Week in coastal Central Vietnam foodblog

[KennethT]

Sorry for the long lapse in posting, folks!  @sartoricNo kudos necessary - we actually enjoy the long flight - I prefer them to a shorter flight like to California or to Europe (we're in NY so we're in between both of them) since we medicate ourselves and get a decent 6-8 hours of sleep (even sitting in coach), watch a few movies, and eat 2 meals and a snack in between.  Also, I'm sure it depends on the airline - we've been using EVA quite a bit primarily because they have the best prices from NY to SE Asia (this trip cost us USD$1000 round trip, inclusive of all taxes and fees, which is a great deal - and cheaper than most flights to Europe nowadays!), but they are also quite comfortable with good service and decent food.

[KennethT]

OK, so the next morning, we woke up early to leave Hoi An and make our way up to Hue (hwhay), stopping to do a little sightseeing on the way.

 

Our first stop was to Danang, to see the Marble Mountains.  The MM are these large limestone formations that rise up straight out of the ground, and the city was basically built around them.

 

 

 

Each of the mountains is named for a different "element" - there's the fire mountain, air, etc... the biggest and most famous is the water mountain, which is one we're on.  Each mountain has it's own pagoda... this is water mountain's:

 

 

Once you go past the pagoda, there are steps leading up the mountain, to 4 different caves.

 

 

There was quite a bit of climbing involved:

 

 

After getting through the cave, and the climb (by the way, there was no indication before going in that there was any climbing involved, and the movement of people was only 1 way - so once you made it through a bit, there was no turning back!!!), there was more outdoor "climbing" up and down these stairs that were sort of carved into the rocks.  Keep in mind that it is like 95 degrees and in full sun - so those rocks were really hot - sometimes, you needed to put your hand down to keep balance, and it felt like you could fry an egg on there!!!

 

 

Here's inside another cave...

 

By the time we were mostly through, we were soaked with sweat. "Luckily" there was a rest station where we could buy some only moderately expensive energy drinks - not nearly as inflated pricing as we saw at the Great Wall of China.

[blue_dolphin]

I just wanted to offer my thanks for all the time you're taking to put these posts together as I am enjoying it immensely and I can't tell you how delighted I was to read:

 

On 7/14/2017 at 10:33 AM, KennethT said:

...  we're about halfway through our visit...

 

As I was afraid that it was almost over and now I know there's a bit more to look forward to -thanks!

[KennethT]

Back in the car, we continued on our way to Hue, going through the Hai Van pass...  In the old days, this was the only way to go, but now, there is a faster road that goes in a tunnel through the mountain.  But we preferred the scenic route:

 

 

At the top of the pass, there is a string of restaurants and convenience stores.  Our driver was sort of shuttling us into the restaurant all the way on the left side as you face it, and for a minute, I didn't understand why he was basically insisting we go to this one, without even looking at what the other ones offered... but I realized that the food was pretty much inconsequential... you go to that restaurant for this view:

 

 

 

A quick shot of part of the "kitchen":

 

Also on top of the pass is a US pillbox left over from the war, riddled with bullet holes...

 

 

On the way back down the pass, there were more interesting views... Of all of these sightseeing pics, I've only posted a small fraction of what we took..

 

 

Next stop, Hue!!!

 

[kayb]

I echo @blue_dolphin's sentiments -- very much enjoying the your travels!

 

Damned if I'd do that trip in the summer, though.

[KennethT]

Unfortunately, I only get one or two vacations per year, usually at the same times... there's the summer one, and then the week between Xmas and NYs...  this past winter, we couldn't go anywhere, so when we saw the inexpensive fares for the summer, we jumped on them, heat be damned!

[KennethT]

Hue is the original Imperial capital of Vietnam - it, like Hoi An, has quite a few dishes that are specific to the area, and like Hoi An, gets quite a few Vietnamese tourists coming to have the foods of the area in the area...

