KennethT

That night, we had our first major problem of the entire trip. We were trying to go to a place which some said made the best pho in Saigon. They described it as the best of both worlds of north and south... and rich, meaty broth of the north, enhanced with more spices and herbs from the south. After wandering around the residential area of Tan Binh for what seemed like forever, we found ourselves in the middle of this: A dark alley in the middle of nowhere! Saigon is full of alleys - these are basically unnamed streets that run in mazes behind the larger streets. No matter how hard we tried, we could not find Pho Phu Vuong. We even tried to ask people - everyone who we asked seemed to know about the place, yet no one could tell us exactly where it was... we even asked a very nice young lady working in a clothing store, and she went so far as to go out onto the sidewalk with us, walk down the block to show us which direction to go, only for her not to find it either, and then she would ask others, and they would say it was in the other direction!!! So, alas, we were never to find the elusive pho... my white whale... after much walking, questioning, and bit of general frustration, we got in a taxi to head to another pho place, where a different blogger said they had the best pho.... This is what we found: I don't know if I'd call it the best pho in Saigon - or even the best that we had on our trip.... but it was unusual in that it had a very strong spice aroma - star anise and cinnamon... I could taste it in my head for 20 minutes after we finished! This was Pho Phuong in District 1. Unfortunately, I didn't realize at the time that my photo of the sign was completely blurred...

Snack time! This is one of my favorite snacks... Green mango, with two different dips - one is a salt/chili dip, and the other is some kind of sugar, I think.... anyone have more info? I've seen variations of this in Thailand too - there, I've seen green mango sold with sugar and chili, and a different dip made with shrimp paste.

The next day, for lunch, we went to this place, Banh Xeo 46A: Tony Bourdain made this place a must stop on the Saigon foodie-trail - but, to be fair, at that point, they were already famous among locals as they'd been in business for about 50 years. As their name implies, they are known for their banh xeo, a fried crepe filled with pork, shrimp and some bean sprouts. But they actually have a pretty big menu (in Vietnamese, English and Japanese). We started off with some goi cuon: These were really good as they had not only shrimp, but were also stuff with slices of boiled pork. But the reason to go is because of this: The crepe is served with large mustard greens and lettuce leaves (for wrapping), plus a variety of herbs such as saw tooth, thai basil, some type of mint, purple perilla (kind of like shiso) and rau ram. You take a large leaf, add a piece of the crepe with filling, a bunch of herbs, then dip in the nuoc cham sauce... Really really tasty - partially because it's an herb bomb, but you also get the great texture of the crepe which is crispy on the outside, and soft and tender inside, with nicely cooked shrimp and pork. Here's an action shot with me attempting to stuff this whole thing in my mouth: And, finally, a shot of the banh xeo making process: I just noticed the box of Ajino-Moto at the bottom of the photo... I guess MSG is an ingredient in there somewhere too!

On the way back to the hotel (once I was comfortable that the driver knew where he was going) it was time to think about what to do for dinner. At that point, I had realized that we had been in Saigon for a few days and still not yet had a banh mi (sandwich, not the bread itself)! This would have to be remedied... First, we decided to go here: This place is very famous... if you say to a taxi driver to take you there, you don't even need to give him the address - they all know where it is. Not because lots of tourists go there, but probably because they eat there too. There was quite a line to order and get your sandwich. Most people there were locals who would pull up on their motorbike with maybe one or two others... someone would jump off, get in line, and then with sandwiches in hand, jump back on the bike and take off. Other times taxis would pull up, double park, get their sandwich, then get back in the car and drive off. There is nowhere to eat your sandwich, which isn't a problem for most people... but what do we, the tourist, with no where to go do? I don't know about anyone else, but we found a nice unused stoop a couple doors down behind some motorbikes parked on the sidewalk, got comfy and then got down to business, enjoying the awesome sandwich and watching the action on the street go by. Here's a shot of the sandwich making process (sort of): So, a traditional banh mi has some sort of mayonaisse spread, a pate type of spread, a variety of processed meats, then spears of cucumber, pickles, herbs, and chiles if you want (they're optional - I got them, my wife did not... these were probably the hottest chiles I had in Saigon!). Here's the interior of the finished sandwich: And another shot of my wife enjoying her sandwich while taking in the scene: By the time we finished our sandwich, I was still had a little room left and had wanted to try a more non-traditional banh mi, whose location was nearby. Unfortunately, at this point, my wife was pretty full, but managed to squeek in a bite to try it.. we went here: This is Banh mi thit nuong - which is a banh mi made with grilled pork meatballs... this thing was a complete flavor explosion! The woman would take a banh mi roll, warm it on the grill, then cut a slit down the middle with scissors. She would insert 4 pork meatball patties, cucumber, herbs and some kind of awesome chili sauce... It's hard to see, but this is a peek inside: I loved this sandwich. Don't get me wrong, the traditional banh mi is really good, but this thing is just over the top. I can't believe I finished it... I was already pretty full from the first one, but I just couldn't stop eating this one - and I usually have pretty good self control!!!

