Vietnam

Sunday, 31 August 2014

Eating in Saigon

Our first morning in Saigon started with a trip to the market with our last cooking class on the tour (Saigon Cooking School).  The huge Cho Binh Tay market in Saigon was a bigger version of all those other Vietnamese markets we saw in Hanoi, Hue and Hoi An, and obviously with more selection. The instructors pointed out basically similar things so I will not repeat myself.   Please check the Travels with rarecat blog post on Saigon Streetscape for photos from this market.  We were at the tail end of our tour and by then, the cooking class seemed more like a practice session on spring roll rolling - nothing new.

What was new was the Lotus leaf fried rice.  The new ingredient I noticed was the lotus seed.  I have never seen that in a fried rice dish and it's something to keep in mind.  I've never used a fresh lotus leaf either although this dish is also Chinese.

Fried rice ingredients:  chicken, shrimp, lotus seed, carrots, peas

Giant paddle for stir-frying and look at the neat way it was served.  The rice was put on the lotus leaf which was used to line a bowl.  The sides of the leaf were then folded over the rice and then inverted onto a dish.

The lotus leaf was given a cross-shaped cut across the top and voilà - fried rice in fragrant lotus leaf flower!    

That was our lunch.  For dinner, we tried three different styles.  The first night we arrived in Saigon, we were too tired to go further than a block from our hotel.  This restaurant, possibly a chain, looked like it was visited by locals and the food was quite good, the prices reasonable.  We were seated beside the window and noticed customers who had finished their dinners were waiting outside for the jockey to bring in their scooters from the parking lot. There was valet parking for scooters!

One of our dishes - an excellent mushroom hotpot

Our second night, we ate at a restaurant recommended by our guide:  Nha Hang Ngon. This was a little like the Market Restaurant in Hoi An with one arcade lined with street food style stalls.  Customers ate in an open courtyard inside a two-storied yellow colonial building.   Of course it's not street food - it just created a street food ambiance which was really nothing like the real thing, but tourists loved it and the place was packed.  You can check out the rave reviews on Tripadvisor if you are planning a trip.  I thought our meal was good and I liked the open air courtyard.  But it was not my idea of authentic Vietnamese street food.

Excellent steamed Vietnamese crab

The colonial courtyard

Our last night in Saigon, we ventured out in a cab to an area where we were told we could find Vietnamese street food.   We were not even sure if this was the real thing even though the entire kitchen was on a street near the market, and all the tables were out on the street. It just looked too organized and on too large a scale - nothing like the street food stalls we visited in Hanoi.

The outdoor kitchen

Communal tables on the street

Our neighbours were cooking strips of meat on a piece of brick over a coal fire in a bucket - looked like too much work for too little return!

We opted for something easier, seafood wrapped in foil and a hotpot of morning glory and pho.

It was good - we were hungry!  
That marked the end of our Vietnamese culinary experience.  Looking forward to more food in Hong Kong.   

Thursday, 21 August 2014

Mekong Delta Lunch

After a few hours going up a Mekong tributary on a small boat, we were happy to be walking on land to what looked like a very rustic restaurant in the middle of nowhere.  Of course when we sat down in the open air dining room with a thatched roof, we noticed there were other tourists there and it was obviously a restaurant created for foreigners.  

But still the food served was local and we were pleasantly surprised by the main course - an elephant ear fish that was crunchy through and through.  It's not often that we are able to taste a fish that has been fried and still remain crisp on every side right to the end of the meal.   The way it was served obviously had something to do with that.  The four of us were almost bickering (in a friendly way) over who will have that last crunchy fin!  That's what rational civilized adults were reduced to when it came to good food.

Starter spring rolls with the see-through wrapping - my favourite

The elephant ear fish served on a stand.  I've since noticed other restaurants in town serving fish the same way but it's odd that the first time I'd noticed it was in a restaurant in the middle of nowhere in the Mekong delta.

The server scraped off both sides of the fish which remained crunchy throughout

Other less memorable dishes 

Shrimps were of course very fresh

Part of the restaurant - quite rustic, isn't it?

