It's a good ol' Southern dish, from the South of Vietnam. Ninh Kieu is a district in Can Tho, the largest city in the Mekong Delta, and com tam, which also lends its name to this restaurant, describes a dish that includes broken rice, the modest white heap at the back. Fractured during the milling process, the individual grains become softer, when cooked, than intact rice prepared to the same recipe, and absorbent — almost eager, it seems, to take on the flavors of juicy pork chops, runny eggs, and dipping sauce. (Like your eggs runnier? Just ask.) As for those "cakes" laid across the center of the plate, they're filled, not with the fish you might find in the American South, but with minced shrimp.

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