Eating Our Way South - Saigon

Finally, a day off! I might be able to catch up on some rest today. Or catch up on some cleaning.... we'll see.

Now for the final installment of our gastrojourney through Vietnam, featuring dishes from the Southern part of the country. Now, I don't think that Saigon has any specialties per se, but the food there is great none the less. I don't have as many pictures this time, but here we go:

SAIGON

Bánh Mì - the sandwich that combines a French baguette with all kinds of interesting things to make a light, inexpensive breakfast meal (this place sold it for 5000 đồng, which is about 30 cents. At Lee's it's like $2.50 plus tax!) I already posted a bánh mì picture before, but it ended up that we ate here more than the other place, plus this picture came out better.


Next in chronological order (though not in Vietnam) are the dế chiên. These delicacies are sold in Cambodia and taste amazing like sauteed shrimp. The interesting part is how they catch the crickets: they setup a stick frame and an empty basin of plastic tarp at the bottom. Then they put a light at the top of the frame and crickets fly over to the light then fall into the basin and can't get out. (click for a visual)


Now, back to Saigon. The last restaurant of note at which we ate was called Cơm Niêu Sài Gòn. Not only to they have a one of my wife's favorite dishes (cơm cháy - baked/burned rice), but they do have a little performance to make things more interesting (luckily caught it on film). They bake the rice in a clay pot, then they just shatter the pot right in front of you and throw the lump of rice around, I guess to cool it off, or to show off. Fun! If you're interested in going, the addres is 6c Tú Xương Quận 3, TPHCM and we recommend the cá kho tộ (fish baked in a clay pot with sauce) with the cơm cháy. Here's the video of how they serve cơm cháy, and below is the finished product:






Well, folks, that's all. I'm off to clean the house. Sleeping can wait.

Eating Our Way South - Huế, Hội An

After a great time in Hà Nội, we headed down to the central regions of Vietnam. Central Vietnam is known for its spicy dishes and unique accent - some Vietnamese just say straight out that they don't understand the central dialect.

HUẾ
We only stayed in Huế for two days, but tried to fit as much sight-seeing and eating in as possible. Unfortunately, I didn't think to take a lot of pictures (of the food anyway), so here's our report:

Here's a little food stall in the Đông Bạ (sp?) marketplace in Huế. The was pretty good, but the lady kept bringing stuff out and it ended up to be a bit more pricey than we hoped for. Usually food stalls offer less-expensive food. But it was good and we laughed it off.


We also ate at Tịnh Gia Viên, a nice place tucked in a beautiful garden. The head cook is from the family that used to cook for the imperial kings of Vietnam, so the food is intricately presented in the shape of dragons, turtles and other mythic animals. The presentation is great (I hear they will even dress you up in royal garb if you make the appointment!) but unfortunately, the foood seriuosly lacked in taste. Here's our favorite dish of all, nem which is a type of spring roll. Click here to see what it looked like when we were finished with it :).

HỘI AN

To be honest, Hội An proved to be much more delightful to our palate than Huế. Here's our report:


Our first day was spent shopping, as Hội An is known for its inexpensive fabrics and countless tailor shops. The reason my wife likes it so much is because unlike the shops in Saigon, they are familiar with making clothing for "foreigners," which means they add a little to your measurements instead of take away. That means the Hội An clothing actually fits and is comfortable whereas most clothing bought from Saigon shops is ridiculously tight. Anyway, we spent longer at the shops than usual because we wanted to stay in that part of town until 8pm, for that is when Mr Noodles starts selling.

They call him Mr Noodles (that's my loose translation of "Ông Mì Quảng") because he is famous for his delicious noodle dish mì quảng which he sells in front of the fabric shops for a few hours after sundown. He has no restaurant, or even tables, but just sits down on the sidewalk with his wife and daughter amid stacks of plastic chairs (if you need a table, just put your plate on a chair!) and starts dishing out some killer mì quảng. Just get in line (which consists of a bunch of people sitting in random places - so basically just sit down somewhere) and he magically keeps track of who's next, as well as what you order and how much you owe when you're done. To me, Mr Noodles is a representation of how many people make a living in Vietnam - find your niche and work it. It probably won't be high paying or have any official position or title (in fact, he operates his business right under a sign that says "No food stalls," but it's night and the food's good so that makes it ok), but it's something.

The next day we started out for Cơm Gà Bà Buội, per recommendation of my wife's sister. It was raining and it took us 30 minutes of asking random people on the street to find it, but it was worth it. Bà Buội was is the founder of the place, which since her passing has been headed by her son. There is no menu - you just walk into the front room of the house, take a seat on the wooden bench (across the room from the dog, please) and say "I'll have what they're getting." while pointing to your neighbors. We were quite pleased. The chicken dishes are very simple - shredded chicken on rice, shredded chicken salad - but are delicious. Definitely recommended.

The locals will tell you that you have to try cao lầu, which is a noodle soup that can only be made in Hội An because they make it with special water from a special well that is only in their city. The dish itself isn't so special, just thick noodles in broth, like most other soup dishes in Vietnam. We actually went to the well and were surprised to see... a well. Tucked between someone's house and someone else's house, there's a circular hole in the ground with water at the bottom. A well. I guess I was expecting cao lầu noodles to magically spew from the well or something, but I was a little disappointed.

