C & C Express

This was a little food stand inside of a very outdated vietnamese mall. We got 2 cups of nuoc mie (sp?) — sugar cane water, it tasted funny and it was expensive.

Worst service ever. Tried to ask what was she making to see if I wanted to order it, she didn’t even acknowledge me (& I know she heard me). Waiting for her to come help get ice cream for the kids, waiting 10 minutes then left.

The food here is extremely overpriced for tiny portions. For example, half a small scoop that I can devour in two bites costs $ 2.75 already and one regular scoop that I can eat in five bites costs $ 5. Now, this is not ice cream made from the heavens and blessed in holy water or anything. This is typical ice cream that you can purchase from the store! Some of the food do not appear nor taste fresh neither. Would not recommend this place for people who care about expenses of food.

Coconut snail is to die for! (kinda pricey though, $ 5 for a small bowl)
Since I don’t eat pork/​beef, I get to miss out on most of the yummy dishes in the world :(BUT they have vegetarian bun bo hue !!!
Only part that sucks is that this spot IS in the middle of Phuoc Loc Tho and you’d get those old Vietnamese folks walking by & staring at you while you eat

Sugar cane juice is so so. Love their coconut snails.

My parents used to take me to the asian garden mall every sunday. They would give me $ 10 bucks and I would get to walk around all the food courts pigging out on various items including snails and balut.
Anyway After having dim sum across the street my friends and I decided to come here for boba at another food court. She mention to me she has never tried Balut. This was the perfect opportunity to get her to try it. This place is pretty cheap and convenient. Its about $ 2 bucks and they give it to you pipping hot, along with some herbs and salt and pepper. My buddy enjoyed it very much sucking that bad boy dry. As I am typing I am now craving some balut! They also serve snails and clams.

I come here every New Years and once every 3 months. I love their variety of Vietnamese street food. My mom used to take me here as a kid, just to snack on all the munchies she grew up eating. She told me, besides Vietnam, this is the closest thing to the authenticity of eating street food in Vietnam, but much cheaper in terms of travel.
I always try to hit up this place, whenever I’m in the area. I love their variety of snails and the bun beo they have.

My longing for Saigon-​style snails has been sated, somewhat!
If I had known this place existed in September, after I got back from Vietnam, I would have lived here. Well, I’m still tempted.
I wasn’t really hungry since I had just stuffed myself with dim sum across the street, but when I saw the buckets of snails — different species, different sauces, even blood cockles were in there somewhere! — I couldn’t pass it up.
They sell by the bucket size and I got a small, with small snails (oc) — you need a toothpick to get the meat out — in a kind of hot garlic oil with some sweet garlic chili sauce on the side. This cost $ 5. I also got a small sugarcane juice (nuoc mia). This cost $ 2.25. I would have also gotten a balut (hot vit lon), which were just chilling, already boiled, in a big cauldron on the counter, but the lady selling them already looked scared that the white girl was going to flip out over her snails, so I decided not to push it. The guy before me in line did order one though, and he asked for a specific level of development. The lady happily weighed them one by one with her ladle until they found one together that had ‘no fur’.
Well, the snails were delicious — not rubbery at all — and the dipping sauce was very complementary. Not too intrusive. They’re tricky to eat — you’ve got about a fifty-​fifty chance of losing half the meat to the darkest corners of the snail shell if you don’t wield your toothpick right. Still worth it.
I’ll be back to try the rest of the varieties. I saw giant apple snails, I saw snails in coconut sauce, I saw blood cockles with salt and rau ram.
And I want all of them.

My mom had ordered some food from them and it was bad. Literally. They were selling food that went bad. After buying the food, mom walked away to get a seat and noticed that the food was old and went sour. So my mom went back to try to return, or exchange, it but was told no. That they cannot do that and were very rude about it. Waste of food and waste of money! Definitely not eating there again.

C&C has the quality and the authenticity, or maybe I’m just desperate. It’s near impossible to find «oc len xao dua» outside of Vietnam. There are none anywhere near I live, unless you count the gross frozen kind.
Those who grew up with this dish should know it right away. Snails swimming (not literally, they’re dead) in a rich, sweet, spicy coconut sauce. The snails may be an acquired taste for some. The best thing about this dish is the sauce. I drank it like a soup.

