indigirl et al,
I am a volunteer at Giac Minh temple and I’ll try my very best to decipher the dish/item you mentioned to those who are interested. As this is a Vietnamese Buddhist temple, we prepare the food and adhere to the strict vegan guidelines (no eggs, no animal based ingredients) or just plant based only diet.
- Tomato based soup: perhaps it’s our popular Vietnamese Hue inspired noodle soup (pronounce “boon Hway”) .
- The long cylindrical leaf wrapped things is our vegan version of Vietnamese Chả lụa or giò lụa or cold cut equivalent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chả_lụa. It’s called " Chả chay" and “chay”, pronunce as jhay stand for vegan in Vietnamese. The temple made it into 2 different version (plain or dill which is more popular with Northern Vietnamese). The temple Chả chay is made from fresh vegan tofu skin, shaped, then wrapped with banana leaf then steam. Ask for Chả chay (jah jhay) if you wanted to attempt your Vietnamese with the nuns the next time you drop in. That would definitely give them a big smile.
- Fried, slightly sweet buns with sesame seeds aka bánh cam (bahn cam) or Bánh rán (northern version). The outer shell is made with glutinous flour then rolled into sesame seeds and fry. The filling is made of sweetend mashed mung beans.
- Salad of the day, depending on season’s fruits/produces.