What locals might not tell you is to try the hoành thánh chiên (fried wontons), and even less will know where to eat them. There's a lot of places that sell this dish, but many are very disappointing. We went to one place that replaced the wonderfully sweet/sour sauce with ketchup. Probably because I'm white. Finally, on the night before we leave for Saigon, we start on a journey to find the real thing. We walked all the way down Hai Bà Trưng street until we found the place - Bông Hồng Trắng. Look at that picture - there lies the "real thing." It might look like nachos, but it's ten times what nachos could ever be.

Eating Our Way South - Hà Nội

It's raining outside so I'm going to blog again.

My wife once told me that she travels to eat. This is not completely true - she actually travels for family and leisure and a love of the seeing far away places - but she has shown me the satisfaction that comes from going out of one's way to ask the locals about where the regional specialty tastes best. And I have shown her how to put aside one's fears and dive into a narrow alley to eat the food many locals won't touch. We make quite the dynamic team when it comes to eating. Here's our report for Hà Nội.

HÀ NỘI -
The specialty in Hà Nội is bún. All kinds of bún. Bún is a vermicelli noodle dish served with different kinds of meat and lots of rau (leafy greens and herbs). It can be served dry or as soup. Everything is brought out separately to the table, then each customer gets their own little bowl to do the mixing in. Their bún is cooked and drained but not tossed so it sticks together, then it is cut into squares so you don't have to slurp it. In addition to the noodles, rau and meat, there's always a tasty mắm to go with it. Nước mắm (fish sauce) seems to be the thing in the South, but most of the bún we had in the North was served with mắm nem, which my wife always tells newcomers to eat first and smell later. Bún is one of my favorite dishes because it digests quickly and doesn't leave me feeling heavy after a big bowl. That's in addition to the delicious taste of fresh herbs, rice noodles and bbq-ed meat mixed with mắm. Yum!

For soupy bún, there's several different kinds. Bún thang, bún bung... but our favorite is bún mọc. Our favorite place by far is called, well, Bún Mọc Số 1 - Number 1 Bun Moc (see above picture). "Number 1" just so happens to be its address, but makes a nice name, too. This type of bún must be pretty regional because I haven't been able to find it anywhere other than the North, including in Orange County.

Another type of bún that we stumbled upon is bún đậu, meaning noodles with tofu. It was in a little alley at the corner of Hàng Bạc and Hàng Bè, and is not for the faint of heart. Entering the alley leads you through a mess of people sitting on little plastic chairs at little plastic tables (very typical of road-side stands). You have to find your own seat, which usually means sitting on the empty side of a table that is already occupied. Then they start bringing stuff out, and you basically look at what other people and point to order. This little dive turned out to be our favorite surprise in Hà Nội, and this dish is probably very tough to find outside of the North.

For those of you who love the classic Vietnamese eggroll - chả giò - then the North might leave you empty handed and empty stomached. The Northern version of eggroll, called nem rán, is filled with cabbage and bean sprouts, with a little ground pork and shrimp if you're lucky. Of course, I love them both. :) This is a picture of some homemade stuff we had while visiting the relatives in the countryside.

Is your mouth watering yet? If it is, we'll tell you a secret. Ok, it's not a secret, but it is a buffet - a Vietnamese buffet - that offers all of the above dishes in one location, all you can eat. It's like 7 dollars to eat to your heart's content, and the atmosphere is "exotic," too. I'll post the address (somewhere in Hồ Tây) when I find the business card.

Phew, that's enough for now! Later I'll post our report on Central Food, from Huế and Hội An. Oh, sorry Triết, we didn't get your extensive restaurant list until we got back South. I guess we'll just have to go back to Huế again!!

A taste of Vietnam

We've been here for almost a week now. Both my wife and me are are sick, we happened to show up right in the middle of monsoon season so it rains everyday, and not the Southern California sprinkle but the soak-you-to-the-bone-in-three-seconds rain. The soaking happens even sooner on a motor bike, and we happened to be on the way to auntie's house (on a motorbike) when the big stuff hit. Then we sat and visited for 2 hours in soaking wet clothing and then got sick. But it's been fun.
I've had a ton on my mind as far as things to blog, but it will all have to wait. For now, I'll just give you a taste of some of the food we've eaten.

Our first meal in Vietnam - bánh mì from a road-side stand.

This is not from War of the Worlds, this is dried squid. Some people love it. Most people don't.

Here's our dim sum, half-way consumed, as a primer for fish noodle soup.

Here's some pho we had at a little place called Pho 24 in Quan 3. The interesting thing was that this place was quite fancy (they even plucked the basil for you!) and most of the logo stuff was in English only, even though it was far from the tourist center.

And this was lunch today, pad thai at a place called Highlands Coffee on the top of Tax Plaza downtown. Looks beautiful but left my tongue with much to be desired. But I met an old friend there who was on a volunteer trip to the Mekong Delta. Small world!