Mandoline

Vietnamese salads (goi) and garnishes require the fine shredding and chopping of fresh vegetables. A mandoline, which resembles a cheese grater, lets you turn vegetables into paper-thin slices and tiny shreds. Prices of mandolines range widely. It is more important to find one you are comfortable with than to spend hundreds on an expensive one. An inexpensive plastic mandoline may be adequate if you don’t use it often.