team. Its two senior leaders, Eric Giovagnoli and Anthony Merchant, stood no more than 5-foot-7. But both have attracted the attention of Division I colleges. And neither wasted any time showing why on the field. In Wednesday night's Pioneer Athletic Conference championship game, the Rams used finesse, speed, and some deceptive muscle to cruise to a 3-1 win. The game confirmed a notion that has been brewing only among die-hard soccer enthusiasts for weeks: Spring-Ford is a team to watch out for in the District 1 tournament.

Benny Lai's journey has led him here, to the sparkling new Vietnam Cafe at 47th and Baltimore, around the corner from where the Lai family, fleeing Saigon, staked its first claim in West Philadelphia - a modest Asian grocery called Fu Wah - 30 years ago as of October. Sparkling doesn't quite capture the cafe (nor does cafe ), though a fairyland of lanterns glows above its 100 seats like a haze of hot-air ballons, and the hardwood floor is as unscuffed as a shoe just out of the box. What it is is "evocative," with understated touches of old Vietnam (a Rivera-esque print of women hulling rice, a carved duck standing by to snap up spillage)

At Ong's, the soup and noodle emporium that bills itself as a "Chou-Jou and Vietnamese" restaurant, we put our heads together - a waitperson, myself, and owner Victoria Truong and Van Ong, her husband the cook (ethnic Chinese whose families emigrated to Vietnam) - and try to reach consensus on the geography and culinary meaning of Chou-Jou. Ong's began life as the Nice Chinese Noodle House, a nine-table cafe at the foot of Chinatown's ornate Friendship Gate. Ten years ago it moved (and greatly expanded)

Summer rolls are a tantalizing invitation into the cooking of Vietnam, where a few basic sauces, fresh herbs, vegetables, noodles, rice and grilled meats prevail. In fact, the rolls - basically an Asian salad wrapped in transparent rice paper - are so accessible and increasingly popular that Ann Le, author of The Little Saigon Cookbook (Globe Pequot Press), thinks that they "may become the next burrito. " And no wonder. The pliable, delicate rice paper wrappers ideally encapsulate the fresh, traditional flavors of Vietnam; the rolls (or goi cuon)

At first meeting, Didier Corlou seems as French as a chef born along Brittany's rocky coast could ever be. His English is thickly accented, his gestures reminiscent of everyday Breton life. Yet it doesn't take long to discern that Corlou, by nature, is also Vietnamese, born of a deep love for his adopted home. Corlou, 48, the executive chef at the famed Sofitel Metropole in Hanoi, was in Philadelphia the first week of June to share the cuisine of his beloved Vietnam. Working with executive chef Sylvain Harribey at the Sofitel Philadelphia, Corlou created a menu that demonstrated his ability in the kitchen and his deep regard for unadulterated Vietnamese ingredients.