Not only was it a tight space, but it was dark, hot and humid.... how people lived in there is mind boggling... but I guess if it's between that and dying...

We woke up early the next day as we were heading out of the city to visit the Cu Chi tunnels, located about 1.5 hours out of the city. Most people, when visiting this site, will join a tour, so you get on a bus, visit the site, then go to some tourist place for lunch, visit another site in the area, and head back... But, I read that Graham Holliday book - and in it, he spends a whole chapter talking about a restaurant in the middle of nowhere (actually the town of Trang Bang - right on the road where that famous photo of the girl running through the street naked after an American napalm bombing took place)... so of course, I have to go to this restaurant. Now, no tour will take you to lunch at this place, so what to do? Hire a driver! We talked with the concierge at our hotel, who initially tried to offer one of the hotel cars for the day - I say offer, but at the price of like $600 for the day! No thank you! Plus, the idea of pulling up to a local restaurant in a shiny Mercedes does not really appeal to me... I'd just feel too weird... so after a little runaround, we get to a better idea - you can call one of the main taxi companies and hire a taxi for the day. The taxi company estimated that our trip would be about 250KM, and take about 9 hours, for which they'd charge 2,500,000 VND or a little over $100.... Sold! BTW, this is not much more expensive than the cost for 2 people to take one of the cookie cutter tours. Plus, an additional feature is that we can go to the Cu Chi site that we want, Ben Duoc, which is a little further than the site most people see, but doesn't usually get tour buses so it's not as crowded... plus, they have some tunnels there that have been unaltered to accommodate tourists - they're the original thing (supposedly). The taxi picks us up at 7:30AM and we get to the tunnel site by around 9:30 - the first part of the trip is fine, but as we get closer to the site, it becomes more obvious that the driver doesn't really know where he's going. This is especially obvious as he pulls off the road to ask questions of people standing around here and there. The funny part was the reaction of the people, who seemed generally disinterested in helping the poor lost driver... most gave him a hand wave which resembled the Queen of England in a parade, followed by a facial expression that basically said "Go f$ck yourself"... Of course, along the way, we did pass signs which expressly pointed the proper direction (which I don't think the driver noticed) and after I had pointed them out after circling around, we made it to the site. The tunnels were super interesting. First we watched a 15 minute propaganda film made in 1969 (for which the guide there apologized a bit), then we were joined by a small group of Australians and we went to the tunnels. The first tunnel we went to was EXTREMELY tight... you basically get into and out of it via a small manhole cover: Then we went through a few more tunnels. Some had no lights inside whatsover, so I would take pictures with my camera (with flash) and I could see where to go as I looked at the resulting photo! Notice my wife's eyes - she looks like that because it is pitch dark inside! This was actually one of the larger tunnels too... the first one we were in was so small, we couldn't bring our bags or cameras because the guide was afraid of them getting damaged. Anyway, after we finish our