nakji

Yes, they Did. I was out of limes, and the veg lady didn't have any when I got home from work - she was kind of like, "Limes? At 7:30 in the evening? Don't waste my time, madame." So I thought, how am I going to get the sour note? And then I remembered the bamboo shoots. I make red curry two or three times a month, and this was one of the best I've made in ages. So Pink! So Bright! There really isn't any point in doing more to them, is there?

Here I've been feeling so healthy since I spent the whole last week eating rice noodles and vegetables, I come into this thread and see steak, macaroni and cheese, potato pancakes....I'm getting nostalgic for carbs covered in/fried in/dipped in fat. I humbly submit my contribution to the thread - I made a red curry with peanuts, some eggplant and pickled bamboo shoots that have been lurking in my fridge.

I can't imagine how this could have been a problem. No bars?! I think my plans to move to Taipei just came to a screeching halt. We used to drink at the convenience stores in Korea, too, though. It had a certain charm. Glad to hear the eats are so cheap, all of the food looks really delicious. Take care of yourself - there's a cold going around!

It's loaded up every night, and taken off to heaven knows where. Everything is washed in plastic tubs, right there on the street. Despite how that sounds, everything is very clean - at least to look at. People are always scrubbing, washing, or air-drying something out on the street. You should see the ladies that carry their whole kitchen in two baskets - in one basket, they have a brazier going, with their pot on it, boiling away, and in the other basket, all their condiments and small plastic stools. When they find an amenable doorstep (often mine, since my house is one of the few on the street that isn't a store-front), they stop, set up their stools, and wait for the customers to roll in. If they see the police coming, they can pack up quickly and be on their way. Hey, together we make, like, a full Inuit. My background is from Labrador, though - I think our other member is from the West coast? hrtz8w, thanks for sharing your picture. I haven't seen that around here, but it doesn't mean it isn't here. I'll keep my eyes out for it in the future - it looks delicious. Chufi, I remember way back, you did a killer bibimbap in the cook-off thread. Perhaps we should have a Vietnamese dish cook-off? Something simple, like Bun bo nam bo? Or Caramel Pork? If anyone would like to see more pictures of Vietnam, my husband is a Flickr member, and all his best stuff goes up there.

That is me in the picture. I'm half Inuit, which is a great excuse for being overweight. I can never complain about being cold, though! My Dad was raised in Hong Kong and Singapore, though, so I had a lot of Asian influence growing up...it's no surprise to my family that I ended up here. The water chestnut lady had a really old looking paring knife. I'm so sorry to hear that. I have a friend who's coming in April who's allergic to shellfish - I hope she'll be okay! I also had a friend who visited, who is also severely allergic to peanuts - he had no problem at all. But we did have to eat in tourist cafes all the time. The Geothe Institute - the German cultural Centre. I don't know why, though. I think it was just regular rice - but in Korea, they always use the short grain rice, like Japanese rice. Oh yeah, we're way more fun than Phnom Penh. And our DVDs are cheaper, too! I used to be a business consultant, and my husband a TV reporter. Then one day the urge hit us to travel, and we did. I really enjoy teaching, though, and I plan to take further training in it. Thank you all again for dropping by!

I guess due to time zones, I can share the rest of my Sunday with you! First, I want to thank everybody for stopping by and having a peek into my life. I hope that it was interesting for you. I've been battling a miserable cold this week, and today I was brought low, and spent most of the day curled up on a sofa with a girlfriend of mine, planning our Lunar New Year holiday, and trying to decide which country to move to next. I did manage to fit a couple of meals in between the sniffling and plotting, so I offer these as the "last meal", if you will. Earlier posts reminded me that I hadn't had Chao Tom (sugarcane shrimp) in Hanoi, so I sought some out. Luckily, KOTO offers a couple of non-northern specialties, and they had it there. After six or so cups of green tea and one banana smoothie from a different cafe, Peter came back from his Ultimate Frisbee game, and wanted something hearty. He wanted Korean hotpot, which was funny, as we were discussing hotpot over in the Taipei thread. It comes in several stages: first the soup, with mushrooms and minari - a kind of green. Kimchi on the side, of course. Then you add the beef, thinly sliced. When all the beef is gone, you add thick wheat noodles. After they're all gone, you fry some rice and egg in the pot. I felt well restored after all that. Thanks again, and if you're ever going to be in the neighborhood, do drop me a pm - I'll be happy to take you out on a bun cha crawl!

Is this the same, or related to, Galette des Rois?

The hotpot looks fabulous. We often had mushroom hotpot in Korea, with fatty beef. It's one of my husband's favourites. All you can eat sounds better though! How do you find the prices overall there? For example, what's the average cost of a quick lunch, and dinnre? I notice some of the bread appears to be stuffed with hotdogs. We got those in Korea as well, although they were usually covered in cheese, ketchup, and corn as well!