Thursday, 19 June 2014

Hoi An Street Food Tour

Our last morning in Hoi An, the tour company surprised us with a food tour of Hoi An with Australian food "guru" Neville Dean.  Neville had retired to Vietnam and learned the good stuff about Vietnamese food in the years that he had been there.  He had made friends with the locals and provided us tourists with an "insider" view of street food.  

How do I rate his tour?  The tour was a lot of fun and Neville Dean was a good presenter although it felt a little weird listening to an Australian accent give us the lowdown on Vietnamese food.  He had an excellent rapport with the vendors and definitely showed us some excellent sources, including the best Pho we have ever had.  He guaranteed that he had checked all his vendors, that the food we ate was "safe".  In a way, he enabled us to try street food without having to run the risk of getting bad food, so for that we were thankful.   What I'd found missing was the inherent cultural background behind some of the foods and customs - not something a foreigner could learn in a few years even if he could learn the names of all the foods and dishes.   In North America, there would have been protests of cultural misappropriation...

It was an early start to the day with a breakfast drink at this roadside stall, loaded with fresh fruit and in a non-tourist area of Hoi An. 

Fruit shake with crispy coconut in side to give the shake a distinct crunch.

Tofu dessert, basically Chinese origin

According to Neville, the white bits of paper under the tables would tell how popular the place was - the more there were, the better the food because the bits of paper were actually the bills.

The best black sesame paste dessert (also Chinese in origin)

The best coconut and coffee ice cream - and no, you are not supposed to be eating ice on the street but if you were with Neville Dean, it was okay because he guaranteed the cleanliness of his vendors.

The vendor showing us the bottom of the ice maker

Snails - no no's, because of possible parasites - Neville Dean would not recommend us even trying it

BBQ pork - apparently there was milk in the marinade

The best Pho ever at this restaurant

 The best Banh Mi prepared by Banh Mi Queen - crunchy baguette with Vietnamese mint

We had what looked very much like a tasting menu at a restaurant - this was still breakfast, slowly turning into lunch

Most of these looked quite familiar since we had been eating our way down the country.

Vegan too - although we didn't try anything here

The street food tour finally wound up in a touristy family restaurant in old town - and we were served another tasting menu, with Neville Dean explaining every little bite on each of the dishes.  By this time, we had been on the street for over 4 hours, our focus was waning as was our attention span...

Vietnamese new year treats

The only thing I remembered was this most memorable spring roll, made with an unusual rice paper that looked like it was doillie - the holes made the texture crunchy but soft

Iced Vietnamese coffee - just what we needed

tequila?

You would notice by now how we had started from eating standing beside a street vendor to gradually moving into a gentrified restaurant with a table cloth, and finishing with a drink that tasted like tequila...

Tuesday, 17 June 2014

Hoi An Cooking Class

How was the Hoi An Cooking Class different from the one in Hanoi?  It was held on the second floor of arestaurant that's built specifically to show off how different Vietnamese foods were made.  It was run by the renowned chef Ms. Vy, author of the book "Taste Vietnam".  Before the class, we were taken to market as in the other classes but we were also walked through the main floor of the restaurant where there was a live demonstration at each station of different kinds of foods.  At some stations, for example, the pancakes station, we even got to try flipping the rice pancakes from the steamer onto the basket stand.  It was quite fun!

Morning Glory - we had this tasty vegetable at every meal we had in Hoi An, including lunch!  We hardly ever see greens at North American Vietnamese restaurants, but this is one veggie that is constant at all the Vietnamese cities, more so in the south than in the north.

Trying out different spices

Demonstrating how a green onion splicing tool works resulted in instant purchases!

Back at the restaurant, we dropped by different stations to see how different foods were made.  These were steamers for different kinds of foods.

Trying at cutting flat noodles

There is a trick to lifting the pancake out of the steamer with a chopstick

And flipping it onto the basket

Machine spewing out fine vermicelli noodles

Bright airy professional classroom with mirror right above the instructor

Spring rolls:  the secret to not soaking your dried rice paper when making spring rolls - use a wet towel to moisten it instead

line up your ingredients

Roll it up and it's ready to eat!