visit at the tunnels, we get back to the taxi for him to take us to the restaurant I had been dying to go to.... but as we're driving, I get the feeling that we're going the wrong way.... and as I check my Google maps on my phone, I definitely think we're going the wrong way. So, in the beginning, I feel like I'm in a bit of a bind - I think we're going the wrong way, but since I'm not a local, maybe there's just something I'm not aware of which is causing our route? The driver probably knows something I don't, right? Well, maybe 15 minutes goes by as we continue in the wrong direction, so finally I decide to say something.... which is more difficult than you'd think since he speaks absolutely no English... So I say to him "Do you know where you're going?" He says yes... I say "I think we're going the wrong way - we need to go in the other direction"... he gives me a puzzled look, but sees me looking at my phone.... so he pulls over and takes out his cellphone showing me the text that his dispatcher sent him with our itinerary... as I'm looking, I see that the itinerary is in the wrong order - it has us going to lunch last!!! So I tell him "We want to have lunch now, not later" and then proceed to give him directions on how to get there. Yikes!!! I love technology!!! Anyway, after turning around, and making our way, we find ourselves here: This place is known for 2 things, Banh Canh, and Banh Trang Phoi Suong.... Banh Canh is a noodle soup where the noodles are made in a very specific and complicated method... the Banh Trang are rice papers that are (this is true) softened by the morning dew and used to wrap a filling made with various meats and about 12 different herbs, some of which are "wild herbs" that don't really have a name. First we get this - it's the Banh Trang (dew moistened rice paper) that's been grilled so that it puffs up: Here's the complete scene for the Phoi Suong: On the left is boiled pork meat, then in the other plate some kind of head cheese or other sausage... and on top of that some of the fermented pork sausage that I like so much. Upper left is a stack of the dew moistened rice paper and of course, you can see the stack of herbs... there's a lot of stuff buried in there... garlic chives, some type of mint, diep ca (the fish mint I talked about earlier), rau ram, saw tooth, thai basil, some kind of herb that looked a little like a fresh bay leaf... what a collection... Here's a roll being built: Also, note the dipping sauce - which seems like a fish sauce type sauce (like a nuoc cham) but with black pepper... the rice paper was very interesting - it wasn't soft, but it was flexible enough to fold around the filling - and it had a bit of chew to it... Here's the Banh Canh: Notice the black pepper on top of that too. One thing also, the owner came by (her face is on the sign) and she mimed to us that you're supposed to dip the meat from the soup into the sauce before eating... The noodles had a very interesting texture, a bit of bite on the inside, soft on the outside, and slightly gelatinous.... Lunch was really really interesting (and tasty!), and I'm really glad that I decided to go to such lengths to be able to go there. After that, we were to go to a very large and famous Buddhist temple, which is the epicenter of Cao Dai Buddhism... which I wound up giving directions to, again... and then directions on how to get back to the road to get back to Saigon!!! What an experience... I am soooo glad that I took the time to learn a bit of Vietnamese.... thank you Pimsleur!!!!!