 

Our first dinner in Hue was at this place... Tai Phu (tie foo), conveniently located just a couple of blocks from our hotel.  It has expanded from its origins - the original restaurant and kitchen are here:

 

They have since expanded to include more seating across the street:

 

We sat in the "new" location - what's interesting, is that when you place your order with the waitress, she then yelled it across the street to the kitchen!  Then, when ready, they brought your dishes across the street (through the traffic)....

 

They're most known for nem lui (nuhm loo-ee) - it's basically some kind of fermented sausage, grilled on a stick, and they're awesome!

 

Nem lui is served with this:

This is a big plate of things you add to your thin, flexible rice paper (barely seen, on the very right side) - there's lettuce, mini thai basil, cilantro, diep ca (fish mint!), cucumber, slice of green mango, and most interestingly, slices of an unripe fig that only grows near Hue called Trai Va (chay vuh), plus the requisite pickles.  This is then dipped into the murky brown sauce that is made from hoisin, shrimp paste, fermented beans, peanuts, garlic, shallots and who knows what else.  The trai va is slightly sweet, and slightly bitter and astringent - it goes well with fatty foods.

 

We also got banh khoai (buyng hch-oh-ay) - which is sort of like the banh xeo you saw earlier in Hoi An, but it's much crispier.

 

Lastly, we also got Bun Mam (boon mem):

This is thin rice noodles with lettuce, herbs, cucumber, bean sprouts, pickes, pork belly and fried shallots.  You then spoon on the brown sauce served with the nem lui (and I added some chili paste as well)...  that was an explosion of flavor...

 

All of this was about $5, including two bottles of water.

 

Getting back to the hotel, we were greeted with a gift on our pillow, two little sable cookies that were ridiculously buttery, and melted in your mouth:

 

[KennethT]

Geez... this whole "work" thing is really cutting into my posting time...

 

Breakfast was again included in our hotel rate.  They had a wide array of Western options, as well as a Vietnamese soup station making Bun Bo Hue (boon baw hway), of course, but also pho and I think they also made banh canh (buyng cuhng) which is another specialty of Central Vietnam, which I'll discuss in a second...

 

Interestingly, the hotel's version of bun bo hue was quite good, even by comparison to the local options, and they gave out as much herbs as you'd like...

 

 

As opposed to pho, bun bo hue uses round rice noodles, not flat, and there are pieces of beef as well as usually some kind of caseless sausage-y things - but more quenelle-like in texture.  Some are made from beef/pork, others have shrimp or crab in them.  Bun bo hue is very aromatic, mostly with notes of lemongrass and a slight shrimp paste flavor... some places had the shrimp more predominant than others.  Typically served with it are limes (key limes), sliced chilis, lettuce, mint, thai basil (the mini kind was prevalent in Hue as well as Hoi An) and some spirulized thing which I'm not exactly sure what it is.. I didn't get a photo of it here, but it should show up later and I'll point it out.

 

After breakfast, we went to see the major sight of Hue, the imperial citadel, which was the home of the Emperor until the 1800s when the French colonized VN.

 

This has become the symbol of Hue.

 

This is the main gate into the citadel:

 

The entrance courtyard:

 

Inside one of the halls:

 

After seeing the citadel, it was time for lunch, so I wanted to go to a local place for banh canh. When we were in Saigon, on the excursion to see the Cu Chi tunnels, we stopped for lunch at a place that specialized in banh canh - I didn't realize it at the time, but banh canh is a specialty of the central part of Vietnam.

 

We went here:

 

Here's their menu to note the prices:

This is basically saying that a "big bowl" of banh canh is 20,000VND - less than $1.

 

This is the banh canh.  Note how thick the noodles are - they have a very interesting texture.  This place had these pork quenelles and a couple of shrimp, whereas the place near Saigon just had slices of boiled lean pork.  The overriding flavor of banh canh is black pepper - there is even a dish of black pepper (doled out with a spoon, not a shaker) in the condiment tray in case you want more.  Green onion is provided for greenery.