Grilled pork marinade (9 ingredients: fish sauce, salt, orange sugar, garlic, chilli sauce, green fresh lemon leaf, 5 spice, lemongrass, sesame oil)

Banh Xeo:  crispy fried pancake, a little like an omelette

Add your salad on top

Roll it up and dip in sauce to eat - it's very delicious again because of the contrast in textures between the pancake and salad!

Mango salad (green mango is supposed to be good for sleep) - easy to make

Perfect with the grilled pork which we had for lunch - don't forget to add a generous sprinkle of toasted sesame seeds on top!

Wednesday, 28 May 2014

Hue Specialties

Like most places, each city in Vietnam has its own specialty dish or variation of a national dish.  Our tour guide introduced us to a family-run restaurant (Hang-Me) away from the main thoroughfare in Hue.  There were only five items on the menu.  We ordered by the numbers and found some interesting tastes - some of which we liked and some of which we didn't like. But it was an interesting food experience, all revolving around shrimp - stands to reason as Hue is on the water.

Banh Beo - an appetizer of steamed rice pancake with shrimp bits and shredded pork skin on top - tasty!  The pork skin really gave it a crunch.

Banh Nam - a steamed flat rice dumpling made with shrimp, pork and rice flour cooked in oil and water then wrapped in banana leaves

Banh Loc,  a Hue specialty, clear dumpling made with tapioca flour filled with shrimp and pork 

Banh Ram It - sticky rice shrimp dumpling on top of deep fried pig skin - delicious!  I love the contrast between the sticky glutinous rice and the crunchy pig skin - never mind the cholesterol.

L to R - Banh Uot - rice roll with shrimp bits which we tried in Hanoi; Cha tom - a shrimp sausage/patty - Hue specialty

For more photos of the Hue food scene, please visit my travel blog Travels with rarecat.

Wednesday, 14 May 2014

Signature Hanoi Dish - Cha Ca La Vong

We were told that this uniquely Hanoi dish - Cha Ca La Vong - was a must try and that it had to be at this one restaurant of the same name in the old quarter.  The place was a bit of a dive with communal dining tables in an upstairs dining room.  We were seated in the front lobby.  There was only one dish on the menu although it was interesting that there were different prices depending on which page the waiter flipped to - it could be a variation of a hundred thousand Vietnamese duongs (approx. $5 USD) for the same dish.  We pointed at the right page pricewise.

Curious!  Menu above says 190,000 VND, below it's 280,000 VND

Very quickly, an electric stove and a pan of morning glory were placed on our table.  The waiter came and started cooking right in front of us, adding the already grilled fish, turmeric and dill.  

We were told to add the rice noodles, fish sauce, herbs and peanuts.  The combination of tastes and textures was indeed amazing.  The fish was firm, moist and tasty.  Looking back at the picture of the food in my bowl, I could re-imagine the contrasts between the crunch of the peanuts and herbs and the soft fish and noodles, the salty fish sauce on the bland noodles - that amazing yin and yang that seems to be the key elements that made Vietnamese food so attractive.  

Monday, 12 May 2014

Hanoi Street Food

I have never seen food as cheap as it was in Vietnam.  I can understand why it is such a destination for tourists, young and old.  For a few dollars, one could get a very good nutritious meal on the streets.  It could be for this reason that the Vietnamese ate out a lot.   Street stalls could be quite elaborate with multiple choices of meat and vegetables like the one you see below.  Customers sat on little red stools behind the stall.

Or it could be a moveable feast on a street corner with a more limited choice.  But it is still obvious that beef and sea food were on the menu.

This one was off the street and the food was behind glass.  Expect to pay a little more but still very inexpensive.

Chinese style barbeque

and Doner Kebab was right at home here!

Our guide took us on an early morning breakfast tour of street food.  This stall specialized in rice rolls (Banh cuon nong).  Here  the chef was pouring the batter onto the steamer.

The batter cooked almost right away as it was spread thin like a crepe.

A long chopstick was used to roll and lift the crepe off the pan

He placed the crepe on an inverted wicker basket and filled it.

And voila - our rice rolls, the thinnest crepe ever with a filling of mushroom, pork, onion and served with mint.  The Vietnamese used mint extensively.

This is Hang Chieu alley - food stalls heaven.  Our next stop was at this woman's stall.  We had Bun Ca To - vermicelli with fish in a soup that had 20 ingredients!