Back to our regularly scheduled programming.... So that night, we decided to go for a treat, grilled chicken! I had read about an area some have called "chicken corner" which is a street corner where there are about 5 different restaurants selling grilled chicken, or ga nuong. We had heard that Anh Tu was the best of them, so that's where we headed. This area is about a 20-25 minute ride from our hotel (about $5 by taxi) in the middle of a completely residential area... we got a lot of strange looks (and smiles) while we were there - I don't think they're used to tourists visiting them but we're really happy we did! We had been trying to stay on a relatively early schedule as we had heard that many Saigonese tend to eat on the early side, and we didn't want to get to a place only to find them sold out, or empty - it's hard to judge whether a place is busy or not (a good judge of food safety) after everyone else has left! So that means that we were driving there during rush hour.... Now, we're from NY - and I actually drive back and forth to work every day as I work outside the city, so I am very well acquainted with rush hour traffic... but this was very different. First of all, while there are definitely no shortage of cars, most people in Saigon drive motorbikes or scooters. You'd be surprised what you could put on a scooter... a family of 4, 2 people with one holding a car windshield (I wish i could have gotten a photo of that!), a couple hundred pounds of huge bags of ice.... practically everyone goes everywhere on a scooter. What, you may ask, do women do if they want to wear a pretty dress? Side Saddle!!! Why am I telling you this? Well, another thing that you don't see in NY is the relatively small amount of traffic lights... and for the ones that are there, they are really more of a suggestion than a law... well, maybe it is a law but it's just not enforced... who knows... anyway, this makes crossing the street at any time a bit of a challenge. Most Saigonese (we saw this in Hanoi too, btw) tend to have a very laissez-faire attitude when it comes to crossing the street - they don't really bother looking and just step off the curb and start crossing, trusting that the motorbikes and cars will go around them. Which happens most of the time... although we did see a couple of small incidents here and there... We got pretty used to crossing the street - the way I came to see it was the idea that you are really weaving through the spaces between the bikes - just as if you were weaving your way through a crowd of people. Most of the time, traffic moves pretty slowly, and the drivers seem pretty attentive, so they will avoid you either by slowing down, or moving into an empty space around you. Of course, all of this requires honking your horn... all the time... day and night... the horn honking is endless!!!! So, anyway, the taxi takes us to the chicken corner, but we realize as we're getting out of the car that the restaurant is on the other side of the street... and there is no traffic light or intersection in sight (which can at least slow the traffic or give a little gap in the flow). So we're standing there, watching the endless parade of bikes passing us by, driving practically shoulder to shoulder in heavy traffic. So, I take a deep breath, grab my wife's hand and start to step off the curb to find that she is PETRIFIED! I can't get her to move an inch! Every time I see a small break, I try to get us into the street, only to have her run the 3 steps back to the curb the second more bikes are in view.... Meanwhile, across the street, a few of the restaurant employees (including an older woman who is one of the owners) are watching us, seemingly laughing at our plight and my struggle to get my wife off the curb. At some point, the older woman crosses the street to us, so she can help us get across! She takes a firm hold of my elbow and starts to bring us into the street and gets us across with no problem. Once across the street, she asks which restaurant we were planning to go to, and after we told her that we were going to hers, she firmly put her hands on my wife's waist and guided her through a maze of alleys to where the seating area of her restaurant was! She was just what my wife needed... firm and motherly! Here's the scene: Well, I am very very glad that the woman helped us across the street, because that chicken was probably the best grilled chicken I have ever had! Even my wife said that it was completely worth being traumatized to get it! We ordered one chicken and a couple of beers - the waiter was very entertained by my speaking vietnamese.... and here it is: This is a whole chicken, hacked into pieces... in there is of course the legs with feet (and toenails) still attached (they love chicken feet here, as they do in most places in Asia), but also the neck and head (complete with beak and tongue). It also comes with a couple banh mi, and two sauces - the chili sauce on the left, and the requisite chili/salt with lime... oh and a little dish of pickles and of course, more rau ram (as a bed for the chicken)... as I said before, this chicken was amazing - the skin had practically all the fat rendered beneath it and was super crispy, while the meat was ridiculously juicy.... It was so good that after we finished it, I decided to order another one! And, I had though rau ram was tasty before... but covered in chicken juices!!! wow! Here's an action shot of the grilling: So, the cost for 2 chickens, 3 beers, (and two moist towelettes) was about $10. Even if it was $100, it would have been totally worth it!

No, we didn't really try Hue cuisine - since we were only there for a week, we wanted to focus on food from the south (except for the banh cuon, and the bun bo hue I had for breakfast at the hotel one day)... we reasoned that we enjoyed Saigon (and Hanoi years ago) so much that we would make an effort to see more of the country in the future, so we would try to visit Hue to have their food at the source. Although, one of the appetizers (the pink sausage wrapped in banana leaf) pictured in your link looked very much like the fermented sausage we had at the banh cuon place. Also, if you look in the photo of the bun bo hue at the hotel, you can see the fermented shrimp paste, which, when added to the soup was the predominant flavor.