 

After lunch, we went back to the hotel to relax in the A/C and get out of the heat, and then we enjoyed our free 45 minute massages, offered to us upon check in... How sweet is that? 

 

After we recovered, and layed around some more, we went for dinner - to a place that specialized in Bun Bo Hue...

 

Some sidewalk shots walking around...

 

 

I had to stop and pick up more mangosteen.  These weren't as good as the ones I got in Hoi An, but were less expensive - a little less than $2 per kilo:

 

 

The bun bo hue:

 

This has a pork quenelle, some pieces of beef, and the yellow quenelle I think is made from crab.  It's served with:

 

Limes, chilis, lettuce, mint (peppermint again!) , and it looks like the spirulized thing on top would be some kind of dried shallot.  The broth here was very similar to what we had at the hotel.

 

Here's the place's sign:

The name of the restaurant is Quan Ba Xuan - basically meaning Mrs. Suan's restaurant.

 

ETA, in the middle of the sign, it says Chinh Hieu - which means they understand Chinese... I just noticed this now!

 

Edited July 17, 2017 by KennethT (log)

[TicTac]

Love this blog.

 

I think the spirally things are banana shoots/blossoms.  A few years back we found a local place that does some awesome Vietnamese, including a great BBH, served with the spirally things, oddly enough, no mint, which might be nice.  They also serve with congealed blood (not my preference) and the home made pork sausage - which itself is quite addictive. 

 

Thanks for all the additional 'work' in sharing your trip. 

[KennethT]

The next day, we woke early to do some touring outside of Hue - this is very common as most of the tourist sites here are outside the city.

 

First, we took a dragon boat down the Perfume river for about a half hour....

 

Our boat....

 

On the river

 

Our stop was the Thien Mu Pagoda:

 

 

 

From here we took a taxi to see a couple of the Emperor's tombs.... there are several tombs in the area, but we only went to see 2 of them, since they are HUGE.

 

The first one is the tomb of Minh Mang (ming mahng) - who ruled from 1820-1841.  His tomb area is enormous - it's like a giant park with lakes, meandering streams, manicured grounds... very tranquil.

 

 

 

 

These photos don't really do the place justice - it's like trying to photograph Boston Commons or something.

 

The next tomb we visited was totally different in style.  It was the tomb of Khai Dinh (hchai ding).  This tomb is much smaller - and not really like a park, but is built into the side of a mountain and is all stone.  It was supposed to be a combination of French and Vietnamese styles as this leader was highly influenced by the French.  He is the one responsible for changing the Vietnamese written language from using Chinese characters to what is used today, in 1919, although the system currently used was devised by a French missionary hundreds of years before.

 

 

 

 

 

After that, we returned to the hotel to cool down and relax a bit before heading back out to lunch.

 

Since having breakfast so early (and my tapeworm was kicking in full force) we had a snack at the hotel:
 

Some pork and shrimp goi cuon (summer rolls) and a lime juice (limeade).  Interestingly, they served it with the nuoc cham, fish sauce based sauce rather than a peanut and hoisin based sauce that would have accompanied it in Saigon.

[KennethT]

Once cooled sufficiently, we went out to walk around a different local neighborhood and have lunch.  I had wanted to try banh u'o't (byung oo-ut), another Hue specialty.  I talked to the hotel to get a taxi to take us to the neighborhood (the good brands of taxis are hard to find - it's easier to call them and have them pick you up; otherwise, if you take a different brand of taxi, while they use the meter, the meter doesn't measure distance accurately, so you wind up overpaying).  When I told the hotel where I wanted to go, of course they asked why we wanted to go there, as it's not a common tourist destination (there's nothing to see there) - but I told them that I wanted to go for banh u'o't, and this place was recommended, the hotel staff said they knew of the place, but thought it was closed - so they recommended a different place which happened to be just a few doors down.  I'm glad I asked, because it turned out they the first place actually was closed, and the place they recommended was down an alleyway - we probably would have never found it!

