Week in coastal Central Vietnam foodblog

[KennethT]

@SmithyThere is no way I'll try to reproduce the "pork toasts" at home!  My doctor would have a fit!  Funnily enough though, my wife and I joked that I had a tape worm on this trip, as I'd find myself starving every few hours.  I don't know if it was because the portions are relatively small (many of the locals we saw in central VN were very thin - even more so than the normally slender SE Asian person we've encountered on our various travels - even the stray cats and rats around looked skinny!) or the heat or all the walking around, but I definitely think I lost weight on this trip!

[KennethT]

So the next day, we woke up really early to go out to the My So'n (meh-ee sun) Champa ruins, originally constructed between the 4th and 14 centuries.  It's probably about an hour and a half drive from Hoi An, and we left really early because we wanted to get there before the tour buses did.  Some people said not to bother going because the Champa ruins at Angkor Wat in Cambodia or Borobodur in Indonesia are much more stunning, but considering we haven't been to either of those yet, My Son here we come!  Plus, we had the time and we felt it would be ridiculous to be so close and to not see it.

 

It was sad to see that so much of the site was devastated by bombing during the US war.  Many guidebooks say to keep to the well-trod paths because there could be unexploded land mines in the area as well - although, guides that we met there said that over many years, they (along with help from other countries) have swept the area and they think they have removed it all.

 

Luckily, since we got there pretty early, there were few other tourists there, and we had a beautiful (if not ridiculously hot, even in the morning!) day for it.

 

 

 

 

We got back to Hoi An just around lunchtime, so rather than take us back to the hotel, I asked the taxi driver to drop us off here:

This is Banh Mi Phu'o'ng (buyng mee foo-uhm) - a banh mi sandwich place made extremely famous by St. Bourdain on his Hoi An show.  On that show, he proclaimed this place to make the "best banh mi in Vietnam" which is quite a claim - I'm sure he's tasted all the other ones first so as to properly make that claim!!!  But, in his honor, they have put his photo (a frame grab from the episode) all over the place there.

 

To be honest, I thought the banh mi was very good, but certainly not the "best in Vietnam".  Personally, both banh mi I got in Saigon, but especially that grilled meatball banh mi I got from a cart (see the Saigon post) was more enjoyable to me, but I'm not St. Bourdain, so what do I know.  Also, just like the rest of the bread we had in central VN, we thought the texture of the bread wasn't as good as the multitude of ones we had in Saigon - the outside not as crispy, the inside not as light and tender.  Don't get me wrong, it was still very good, but not mind-blowing like the ones we've had previously.

 

The menu... they also had tables inside, and a multi-page menu (one item per page) showing all their banh mi, plus all the other dishes they made - they made a bunch of the "hits" of Hoi An like Cao lau, spring rolls, etc.  Also note the prices - most of their banh mi cost less than $1 - we got 2 of the specials, which included the pate and several different cuts of pork.

 

The inside consisted of pork pate, some kind of ham, pork belly, and some lean pork meat, plus the mayonnaise, lettuce, cucumber, pickles, and I got some chili in mine.

 

 

[KennethT]

After lunch, being thoroughly sweaty and tired after the morning sightseeing, we went back to the hotel to relax in the A/C and get some pool time.  Interestingly, the pool water felt like bath water, it was so warm!  But, it was nice to relax...  after the pool time, we walked around the old town some more (which really isn't that big - it's maybe 8 blocks by 3 blocks), and then ventured off into a local neighborhood away from the old town to find a really good, local Cao lau, since the one on the first night was rather disappointing, for a mid-afternoon snack to satisfy my tape worm.

 

When we got to the place that I had been recommended, we found that it was closed!  But, two doors down was another Cao lau place that was busy (we got the last table) and looked good.

 

This one was awesome... really really tasty.  The noodles had a very intersting texture - firm but soft, and the outside was rough.  The pork crackling was incredible - light, crispy, not greasy at all.... fantastic.  The greenery consisted of lettuce, that weedy herb that I saw from time to time (that I now wish I brought back) and mint.  Oddly enough, there was a lot of mint in things all over central VN - but not the mint that we had in Saigon - it tasted like peppermint!  After a while, we found that everything reminded us of Wintergreen chewing gum...