Sorry about this - I tried to edit the post a while back about Quan Oc Dao (the second seafood place).... we did get one other dish - these razor clams: They were really good - perfectly cooked, and in chili and butter sauce.... but even still, we had thought we ordered other dishes (like those shrimp), but we never did.... OK, I'm exhausted and off to bed... more tomorrow!!!

Thanks... here in NYC, it is atypical to see anything other than Thai Basil or cilantro (which we almost never saw other in a banh mi sandwich). We barely ever see saw tooth, and never rau ram... unfortunately....

We spent a couple of days in Hanoi about 10 years ago, and had pho bo every morning we were there in a small local place. There are a few differences between Hanoi style and southern style. First is the broth. Hanoi style broth's flavor is primarily of meat. It is not nearly as aromatic as in the southern style. Plus, the southern style had a much more pronounced sweetness coming from the broth itself - this could come from using more onion and also adding sugar, which would not be surprising because southern food is typically sweeter than food in the north, most saying because of its proximity to Cambodia and being influenced by those styles (where food is even sweeter than in Saigon). Also, in Saigon, we saw more variation in broth - some places were very sweet, some not so much, some were intensely spiced with star anise and cinnamon. In Hanoi, there were very few condiments added once the soup was served - just a squeeze of lime, and some chili sauce that is on the table. There are no additional herbs provided. Regarding the noodles, I couldn't say that there was a difference from what we had in Hanoi versus Saigon. In general, there seems to be a great divide - people in the north generally regard their food as superior to that in the south... that the food in the south just relies on sweetness and herbs and there is nothing else to it. People in the south regard their food as superior to that in the north - that the food in the north is bland. This debate has been going on a long time.

I have heard the same thing but have wondered about it the realities of it, since I haven't seen any real scientifically repeatable studies.

Jealous.... very jealous....

OK - I think this may be the last post for the night... It's now 5:45 and I'm getting exhausted! The next day, we had lunch at a very famous Pho place, Pho Hoa on Pasteur St. This place is huge - it's on 3 floors!!! And they have a printed menu! By this point, I was getting a little more comfortable speaking, so I was able to order what we wanted: Goi cuon Pho Tai Nam for me... one thing I found interesting is that all of the examples we had of the Tai (raw beef), the beef was roughly chopped as you see above - like a hand chopped tartare, as opposed to what is seen in this country where the beef is sliced thinly like with a deli slicer. Also, 2 Tra Da (pronounced Tcha Da - iced tea) The requisite herb plate with a plate of limes and another of sliced chili. What you see at the bottom of the photo is an essential of all street food, no matter what city... packets of tissues!!! None of these places provide napkins - except for the moistened towelettes (which they charge you for, but they're really cheap). Some people use the moist towelettes throughout the meal, but I prefer to bring my own tissues, then use the towelette for a final cleaning once finished. Another essential, not shown, is hand sanitizer. The tap water in most of SE Asia (except Singapore) is not potable, so it is a good idea to wipe with hand sanitizer before eating to try to cut down on the risk of getting some kind of stomach bug. Drinking tea is very common since the water is first boiled, thereby killing any bacteria... and the ice is made using filtered water at factories all around town. In Saigon, they're transported to restaurants in big, green plastic mesh bags on the backs of motorbikes, dripping as they go down the street. I still haven't gotten an answer as to why eating raw herbs is safe though. The herbs are always washed... are they using pre-boiled water, or bottled water for washing them, or do people feel that ingesting such a small amount that would be present on the washed and dried herbs is inconsequential? In any case, over 7 days or so of eating local food, neither of us got even a bit of a stomach bug...

I've never seen it at all in Chinatown in Manhattan - which doesn't mean I haven't just not noticed it.... come to think of it, I may have seen it as you describe at Kalustyan's... for something like $5 for 12 leaves....

It was really good... very tender... and the sauce was just made for dipping that banh mi!!