Cool! They have Costco in Seoul as well. Best slice of pizza in town, second only to the USFK mess at Panmunjeom. They used to have Wal-mart, but it actually failed, and had to shut down operations, if you can believe that. So nobody gets the wrong impression, I wouldn't eat Western food all the time! I'm a serious fan of all cuisines! However, I do find availability of imported foods a mark of a culture's ability to accept and integrate other cultures into their own, which is a serious consideration if you're going to live somewhere as a non-native. (Of course there are other factors at play affecting availability of foreign goods- whether the country is developing; colonisation, etc.)

I had my croissant from the night market for breakfast, along with some Cafe moca blend from Cafe Mai. Perfect for eating while read eGullets.

I've had it, but only in Hue...I'm not sure if it's so common here in the north. Although women on my street sell sugar cane everyday, they're usually in small pieces - not large enough to do chao tom on. But it's delicious. I'm seafood challenged, since my husband doesn't like any seafood, and he especially hates shrimp, so I don't have a lot of chances to order or prepare those dishes. I'm working on him, though. When we started dating, he wouldn't eat most non-starchy vegetables, and only thought cheese came in two "colours". Ten years on, he blows half our monthly food budget on imported cheese! I even have him eating pig ears. To be fair, I wouldn't eat rice until I moved to Asia. Hated it. And I couldn't even blame it on bad rice - we only ever cooked basmati in my house growing up. I had my mother laughing when I told her I used to go to the Indian shops in Seoul and paid $7 for a half-kilo bag. Edited to add: the bun hoi sounds a bit like the fried pho I get here - squares of rice noodle that have been deep-fried - is this the same?

Oh my god, it all looks so good. I'm dyin' here. Dunkin' Donuts in Korea made rice donuts as well, which my gluten-allergic friend loved. Your seafood feast reminds me of one I had here. I was away with my co-workers on a company holiday to Quan Lan Island, an island on the outer-rim of Halong Bay. It's completely undeveloped, and besides the few bungalows we were staying on the beach, there was nothing - just a small fishing village. No other tourists, no touts - beaches like this in South East Asia are hard to find if you stick to the tourist trail. Anyway, the food made by the bungalow management was one step up from dire, and the cashews we'd brought to cut the massive amounts of gin tonics we were drinking (warm, as there was no ice), were gone. We spotted a bungalow about 500 m down the beach, so a group of us set out to get to it. The sun was burning overhead, and we had to walk in the water, because the sand was so hot it burned through our sandals. When we finally got there, we found a shaded deck, and an ice cooler full of beer. Hurrah! We asked the father running the place if he could make us lunch. He said he didn't think it would be possible, since he'd have to go down to the village to get supplies to do so. When he went into the small hut next to the deck, we heard his wife giving him a bollocking, and he came back out sheepishly a minute later and said it would be possible, after all, if we didn't mind waiting, and if it was okay, it would have to be seafood. Of course, we had three vegetarians who also hated seafood (why did you people come to South East Asia? What were you thinking?!), who screwed up their faces, but the rest of us shouted our agreement. An hour later, plate after plate of amazing food started coming out of the hut. Baby clams with pineapple; Scallops fried in butter; Squid fried with vegetables; whole fish, steamed with herbs; peanuts; rice; and fried morning glory, all washed down with the only cold beer on the island. It was magnificent!

Hmmmm....my ninth icon is an eye roll...maybe it's my browser? How strange.

We wanted to meet our friends for bia hoi in the evening, but it turns out they had all booked themselves into the evening showing of the James Bond film. Shows you how much there is to do in Hanoi! So we went to Bia Minh, a backpackers institution in the Old Quarter. It's in an old building, looking over a market. The view is great, and the Halida drafts are 7,000 dong. The view: The beer: We got the pork with bamboo shoots and mushrooms Chicken and Lemongrass And more spring rolls! Then we went to another institution - Fanny ice cream - "based on a traditional French formula - since 1994" They have lots of great flavours - passionfruit, durian, citron vert, pineapple, and young sticky rice. Their dark chocolate ice cream is unspeakably good! I had chocolate and young sticky rice, which tasted mild and sweet - definite notes of SCM in there. Ice cream is a popular "date" food, and Hanoians take it very seriously. There are tons of ice cream shops throughout town, although Fanny overlooks Hoan Kiem Lake, next to the Old Quarter. Young couples like to cruise around the lake on their motorcycles at night - in the summers, whole families do it - it's cheaper than airconditioning. After that, we had a walk through the night market. Parking was tight. There are lots of snacks to be had on the street. I got some fresh water chestnuts And a mini banh mi They had big banh mi stalls as well He looks intent Lacquer stall! And I still had room for some fruit with condensed milk and ice shavings. The black cubes are grass jelly, which add nice texture. Peter had a custard apple smoothie. They are so hard to describe - kind of like a lemony peach. Corn is available, fried or steamed. And street pho. And sugarcane juice.... There was a preserved fruit stall, which also doubled as a French Bakery. Another reason I love living in Hanoi. Preserved cherries and ginger, and croissant and pain au chocolat as well. I got some croissant for breakfast tomorrow. One of the preserved snacks available was beef jerky - it's spicy, and when you squeeze lime juice over it, it takes it to a whole new level. Perfect for eating with beer. They'll weigh you on your way out - which I always avoid.