 

Here are the ladies out front making the dish, and making a to-go order for someone on a motorbike:

[KennethT]

For dinner that night, we decided to go to a seafood restaurant on the local beach.  There are two beaches in Hoi An, Cua Dai (koo-uh die) beach, which is the more touristed one as it's closer to town, and An Bang (un bumg) beach which was more local.  We're not really beach people, but I had heard that there are some good seafood restaurants at An Bang beach....  plus, it was beautiful to hang out and watch the sunset while having dinner on the beach.  There are many restaurants in a strip behind the beach, which all looked like they had the same things (vietnamese seafood, then hamburgers and pizza!), with all of the places looking like they had their own tanks full of live fish and seafood waiting for orders.

 

 

This is the view from our table:

 

Rau Muong (rrggrrow moo-umg) - stir fried morning glory (water spinach) with garlic.  Yum!

 

Squid with lemongrass and chili - perfectly cooked with a nice lemongrass flavor, not too spicy.

 

Grilled scallops with peanuts and green onion.  So good, and I'm not usually a fan of scallops!  I think the orange stuff you see in there is roe or something like that.

 

dish of salt/pepper to make a paste with the lime juice for dipping grilled foods.

 

shrimp with tamarind sauce

 

This was not served with banh mi, as would have in Saigon, and I don't think we even saw any rice or anthing like that - but we didn't really need it since we had our cao lau snack just a couple hours before...

 

[KennethT]

The next day, we visited the Tra Que (chah gweh) Vegetable Village in the morning.  The village was established about 300 years ago, and supposedly has the best tasting herbs and vegetables because they use no fertilizers or pesticides, but the water they use has a specific kind of algae that makes everything taste so good.  All the produce is used in Hoi An by most of the local restaurants.  There is supposedly a whole list of plants that they grow, but when we were there, I only saw a few varieties of things...  We saw lettuce, a lot of mint (peppermint!), what looked like green onion, cilantro, morning glory, thai basil with small leaves and a few other odds and ends here and there.  I was looking for that weedy herb that I saw in many dishes that I liked, but never saw it there.  Lots of the farmers supplement their income by also having a cooking school for tourists, and part of the experience is to "practice being a farmer" which I jokingly translated into temporary free labor... well, better than free, they pay you to weed your garden!!  Supposedly, there is a fee to view the village, but we couldn't find a ticket booth and when we asked a person overseeing some "temporary farmers", she said that a guy walks around to issue tickets, and if you see him, run the other way!

 

To be honest, I didn't think the herbs or veggies that I had (that all supposedly came from the village) tasted much different than normal - or had any more flavor than what I grow at home.  In fact, I thought the hydroponic herbs I grew (comparing apples to apples) were more flavorful...  but in any case, here's some photos of it.

 

Green onion?

 

Lettuce

 

Fish mint down at the bottom!!!  Run!!!!

 

A papaya tree here and there

 

A reservoir containing the magical algae water... there were several of these scattered around, plumbed into pumps that fed the sprinkler irrigation system.

 

Some peppermint down at the bottom.

Edited July 13, 2017 by KennethT (log)

[Shelby]

I can't believe how good the lettuce looks in the middle of all of that heat!

[KennethT]

After viewing the garden, we went to one of the restaurants that gets all of their produce from the village - they also have a cooking school:

 

 

It had a very peaceful setting with an open air, thatched roof.  There was a family of British people, 2 adults and 2 small kids - maybe 6 and 8 years old? - who were taking a cooking class, which was done at one end of the dining room.  It was interesting to see little kids dropping stuff to be deep fried into a small wok precariously balanced on a small propane burner.  No one was injured in the making of their lunch that day.  I didn't take a photo of it - I thought that might be rude... but it was a cute scene.

 

Lime juice - by the time we got there, we were ridiculously hot and sweaty from sauntering around the vegetable village - even with our sun umbrellas!  So refreshing...

 

Banh Xeo, served with rice papers, lettuce, some kind of sprout, and spearmint (no peppermint this time).  Not nearly as greasy as the one at BaLeWell - very tasty.  It came with a fish sauce with lots of smashed garlic.