These wraps looked delicious, paper thin wrappers and finely chopped ingredients

This is a dessert stall!

Specially prepared chicken for wedding

This is where the locals eat breakfast too

Right in the middle of the street motor cycle parking - a cardboard box around a portable stove with an open flame used to warm up baguettes and fry eggs and pancakes!  Can it get more dangerous!?  But no one batted an eye!

Choice selection of seafood and meat

This is where we had our early lunch - Bun Cha - BBQ pork - 

grilled on wood fire

The BBQ pork was dipped in an intensely flavoured soup - sugar, fish sauce, vinegar - in sharp contrast to the plain rice noodles that was served with it.  It was so delicious!  I had requested this particular food because I remembered my dad used to make this when we were young.  He made the bbq pork in the oven and we had a sauce to dip the pork in - but nothing like this intense soup!

It was quite a morning of street food adventure!

Wednesday, 23 April 2014

Cooking Class - Hanoi

While Mr. & Mrs. A. went to Japan for food, we went on a 12 day culinary tour of Vietnam which included cooking classes in three cities.  We realized when we got there that taking cooking classes in foreign cities seems to be a popular pastime for this new generation of tourists - the four of us on the tour were the oldest in the class.   Indeed, we found that it is a great way of learning, not just about cooking techniques but also about the culture.  Before the classroom part started, we were taken on a tour of a Hanoi market.  Read about this on my travel blog.

Hanoi Cooking Centre where our class was held

The classroom

Our instructor Duyen explaining the basics of Vietnamese cooking

Ginger - a key ingredient in Vietnamese cooking - toasted on a gas stove

Dyuen showed us the basic cooking technique for Beef Pho - Vietnamese do not cook the beef  (not even briefly) - they just put raw slices in the bowl and rely on the hot soup to cook the beef to just the right doneness.  What you see below is overcooked beef pho - for foreigners!

How to make lattice patterns with a green mango

Making the batter

Preparing the individual portions for deep frying

Deep frying the prawn

How to slice peppers and green papaya for decoration

Checking the green papaya for freshness - white juice should come out

Making a lattice pattern with green papaya

Here's the green papaya salad - very popular here

The technique behind wrapping spring rolls, using different kinds of rice paper - we'll learn this more than once on our trip

We had to eat our own creations, including the dipping sauce, which, in my opinion, was the best we tasted on our trip

Making banana dessert with coconut milk

And here's the eye-opener (or you may want to close it if you're squeamish) - a boiled egg with duck-embryo inside.  The keen assistant held the embryo by its neck for photos - and everyone just went wild taking shots, then he carved it up so everyone got a taste, myself included.  Looking back, I felt sick at the thought...it's amazing what crowd mentality can make one do.

Here's someething less grisly -

A Vietnamese milk fruit - it gives when ripe - very sweet inside

It was a great cultural and  culinary experience!

Wednesday, 16 April 2014

First meal in Vietnam

Our first meal in Vietnam was hosted by the tour company and it was a cozy dinner in a nice restaurant for the four of us (there were only four of us in the "small group tour").  It was likely the most genteel restaurant we ate at in the twelve days that we were in Vietnam, other than the meals on board ship at Halong Bay.   The rest of the time, we tried to eat the kind of foods that local Vietnamese ate in the cities that we visited.

The meal was served by uniformed waiters and was nicely presented.  Although it wasn't heavy on local flavour, we enjoyed it as a first culinary experience in the country and we were in good company.  

The first dish was a combination plate of (clockwise from top right) prawn and pork rolled in mustard leaves, pan-fried "young" tofu, Hanoi fried spring rolls, rice pancake with shrimp and bean sprouts filling (dish in the centre) and a wild rice chicken salad.   We were hungry and everything tasted good!  Incidentally, the name of the restaurant is "Wild Rice" (La Lua), likely why we got the wild rice salad.

Pan-fried duck with pate and green pepper sauce - tasty!

Spicy shrimps with pineapple in spicy chilli and pepper sauce - a little ambiguous about this one

Braised eggplant with pork, vegetables and spices

Fruit for dessert - dragon fruit, pineapple and water melon - nice presentation!