Hot N Spicy
Homemade Laotian pork sausage (left) and freshly fried sesame balls are part of the allure at the homey Hot 'N Spicy.
Every time I went to Hot ’n Spicy, the modest quick-serve food counter in the back of Monona’s Viet Hoa Market, something tickled me in a real and joyous way. Something tasty, someone charming, some form of generosity — with every visit, I liked Hot ’n Spicy a little more.
There’s Hot ’n Spicy signage out front underneath the big Viet Hoa sign, but you won’t see the restaurant when you walk in. As with many food counters in non-Anglo markets, the prepared food operation is way in the back.
But make your way past the koala-shaped candies and cans of preserved fruits and shrimp stews, and suddenly there are three small four-tops and what looks like a card table covered with wrapped banh mi sandwiches, spring rolls with shrimp, and a tablet for card payments. Hot ‘n Spicy took over the food prep counter here in October 2018, and behind it, owner Tammy Phommachanh and her family cheerily take phone and in-person orders while at the same time doing all the cooking, plating, bagging and serving.
Takeout is what Hot ’n Spicy does best, and that card table is a real treasure trove of Lao, Thai and Vietnamese grab ’n go goodies. Those banh mi are stacked like cordwood, and reward a minimal investment of time and money with the traditional combination of crisp veggies, cilantro, pork roll, head cheese and jalapeño, all pleasantly stuffed into a chewy roll. Complement it with an iced tea or fudgy Thai coffee. Or try the weekend-only nom von, a sweet jellied drink similar to bubble tea and Indonesian cendol. You could stop there. But don’t.
Freshly fried sesame balls are filled with delicately sweet bean paste, and for a dollar apiece, they’re an exceptional midday snack. Unlike the “krab” rangoon, which are simultaneously dry and oily and maybe a little too sweet, the sesame balls have a crisp, savory exterior around a soft, doughy interior, and are utterly demolishable.
Consider the Lao sausage. Full of rustic, rough-hewn pork and a stunning volume of lemongrass and lime leaf, these are crisped up just enough to snap, and sliced on the bias so there’s no worry of molten fat exploding anywhere on your lap if you choose to eat them on a park bench with your bare hands.
Bánh cuốn is a slippery, steamed version of egg or spring rolls, squishy in all the right ways, filled with wood ear mushroom and ground chicken and topped with fried garlic. The only other place I’ve found them in the greater Madison area is Saigon Noodles, and then only on Sunday, so this is another excellent find, and just $5.
The bánh cuốn are neither hot nor particularly spicy, but the spice really hits with the noodle dishes (though I have found the levels to be unpredictable). A pad thai with chicken at level two out of four was mildly fiery, but an order of level three pad woon sen with steak was as mild as a level one pad see ew with tofu. I heard a number of people order “Lao-style,” which I came to learn equates to a semi-secret level five.
All those noodle dishes feature minor variations from plate to plate. Lots of carrot and broccoli, with thick flat noodles in the see ew versus vermicelli in the pad thai and angel hair (I’m told) in the woon sen. A good friend, my go-to for weighing in with world travel experience, reported that the woon sen was nearly identical to one he had in Thailand, save the plastic bag in which it is served at the market stalls there.
Fried rice is fried rice, no real mystery there. Hot ’n Spicy does a fine job, but the classic you’ll want to spend the most time with is the pho. Good old beef and meatball pho. A kiddie pool’s worth of steaming hot broth arrives with all the usual fixings — sprouts, cilantro, basil, glassy noodles and the meats of your choice — and delivers a remarkable amount of flavor for being such a visually unremarkable liquid. There’s some spicy heat, too.
Hot ’n Spicy is a lot like a non-mobile food cart, with an embarrassment of riches in quantity and quality for the price, presented without pretension in a lot of Styrofoam and bags. Add to that the warm welcome I witnessed every single person receive during my stops, and this is a secret worth sharing.
Hot ’n Spicy
4602 Monona Drive; 608-405-3095
hot-n-spicy-laotian-restaurant.business.site
10:30 am-7 pm Tue.-Thurs., 10:30 am-8 pm Fri.-Sat. 10:30 am-7 pm Sun.
$3-$16
The restaurant is accessible, though the sidewalk apron in the parking lot is steep.