Here's an action shot just prior to consumption:

 

Cha Gio spring rolls - not greasy at all ... very good.

 

Bo La Lot (baw lah lut) - beef covered with lemongrass and la lot leaves (betel leaves) and grilled on a banana leaf.  This was awesome.  The beef was tender and flavorful, and the betel leaves definitely impart a unique flavor that is hard for me to describe.  And the lemongrass was actually tender - which was mindboggling since when I use lemongrass at home, the desiccated stalks, even when cooked have the texture of sawdust.

 

more Rau muong stir fried with garlic

 

Off the back end of the dining room was the restroom, and next to it, a small plot of farm land and drying racks for what looked like sweet potato crackers.

 

 

[KennethT]

9 minutes ago, Shelby said:

I can't believe how good the lettuce looks in the middle of all of that heat!

I know!!  I was shocked to see lettuce growing so well in full sun in 100degF with 95% humidity.  Maybe because it was constantly being sprayed with magical algae water?

[Shelby]

3 minutes ago, KennethT said:

I know!!  I was shocked to see lettuce growing so well in full sun in 100degF with 95% humidity.  Maybe because it was constantly being sprayed with magical algae water?

LOL I need some magical algae water.....my lettuce bolted 20 degrees ago.

[KennethT]

9 minutes ago, Shelby said:

LOL I need some magical algae water.....my lettuce bolted 20 degrees ago.

 

Plus you basically need to spray it ALL THE TIME.  In some of the plots where nothing was growing, there were puddles!!!

[KennethT]

Seriously, maybe they're using a strain of heat resistant lettuce?

[Shelby]

1 minute ago, KennethT said:

Seriously, maybe they're using a strain of heat resistant lettuce?

 

You need to go back and find that out for me  

 

[Smithy]

The food there all looks tempting and interesting, but my specific question regards the limes.  Did that lime juice taste like it came from the same fruit we typically get in the USA?  I refer to what we call Persian limes, not key limes.  Have you seen the specific fruit, unjuiced? Did they add anything to the juice, like sugar?

[KennethT]

@SmithyThese are the typical limes found in SE Asia (I think we discussed this in the Singapore foodblog) - they are the true limes, similar (if not even the same) to key limes.  What we call Persian limes, or Bearss seedless limes, are not a true lime but a cross between a key lime and a lemon.  There is a picture of the lime, unsqueezed, upthread in the section about the restaurant on the beach.  They commonly squeeze this lime onto salt/chili or salt/pepper to make a paste for dipping meat or seafood (or sometimes fruit).  These limes taste much like a key lime - I can't compare direclty, because I've never had them side by side, but they seem the same to me - they have thinner skins than a Bearss lime - sometimes the lime is cut into small pieces, skin and all, and eaten like in the dish Mieng Kum in northern Thailand.  This lime also has seeds.

[KennethT]

For dinner, we took a short walk over a bridge to Cam Nam island, which is interesting just because they make some dishes on that island that are not available anywhere else in Hoi An.  The bridge is pretty narrow, and the "sidewalk" is ridiculously narrow... We took a picture on the way back, when it wasn't that crowded, but on the way there, it was rush hour, so imagine the bridge elbow to elbow with motorbike and car/truck traffic in both directions.  it was pretty harrowing - my wife was gripping the stone railing for dear life!

 

Once you cross the bridge, and walk down the road to its end, there are a bunch of restaurants one after the other that all basically serve the same dishes....  We just picked one that looked the busiest.

 

One dish to go here for is:

This is banh dap (buymg dap (sounds sort of like tap)).  There is a crispy rice paper on both sides of a piece of wet rice paper that you smash to break into pieces, then dip in the murky brown mam tom sauce, which is basically shrimp paste in water with lime juice, some sugar, and garlic - very shrimpy and very addictive (if you like pungent, fermented shrimp).  The chili paste in the middle is for you to add to your dish of sauce if you want it spicier.