For dinner, we decided to try another Oc' place and went to Quan Oc Dao, a huge, and very well known seafood place located down a labyrinth of back alleys. They seated us at what looked like the last remaining table, located on the outskirts of the main area, so we had this vantage point: What you don't see is that since our table is located where it is, all the motorbikes and cars (why are there so many SUVs here?) who want to get to the parking lot go right past our table... like 2 feet away close... and it was a tight squeeze - one time, a car was trying to squeeze past while two motorbikes were trying to leave and inadvertently knocked over a whole set of baskets of snails all over the floor... needless to say a lot of yelling ensued, snails were picked up, and then quickly forgotten like nothing happened. This is literally right next to us - no zoom required: Again, no one spoke any English here (I'm sensing a theme) and their menu was wide, varied, and had no pictures, unlike some others... but, one of the blogs I was reading had a very helpful photo where they broke down a typical Oc' menu and explained what different terms meant to help in the ordering process. Once we ordered, they set our table. The ordering process is interesting. When you sit down, they provide you with glasses with ice, some dishes of sauces (here, a slight variant on the salt/chili/lime standard - their salt had a lot of black pepper and some chili), some herbs, and a plate of banh mi (bread). Similar to what we've seen in places in Singapore, there are women walking around in tight outfits provided by various beer companies. Each walks amongst the tables and tries to get you to buy your drinks from them, rather from their competitors. I think Sapporo dominated this place, but we also saw a Budweiser girl - although she was having problems getting customers. Once you agree on a beer, she brings it and pours it for you in the already provided glass of ice. She will then continue to refresh your ice as the evening progresses and try to sell you more beer. She tells your waiter the total count so it can be added to your bill. Separately, other women walk through the tables selling other foods that pair well with the seafood. They sell green mango with a chili/salt dip, quail eggs, and various other things... you must pay for these at the time of purchase - they are not added to your bill. We got some green mango (in the plastic bag): More rau muontg (topped with fried garlic) - excellent - perfectly cooked Snails in a tamarind sauce... the sauce was really tasty, and the snails were a little chewy, which helped you taste the sauce a little longer. Squid in a butter sauce. I had thought I had ordered more, including some shrimp and more of those scallops, but they never came - and by the time I was thinking about askinig about them, we were actually pretty full.... on leaving, I was able to take a nice action shot of grilling some shrimp - made me wish I had asked about them, but we made up for it later in the trip....

Just to cap off the detour... I am well acquainted with Well Sweep herb farm, and a few years ago, spent quite a bit of time with Sy, the guy who started it all... he's really fascinating, but I haven't been there in a couple of years... It's not surprising that they would have it. When I spent time there, I was also fascinated by all of the scented geraniums - I also picked up a bunch of flavored mints - like chocolate mint... and different basils.... and thymes.... so many different herbs, not enough space....

I'd also recommend downloading Sous Vide Dash if you have an iOS product (iPad or iPhone). The last time I checked, it was $10, and worth every penny. It is a huge help to make sure you are cooking things safely, and is really good if you like to do gradient cooking. I do this with salmon - I prefer my salmon with a bit of a gradient, so I set my bath to 115F, but shoot for a core temp of 102F - then sear with the propane torch. This makes the salmon perfectly rare throughout most of it, and just a bit more done on the outside edge for a bit more bite. It also significantly decreases the cooking time.

One place where every tourist goes is the Ben Thanh market... here's a shot at night: This place is huge and VERY crowded. They sell everything from fruits, veggies and meat, to flip flops, t-shirts and plastic toys... There is also an area of the market with restaurant type stalls.... In the past, we have been places with aggressive hawkers - I can think of one street in Brussels which is one small restaurant after another, each with a guy hawking you in 4 different languages to come in as you walk by.... that's nothing compared to this. People basically shoving things in your face (not an exaggeration) for you to inspect and buy, and others grabbing you by the elbow to walk you to their restaurant. Absolutely insane.... I couldn't get a picture of anything too aggressive (I was too busy trying to fend them off) but did get a few pics of fruit and veggies:

Thanks for this! I haven't spent much time in the chinatown groceries in Queens or Brooklyn, but I have not seen this anywhere in stores in manhattan... I was thinking about trying to smuggle in a few branches of various herbs we came across and clone them, but decided that I didn't want to take the risk at customs... in retrospect, we would have been fine... I have had pretty good luck in cloning plants - although part of that luck is really because of rooting hormone gel, and special root stimulating plant food....