I wanted to stop on my street this morning for rolled pancakes (banh cuon), but I was running late, a fact no doubt related to the amount of soju that I drank last night. So I had to order in to my desk - a breakfast banh mi with egg salad, bacon, and some sort of pate, with some tomatoes and cucumbers (random food fact: Australians call the presence of tomato, lettuce, and cucumber on a sandwich "salad".) I also had a fresh-squeezed orange juice, in a vain attempt to battle the cold that I'm coming down with. After completing my morning class, Peter and I went to Vincom Towers, one of the posh "malls" in Hanoi, to buy movie tickets for the new James Bond film. With some time to kill before it started, we had a late lunch at the House of Nem; a restaurant specializing in...nem. I'm not sure what the technical definition of nem is; it seems to include spring rolls, meat balls, sausages, and summer rolls. Summer rolls with shrimp and pork - usually dipped in Nuoc Cham - fish sauce with chilis, garlic, and lime juice. Nem Nuong - ground pork and lemongrass on a skewer, served with bun and herbs. Nem Chua Ran - preserved pork - usually made with glass noodles and pig ears, then fried. These are really rich, but incredibly delicious. They often come wrapped up in banana leaves. They're usually dipped in chili sauce. They were all delicious, but we were in a rush to see a movie, so we hurried through it. I realized today that its been more than a year since I saw a movie in a theatre! This is the first time a movie that I'd care to see has come to Hanoi. The theatre is run by an Australian firm, and seems a bit ahead of its time here. Tickets are three dollars, and there's a whole movie snack bar as well. It seemed like there were mostly foreigners here. I had M&Ms. We passed by the KFC on the way to the theatre.

Thanks! I wish we had a "blushing" icon. I'm happy to provide a window into my world.

Thanks for all your words of support! I'm glad I can show you a bit of the country I love so much. I'm afraid I've been a bit shy about taking pictures, but I'm always worried about the subjects - if they'll be disturbed or not. I know I hate being stared at, so I try to play it cool in public. And my camera's not very discreet, so I can get shots on the sly. Hopefully I can overcome my fears, because tonight we're going to the night market, and hanging out at the great Hanoi institution - the Bia Hoi! Miz Ducky, I must say, that certainly is a sturdy soup. I don't know if I'll go chasing down the pigs' blood again, but if I can ask for it with just the tendon. Years of living in Asia has not overcome meat preferences bred into me from childhood, I'm afraid - but I'm working on it! The dates taste like a mild apple, and they have a pit inside like an apricot, or plum. They're the sort of thing that would be good to snack on if you like crispy things.

Yes, I slurp them. It helps cool them off, otherwise they'd burn my tongue. I have to wear a sweater over my blouse, though, to prevent collateral damage from splashes. I find the spoon helps prevent that quite a bit, though.

The ones I had were quite big - maybe about 10 cm in length. I've seen them smaller, though. They were very crisp and refreshing after the spicy food.

Thanks for the information! I had some Chinese dates today inspired by your posts. They were delicious!

Have you tried adding MSG - like Mi-Won? That was added to most jigaes in Korea. When my Canadian friend in Korea was teaching me to make it, he took a bag of Mi-Won and added a big dose and said, "And then you add a big sprinkle of this stuff to make it taste better." And I said, "You mean MSG?" And he looked at it and gasped - "MSG?! This is MSG?!"

