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.   

Fiori di Zucca Fritti (Fried Zucchini Blossoms)

Zucchini seeds are usually planted in the beginning to the middle of July.  By early August there would be lots of blossoms, male flowers on long stalks and female flowers carrying baby squashes at their ends.  Upscale produce shops usually carry only the female flowers because of the eye-appeal of their cute little zucchinis.  Farmer’s markets also sell the much more inexpensive male flowers.  Mr. A bought a big bundle of them for just a dollar (about 100 Japanese yen).

     

$1 worth of male zucchini flowers

Male zucchini flowers with stems removed

The usual way to cook zucchini blossoms is to fry them after removing the stamens (male) or the pistils (female).  Mr. A followed a Fiori di Zucca Fritti recipe from Cucina Giuseppina, a cooking school in Certaldo that “rarecat” attended during her trip to Tuscany, Italy.  Here is the gist of the recipe:

1.       Crack 3 eggs into a bowl; add 2 heaping tablespoons of flour per egg.   

2.       Add 2 ice cubes into the mix.  Stir to combine.  Add water if necessary till the batter has the consistency of whipping cream.

3.       Heat an inch or less of oil in a frying pan (there is no need to use as much oil as for deep frying).  Test the temperature by dripping a little bit of batter into the oil.  It should cook reasonably fast but should not turn brown right away.

4.       Dip the flowers into the batter one at a time.  Wipe flower along the side of bowl; turn flower 180 degrees and wipe again to remove as much of the batter as possible.  The flower should have a very thin coating of batter.

5.       Fry them in oil till done, cooking time should be 4 or 5 minutes per side.

6.       Salt flowers while they are still hot.

Mr. A followed the recipe with two minor changes.  Instead of getting a smooth consistency, he stirred the ingredients just enough to incorporate them into a lumpy batter.  He did it deliberately to mimic the way chefs at high-end tempura restaurants in Japan made tempura batter.  Mr. A also used much less than an inch of oil so his fried blossoms turned out rather flat instead of fluffy.  Mr. A tasted the batter and salt when he ate the fried plain flowers but not much else.  He found out later that he was supposed to eat the fritto right out of the pan while it was super hot.  Mr. A also used some of the blossoms as a topping for a bowl of Japanese somen noodle. 

Frying male zucchini flowers

Somen noodle with fried zucchini blossoms and pork

A few days later, Mr. A fried some stuffed female zucchini blossoms.  He blended fresh ricotta (about one tablespoon per flower), some fresh Mozzarella and a small amount of Parmigiano-Reggiano in a food processor until they form a smooth paste.  He stuffed the flowers and fried them in a cast iron frying pan with about half an inch of oil.

Fried female zucchini blossoms with cheese stuffing

The fried blossoms looked much better this time.  They also tasted better.  The stuffing was soft and fluffy (ricotta) with some creaminess (Mozzarella) and nutty (Parmigiano).  The baby zucchinis were delicious. 

The flowers themselves were still bland.  Mr. A wondered whether stuffing them with a paste of rock fish and white shrimp would help.  That would be a future project.

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?

Hot Summer, Cold Ramen

When the summer heat becomes too much, Mr. A does not want to cook and eat hot meals.  He and Mrs. A would eat cool food like stone fruits, ears of corn, tomatoes, potato salad and cold noodle.  

 

An example of a cold noodle dish is tomato ramen.  The raw ramen noodle (nama ramen) and soup base are from their favorite ramen producer, Amochinmi in the tiny seaport of Tomonoura, Fukuyama.  The ramen noodle has a red tint as it contains tomato.  Tomato puree has also been added to the basic chicken and soy sauce soup base.  

The preparation is simple and quick:

1.  Cut up some cherry tomatoes (Mr. A used a colorful mix of red, orange and green ones); pick some mint leaves; set them aside.
2. Cut up some meat into slivers (Mr. A happened to have some Canadian bacon on hand; but anything like chashu, chicken or ham would do; clams, shrimps or squids would be even better); set aside.
3. Cook the nama ramen in boiling water for a minute and half; immediately put it in an ice bath; drain when noodle is cold.
4. Mix the soup base with cold water.
5. Assemble the cold ramen bowl by placing the drained ramen into the soup, add meat, tomato halves, mint leaves, and serve. 

Voila!  Here’s a bowl of tasty and refreshing cold tomato ramen.

Mapo Dofu (麻婆豆腐) at Szechwan Restaurant CHEN in Tokyo

In Mr. A’s opinion, the Mapo Dofu (麻婆豆腐) at Szechwan Restaurant CHEN was superb.

The dofu dish came with a bowl of steamed rice and small plates of Szechwan pickle slices and mahogany-colored honey and sesame glazed walnuts.  Captivated by the spicy fragrant aroma and red hot look of the dish, Mr. A sampled it  immediately.  He was pleased with the complex flavor of the sauce, which was made with doubanjiang (豆瓣醬) and small amounts of sweet sauce, chili paste, fermented black beans, red chili oil and Szechwan peppercorn oil.  Fine Szechwan peppercorn flakes were sprinkled over the dish as the final touch.  There was plenty of “ma 麻” (the numbing effect from Szechwan peppercorn) and “la 辣” (spicy heat from doubanjiang and chili) to stimulate his taste buds without overwhelming them.  The mild dofu and sweet minced pork formed a perfect stage for the intense sauce.  Mr. A was hooked by the spicy, salty and umami flavors that filled his mouth.  These flavors came together in harmony and showed off the depth and dimensions of the Mapo Dofu dish.  He ate spoon after spoon until it was all gone.  Indeed, the Mapo Dofu at Szechwan Restaurant CHEN was superb.

 
That the Mapo Dofu is so good at Szechwan Restaurant CHEN is expected as the restaurant is named after the famous Chinese Iron Chef, Chen Kin’ichi (陳建一), whose signature dish is Mapo Dofu.  Chef Chen does not cook at the restaurant.  The executive chef is Komoda Kinya (菰田欣也) who began his career in 1988 in another Chen restaurant.  Szechwan Restaurant CHEN is at the Cerulean Tower in Shibuya, Tokyo.  It also has branches in Nagoya and Takamatsu.