 

 

 

This place is huge - there's a whole inside, and covered outside seating.  While locals do go there, they also see a lot of tourists - as we were finishing, a whole bus load of Vietnamese tourists arrived and sat at a huge table right near us (actually a bunch of tables pushed together into one long table).

 

Bun thit nu'o'ng (boon t-heet noo-omg).  This should look very familiar as it seems like every Viet place in NY (and probably elsewhere) has it - it's basically the grilled beef noodle salad.  Room temp rice noodles, cucumber, herbs (peppermint, mini thai basil, cilantro, fish mint) and pickled daikon.  While it's really common in NY and elsewhere now, its origins are in central VN.

 

Banh u'o't thit nu'o'ng (buyng oo-ut t-heet noo-omb) - these are rice rolls made with grilled beef, herbs (mini thai basil, peppermint).  This was awesome - we originally ordered two of these and one bun thit nu'o'ng, but it was so good my tapeworm made me order one more.  Really cheap too... The whole lunch was probably about $3.

 

Fish sauce based dipping sauce with lots of garlic.  More garlic, with the chilis, is provided in case there isn't enough in your sauce.

 

After lunch, we walked around the neighborhood and concluded that, just as the hotel had said, there was nothing to see there, so we headed back to the hotel to take a dip in the pool.

Edited July 17, 2017 by KennethT (log)

[KennethT]

By the time we got back to the hotel, put on swim suits and more sunscreen, and got ready to go out to the pool, the weather had other ideas.  A huge black cloud (pictured in the teaser section) covered the sky, and so we sat back and watched a huge thunderstorm with tons of lighting striking right near us.  It was crazy.  So, while waiting around, I made some tea and we had some mangosteens.

 

Once the storm cleared, it became beautiful out, and the heat broke, becoming much more comfortable.  Also, when the storm cleared, there was a beautiful rainbow, and it looked like it pointed straight at the place we went for dinner!  That's a good sign!

 

This is actually a funny story.  So, during the storm, I went down to talk to the people at the front desk to plan dinner.  I had wanted to try another Hue specialty, Mam Tom Chua - (mem tohm chooeh), which is a sauce made with raw, fermented shrimp.  The basic procedure is to wash shell-on raw shrimp with sea water, then cover with lime juice, garlic, and who knows what else, and let it ferment for about a week.  The result definitely smells of shrimp, but is also sweet and sour.  It's typically served with boiled pork meat that you dip into the sauce where you eat the saucy liquid as well as the raw, fermented shrimp.

 

So, the look I received after telling the people at the front desk that I wanted to try it was priceless.  I wish I could have taken a photo of it.  For the next 10 minutes, the first woman I spoke to basically tried to talk me out of wanting to have it, that once I saw it or tried it, I'd run back to the hotel screaming.  It turns out that not all Viet people like this sauce - it's a love it or hate it type thing... and she definitely did NOT like it.  But, the woman standing next to her, watching our discussion, liked it very much and she thought it was great that I wanted to try it.  The biggest problem is that when local people want to eat it, they usually eat it at home, not in a restaurant.  You can buy jars of it all over the place; people then make their own pork and go from there.  So, there was a big discussion amongst three of them as to where to send me that would have such a thing for me to be able to try it.

 

The result was to send us to a very old restaurant that locals go to when they want "fancy", old-style Hue food, but also gets a lot of Vietnamese tourists who wanted to do the same thing I did (which, btw, wasn't even on the menu).  So, we went here:

 

Khong Gian Xua (hchum yahn soo-uh).

 

The inside has tons of wood carvings that look like they're a hundred years old.

