I must admit, I really like Mai Pham's first cookbook "the best of Vietnamese and Thai cooking." So the minute I saw "Pleasures of the Vietnamese Table"I bought a copy right away. Unfortunately, I was rather disappointed with this one. Besides the culture and history aspects, which I am not looking for mainly in a cookbook, I find her recipes in this book too tedious and complicated. Furthermore, I tried two recipes (Hue beef vermicelli soup and tofu, tomato and chile soup)and both did not even taste too good. I decided to give the book to my friend, a great fan of Vietnamese food. She returned the book to me after two weeks because she cannot find half the ingredients called for in the book. Since my friend and I are not hardcores when it comes to "authentic" ethnic foods, this book is definitely not for people like us.