C&C Express is a Vietnamese restaurant located inside the Phuoc Loc Tho (Asian Garden Mall) food court in Little Saigon. The eatery specializes in snails, snacks, snails, che (Vietnamese pudding), and more snails. Seriously, I’ve never seen so many pre-​cooked varieties of snails. The snails sit inside a glass display, buffet-​style, so you can point and choose what you want. Other restaurants inside the food court serve snails too, but we decided to eat this one because it seemed to have the best selection.
I tried the big snails in garlic sauce and the little snails in coconut sauce. Not bad. Both were soaking in sauce and quite flavorful. A Styrofoam cupful of snails costs $ 5 each. Cash only. It’s a little pricey, especially when you consider how much space the snail shells take up. The amount of meat you actually get to eat is small.
The big snails in garlic sauce come with a tiny side of vinegar chili sauce. Since these are larger snails, you’ll need to use toothpicks to dig them out of their shells. Be careful because once the snail pops out from its shell, sauce can come flying at you. The big snails have «soles» at the bottom of the meat (kind of like feet), which are hard and inedible.
The little snails in coconut sauce are decidedly sweet. Since these snails are smaller, you can just suck the meat out of the shells.
The texture and consistency of snail meat is smooth and slimy. It’s not for everyone, but I think most people should try it at least once in their lifetime.
C&C Express also sells a nice assortment of Vietnamese snacks and you can even make your own Vietnamese pudding here. They have all the sweet and colorful jellies and beans laid out so you can pick and choose what you want in your drink. Nice.

I ordered the Chao Ga (chicken porridge) and was not impressed. Half of the porridge consisted of bean sprouts and that’s all I could taste. WIll not be ordering the chao ga again.

Per a recommendation from one of my Unilocal friends, I happily slurped up snails in coconut sauce. Found that it was easy to just suck on the big end and the meat just popped out. Had to ask for a bag for the empties, or I was just continuing to search for the ones with meat left.
I did think that $ 5 was a little steep for the experience, so this is reflective of that. Also, it was tough to get the ladies attention.
Bön Appetite…

SNAILS IN COCONUT SAUCE! YUM!
So I was in the Asian Garden Mall today and walked around the food court area twice until I figured out what I wanted to snack on. FOUND IT — SNAILS IN COCONUT SAUCE! I was just at another stall trying the snails for the first time. I thought I wanted to try another version of the snails to compare how it is made (It’s the amateur chef in me).
So I’m walking around the food court, and this cute old Vietnamese husband and wife (owners?) of C&C Express began to talk to me in Vietnamese and invited me into their store (Note: I’m not Vietnamese, nor do I speak the language. I just smiled and nodded my head like I understood what they were saying — all to be polite!).
Then, it came time to order. I wanted those snails again! C&C Express offered a small portion of snails (with the tops chopped off) cooked in some kind of coconut /​fish sauce /​basil sauce. It was $ 5 for a one-​scoop serving (which was more than enough). Apparently, you are supposed to suck one side of the snail and because they chopped one side of the shell off, the snails/​slugs come shooting out.
So here I was in the middle of the Vietnamese food court, sucking on the snails and making a LOT of noise trying to get these little critters out of their shells. SOOOO CUTE — two MORE (see my other review) little old Vietnamese grandmothers passed me and said something loud to me in Vietnamese and gave me the biggest smile! My best guess is they must have said something like «You look like you are enjoying your meal!» or «You GO Boy and suck those snails!». LOL! it was a lot of fun to eat it.
Gotta admit, the snails were more tasty at C&C than they were at Dakao (the other food vendor around the corner). I was sooo excited about the food, I decided to get a LARGE surgar cane juice drink. The cute little man got three stalks of sugar cane and put it into the «crusher» (lack of the technical term for the machine) and made fresh sugar cane juice for me. YUMMAGE!!! I actually liked this sugar care drink a LOT becasue they did not try to infuse kumquat juice in it to kill the bite. This juice tasted authentic (kinda sweet and grassy).
C&C has good tasting food, reasonable prices, and some CUTE OLD GRANDMA/​GRANDPA owners who work so hard!!! I’ll be back!