Almost every Friday night in Korea, we would meet friends in our neighborhood for Ddalk Galbi, a mix of chicken, hot chili sauce, and Korean rice cakes. It's cooked on a hot pan in the middle of a table, and is a great way to kill time between shots of soju. Greasy and spicy, it was a favourite of university students, as it was reasonably priced at 5 000 won per person (around 5 USD). I made this following the method outlined in the Korean Home Cooking thread, but had to improvise a little based on the ingredients on hand. The chicken is marinaded in gochujang and some more of the baekseju wine I had hanging around. I also threw in some sesame oil, garlic, and a bit of ginger. Then I chopped some carrot, rice cake, and sweet potato - cut thinly so it'll cook quick. Along with some cabbage and some ganeep. (Sesame and/or Perilla leaf - I've never gotten a straight answer on which it is exactly.) Fry it for a while, and serve it up. No ddalk galbi restaurant worth its salt would dare serve it without some sort of creamy salad to cut the heat. Often cabbage with mayo and ketchup - but sometimes macaroni salad - it was also accompanied with round yellow pickled radish and cold soup. I made a coleslaw with mayo, gochujang, and baekseju dressing (can you tell I'm trying to use it up?) Yellow radish is going for upwards of 6$ a pop here, so I made do with some chinese pickles. They weren't as good. Of course, we had shots of soju to wash it down! Then, after we'd picked out all the good stuff, and the cooked bits and the glaze remained on the bottom, I added some rice, just like we used to get in Korea. You could always get add-ins to the pan, such as extra baby hot-dogs, extra potato, extra odeng - pressed fishpaste; and at the end, you could have spaghetti noodles or rice to fry around in the pan. Some places even offered mozzarella cheese. I kid you not. Then for dessert, chinese dates, just like in the Taipei thread! Thanks to ChryZ and Nishla for making this meal possible.

For breakfast today, Bun Bo Hue, for Miz Ducky. After polling my students, they said the best place to find it would be on Hoa Ma street. I didn't know it, but I'd been by these restaurants before. They're the sort of place that deploy young men on the street to try and grab your motorcycle to pull you into their restaurant. They actually specialized in a dish call "bittet", which is the Vietnamese take of "biftek", the French word for, well, steak. Bittet comes on a sizzling hot plate, an inch deep in butter, with a few small fried potatoes, an egg, and a tomato sizzling alongside the thin, curled slices of beef. Waiters dashed here and there holding these sizzling plates, dripping butter everywhere so much so that the floors and the street outside were actually slippery to walk on from it. Seating was a free-for-all, and the waiters seemed miffed we didn't actually want the bittet, but wanted the bun bo hue instead. We got the bread and pickles anyway - the bread is used to soak up the egg yolk and butter from the plate. Outside, a young man kept the plates hot on the grill. We got our soup after a minute or so wait. I had forgotten to tell Peter that it was famous for having chunks of congealed pig's blood in it, so he was shocked, but game. Most of the meat in the soup was unidentifiable to me (mercifully) and hard to get off the bones. But the broth was amazing, as you said, Miz Ducky - pho to the tenth power, if you will. I slurped up as much as possible, interspersing it with chunks of bread and pickle. The pig's blood had the texture of a creme caramel, but didn't really taste of anything. Good to eat if you're iron deficient, I guess. Do you get it with the offal meat in the U.S., Miz Ducky, or do they tone it down a bit? I then went back to work and tortured all the vegetarians with descriptions of it, although after describing the bittet, all my UK coworkers were clamouring for the address.

Oh, I forgot about the money. The smallest denomination available is a 100 dong paper note, but in practice you never see any of these. There are 200, 500, 1 000, 2 000, 5 000, 10 000, 20 000, 50 000, 100 000, 200 000, and 500 000 dong notes. From 10 000 to 500 000 are all printed on polymer paper, like the notes in Australia. They're in an assortment of colours. Nobody ever carries change for anything, so people hoard their small notes like gold. The most useful note, in my opinion, is the 10 000 dong note, as it is the average cost for a bag of fruit, a motorcycle taxi, or a banh mi sandwich. Things that cost less: a cup of coffee; a glass of draft beer; a creme caramel; a bowl of pho on the street. You can get coins in the 200, 500, 1 000, 2 000, and 5 000 denominations, but the Vietnamese people don't like them, for some reason. I can't imagine why, because some of the 1 000 and 2 000 dong notes floating around are in miserable shape. When I was here three years ago, much more seemed to be transacted in USD, but these days, except for large purchases, VND is used.

Hi! I'm not really sure of the etiquette, but I can tell you what I do - and nobody has come over to me and wrenched the chopsticks out of my hands and corrected me - yet. Most of the pho places I go are really low-rent, and have the herbs pre-added. When I go to pho 24, the herbs are individually pulled apart. I load a bunch of them in the beginning, along with several pieces of shaved pickled garlic. Then I spoon up some meat, herb, and shaved pickled garlic onto the spoon (in my left hand) and draw up the noodles with the chopsticks (in my right hand). I balance some noodles on the spoon, and knock them all in my gullet. My favourite herb is the saw-tooth coriander, which is dark green, and looks a little like an aloe leaf, if it were darker and flatter. For Bun Cha, when the herbs all come in a tangle, you can pull off the herbs you like with your hand and put them into the soup. Then I try and get a bit of herb wrapped around my meat with my chopsticks. I mastered this skill in Korea, where I learned to pick up bits of rice wrapped with kimchi leaves or nori. As for bun hoi, I'm afraid I don't know what that is. I know "bun" is rice vermicelli, but what is the "hoi"? I've looked it up in my food dictionary, but I can't find it. Could you describe it to me? It's possible that is has a different name in the North.