 

The bottom two plates are Hen Tron (hen chon), which is basically a big plate of minced clams.  Very clammy - topped with sliced onion, peanuts and sprigs of Rau Ram (rrggrrow rrggrram).  You eat this with the piece of grilled rice paper, banh trang (buymg chuymg), which is crispy.

 

Our waitress also convinced us to get a plate of chicken rice (co'm ga):

The chicken rice came with soup - and the waitress told us that you're supposed to put a spoonful of soup on the portion of rice you're about to eat.  Mind you, she did all of this by miming, and pointing to a picture of the co'm ga and not leaving until we ordered it.  I'm glad she did though, because there's only so much minced clams a person can eat (even if they like clams) so it was good to get another dish that was a little more substantial.  This whole meal cost about $3.

 

What's also nice about this place is that it came with this view from our table:

 

Walking out, we saw this scene:

 

Then walking through the cute little village again before going back over the bridge:

 

Then a short walk along the river back to our hotel... a scene along the way:

 

[rotuts]

what is the temperature and humidity like ?

[KennethT]

It was crazy... For most of the time we were there, there was a daily high of about 100F with 95% humidity.  I think the heat index was about 120F or something like that.  The early mornings and evenings were cooler - about 85F.  I don't think it went below 80F for the first 7 days or so.  Then there was a big thunderstorm (pictured way up in the teaser section) and the heat broke - it became a high in the upper 80s to low 90s with only moderately high humidity (it is tropical).

[Nyleve Baar]

Such a great report - thank you very much. We spent a month in Vietnam a couple of years ago and visited many of the spots you did. Also ate at some of the same places. Looking at your pictures now I remember what a fantastic trip that was and how wonderful the food was. We were there in January/February, so probably quite a bit cooler but otherwise just as lush and gorgeous.

[KennethT]

@Nyleve BaarThat would have been a great time to go there - a lot cooler than what we saw, and statistically not much rain either.

[Nyleve Baar]

The weather was generally lovely. In the north (Hanoi) it was almost chilly, but in the Mekong delta it was very hot. There was a little rain here and there - but it didn't hold us back much. We started in Saigon, travelled all the way up to Hanoi, then flew to Siem Riep in Cambodia and got back to Saigon mostly by various types of boat. The food was so great everywhere and so insanely cheap it was almost embarassing. Even the nicest "touristy" places that we sometimes ended up in were so inexpensive that we would be shocked at our bill at the end of the meal. I remember thinking if we ever broke $10 per person for a meal we were going totally crazy! And that usually included beer or wine.

 

Which...now that I mention it...did you ever get a chance to try the Dalat wine? They do pride themselves on it and we found it nearly undrinkable.

[KennethT]

Many years ago, we were in Hanoi in mid-March... cool and drizzly the entire time we were there - but totally charming.  One day, we will go back.  Then last December/Jan. we were in Saigon - I did a foodblog about that trip - that was amazing.  We are already talking about a trip to the south - the Mekong area which we have not yet seen - but that would have to be in Dec/Jan because it would be too rainy during our summer vacation time.

 

ETA - we didn't even see the Dalat wine - we would have love to have tried it!

Edited July 13, 2017 by KennethT (log)

[Nyleve Baar]

18 hours ago, KennethT said:

ETA - we didn't even see the Dalat wine - we would have love to have tried it!

 

No, you wouldn't.

[rotuts]

@KennethT 

 

I enjoy the blogs of your trips.

 

thanks for taking the time to share.

[KennethT]

@rotutsYou're very welcome... sorry there's been nothing yet today, i've been very busy at work and haven't had much more time than a minute here and there....  we're about halfway through our visit... the next episode will talk about us leaving Hoi An and heading up to Hue, and the beauty that exists in between....

[sartoric]

We were in Hoi An during March six years ago. It was so cold I convinced a tailor to loan me a jacket until our clothes were ready. It was the ugliest jacket, but needs must. Our last trip to Vietnam (April 2016) saw temperatures similar to what you experiencied. In Hue it hovered around 43 C, meltingly hot.

 

Agree with @Nyleve Baarabout the dalat wine, like vinegar I thought. 

 

Thanks for your report @KennethT, brings back some happy memories. And, kudos to you both for enduring such long flights for a relatively short time on the ground.