The next day, for lunch, we had our first true bowl of southern style Pho Bo... (keep in mind that since I'm not using the accents, the word 'pho' in 'pho bo' is actually different from the word you see in the post above 'pho oc') We had a great recommendation to go to this place: Again, the photo came out rotated for some reason.... anyway, I had a bit of a language issue where the server asked me something and I didn't quite understand, but just said yes... I'm always nervous to use my newly acquired language skills in the beginning of the trip, but wind up getting comfortable with it by the end. My usual order is Pho Tai Nam, which is beef broth with the raw beef and the well done brisket. My wife typically just gets the Pho Tai which is the rare beef. In any case, what we wound up with was 2 bowls of Pho Nam: This was incredible... the broth was beefy and flavorful, the brisket was ridiculously tender... and note the herb basket on the side - this is typical in the local places - a mountain of herbs - I think there were at least 4 different kinds in that basket... there was saw tooth, thai basil, rau ram, and some other kind of mint.... I don't remember if this assortment had the diep ca in it... this is an interesting herb - diep ca means 'fish mint' and it has a distinctly fishy taste... a little odd... but works well in combination with other ones... Here's a shot of the cook hard at work: What we didn't take a photo of (we thought it would be rude) was that the old guy who seemed to be the owner, had a lounge style lawn chair set up basically in the middle of where the tables were, and he was taking a nap. The funny thing was, it seems like this is the Saigonese past-time... napping in public places in seemingly uncomfortable postions... This guy was passed out lying on a few motorbikes.... and:

For dinner, we decided to do what seems like a local favorite - snails and seafood! I had read a recommendation about this place in District 2, which was about a 40 minute taxi ride from our hotel: Unfortunately, I neglected to take a picture of the outside/signage, but my wife did take a picture of their moist towelette which had their name and info. We really enjoyed this place. None of the staff spoke English, but they really did try to make it a good experience for us - even by miming how to eat some of the things we ordered when it was not so obvious. These are snails in a mild green coconut curry sauce. The texture of these were really interesting - half of the snail was a little chewy, but the other half had this great creamy texture. The herb in this picture is the ubiquitous rau ram (vietnamese coriander). I don't know why people link it to coriander, since I don't think it tastes anything like it. To me, it had a lemony, citrusy flavor, and I loved it - out of the maybe 10 different herbs we had over the week, I think this one is my favorite. Since I have never seen it in New York, I will most definitely try to grow it in the future. This was the first experience of us not knowing how to eat these things. I must have sat there for a few minutes trying to figure out how to get the snail out of the shell with the little fork (which was basically a normal 4 tine fork with the outer 2 tines cut off!) The waitress, seeing me struggle, came over and mimed that you're supposed to suck these guys out of their shell! Here's my wife, demonstrating: We also had these: Bay scallops grilled with green onion and peanuts. These were incredible... the best scallops we have ever had - and includes the previous number one slot, the scallops at Sin Huat Eating House in Singapore. I have the feeling that they add pork fat to the scallop while they're being grilled... note more of the rau ram on the plate. It's a great herb to eat with seafood - it does a good job of cleaning the palate to get ready for the next bite. This is some kind of fish (sorry I don't have more detail) that was rubbed with chili and salt and I don't know what else, then grilled. It was served with the very common sauce of the dish of chili salt and a lime. I initially started to dip the fish into the chili salt when the waitress stopped me and showed me to squeeze the lime into the chili salt to make a saucy paste, then dip the fish into that.... much better!!! The texture of this chili salt was interesting - the salt looked like pop rocks... I have no idea how they got that kind of texture with it.... this shot below shows the scallops and fish together, with the chili salt (pre mix): And of course, I couldn't help but to get more rau muong (morning glory stir fried with garlic) - sorry it came out blurry, but it was perfectly cooked with a lot of big, sweet garlic cloves: The cost for this meal, including a couple bottles of water was about $10-12.... by the way, the 40 minute taxi ride cost about $8! Totally worth it, and it allowed us to see a district that is basically just a residential area...

Alright... now we get to the good stuff! For lunch, we went to: Banh cuon is typically a northern specialty, but this place has been a local Saigon favorite for many years. An interesting side note, most of the taxi drivers do not speak English - but I found that a good way to communicate (other than with my horrible butchering of the vietnamese language) is to put the address into google maps on your cellphone and show them. Not only does google show the address with the appropriate accents, in some cases, it will show what is located at that address - so, when the driver sees you going to a local favorite, it was not uncommon to get a big smile and a thumbs up! So, here it is, in all its glory: OK, this photo displayed rotated counter-clockwise by 90degrees... so just turn your head to the left... Banh cuon are rice rolls - a batter is ladeled onto a fine screen above a steamer and steamed until set which takes about 30 seconds. The cook then transfers it to a metal surface where another worker cuts it into 4-5 pieces, puts in a small amount of pork and mushroom filling, rolls them up, and stuffs them in the bowl with a ton of steamed bean sprouts mixed with herbs and tops with fried shallots. On the table, there is a pitcher of a slightly sweet fish sauce which you pour into a small dish and add as much chili as you'd like. You then have options on how to eat it... some people would take the spoon and use it to drench their banh cuon with the sauce in the bowl... others would dip bite by bite... I preferred the drench method... we also got (poking out of the top right of the picture) some cha lua which is some kind of emulsified pork sausage, and a fermented pork sausage that was wrapped in the banana leaf. I really liked this sausage - it had a slightly sour taste and it was studded with bits of chili. Also, we got a plate of their deep fried mung bean cakes. This dish was incredible... a real flavor bomb from the sauce and herbs, the texture of the rice roll, and the savoriness of the pork and mushroom filling... and, this whole feast (including another portion of the banh cuon and 2 tra da (iced tea)) was about 90,000VND, or about US$4, at 22,500 VND per dollar. This place was so good, we actually went back there for lunch on our last day. Here's one last shot of them making it - the kitchen area is right out by the street - right by the entrance, which was the most common location...

We woke up the next morning refreshed and ready to start our adventure... one other thing that we have learned is that the best way to start the trip off right is to get a great first night's sleep... what this means is that we finish dinner around 6PM or so, get back to the hotel, take 2 benedryl, and go to sleep. Even though we are already exhausted, we take the benedryl to ensure that we will stay sleeping and not wake up at 3AM wide awake. So, for instance, on this trip, we woke up about 12 hours later - around 6AM, basically now on Saigon time for the rest of the trip. There are pluses and minuses to having breakfast included in your hotel rate. The good thing, obviously, is that you don't have to pay for another meal, or the translation is that you don't have to pay hotel prices for being able to eat first thing in the morning without going outside. There's nothing worse that being starving and having to wander around for who knows how long trying to find something good in a strange city. So, that being said, here's our hotel breakfast: This is a very lackluster (but fancifully presented) bowl of Bun Bo Hue. Note the pitiful lack of herbs (sorry to keep making you wait to see the real thing). The broth was also quite weak and had little flavor. This is Bo Kho - a beef stew that uses bread (banh mi) to dip into the sauce. The meat was beef shin, more commonly known in the west as osso bucco. This was the best vietnamese option on the hotel menu, so we had it practically every day. The best part about it was the banh mi - the texture of the bread in this city is amazing... the outside is so crisp, it shatters, while the inside is light, airy and tender. The only thing that I have ever had in the US that is even close to it is Po Boy bread in New Orleans. Also, note the very small amount of herbs present - here you see thai basil and saw tooth herb.