 

 

Spring rolls - perfectly cooked

 

Mam tom chua with the boiled pork belly - pickles on the side.  Also, I wish I could have taken a photo of the waitress's face when I told her that I wanted to order it.  The look would have been appropriate if I said that I wanted to grill and eat her pet cat.  She actually went to get a manager (she didn't really speak English) so he could talk to me to find out if I really wanted to order it.  After much back and forth, they "agree" to let me order it...  The manager was apparently worried that I would spontaneously vomit on the table after trying it.

 

A close up of the mam:

 

The verdict... I loved it... my wife, not so much... in fact she didn't really like it at all.  She usually likes things that are shrimpy - but usually in a shrimp-paste kind of way, which is more like dried shrimp... this is like raw shrimp, and is totally different.  The shrimp are head, tail and shell-on... and you eat all of it.  Also, throughout our meal the manager kept checking up on us - to see if we had tried it (and to make sure we didn't throw up all over his restaurant).  I think he was pleasantly surprised....

 

More rau mu'o'ng, stir fried with garlic and a little chili

 

Grilled chicken rubbed with lemongrass and a chili sauce.  The chicken was great because they use, as I was later told, real chicken - meaning that they are scrawny, not very meaty, and run around a lot eating whatever is on the ground.  So, it wasn't super tender like we get in the US, but it was certainly tender enough, and it was really tasty - very chicken-y.

 

All in all, I thought this place was a success - and I was super happy to get my mam tom chua.  I was even considering getting a jar to bring home when at the market...

[KennethT]

Since the heat wave had broken, the next morning, the hotel actually opened up the patio to have breakfast outside - it was only in the upper 70s or low 80s at 6:30AM! 

 

The view from breakfast... bun bo hue, some fruit (pineapple, passionfruit, dragon fruit)

 

They also had some freshly made dim sum.  In the middle is a viet style char siu bao, and the two flanking it are steamed pork/shrimp dumplings, with more fruit.

 

We were up early this morning to head out to see the Vinh Moc (ving muck) tunnels and a few other sites near the DMZ, which is about an hour and a half drive from Hue.

 

Our driver, arranged through the hotel, turned out to also be a licensed guide.  His English was very good, but he was actually fluent in French, and his guide license is actually to provide tours in French. He said he was also a French teacher!  When we first got in the car, he told us we could ask him any questions we wanted - not just about tourist sites, but about economics, politics, or anything else that we were curious about.  He was fascinating to talk to, and to get his perspective (and he relayed the perspective of lots of other people who live in that area) about Vietnam today, the US war, etc.  I also wound up talking to him a lot about the Vietnamese language - he was mystified that I had learned a bit of Vietnamese, and he proceeded over the day to give me lessons in grammar, and I would constantly ask him about pronunciation.  I found out that while the Pimsleur series is quite good, the CDs that I borrowed from the library may have been a bit out of date, as he said the country's pronunciation of certain sounds changed about 20 years ago.  This is why some people would look at me strangely when I said things.

 

Central Vietnam was heavily affected by the US war - largely because the majority of the fighting took place there, and lots of people in the area died, both from US fire and also from fire from Northern Vietnam.  The area we were in was south of the DMZ - the people the US forces were trying to aid in the fight against the north.  He said that most people in central vietnam do not like or dislike the communists, but that they feel like they have to "accept" it... but if they did have a choice, they would rather not be communist as they feel like the central part of Vietnam is getting the shaft.  There are very few jobs in the area - there are no factories, and the people there are largely very poor.  The rice farming they do there is to feed themselves - they aren't able to grow enough to export it (as they do in the south) - which makes sense as most of the fields we saw looked like small, family plots.  Many of the young people leave the area to move to Saigon to get jobs - which hurts the area's economy even more.

 

I'm not going to put in any more detail about most of the stops, as I don't know if there is any interest... if enough people want to see, I can put up more.

 

The main reason we took this side trip from Hue was to see the Vinh Moc tunnels.  These are very different from the Cu Chi tunnels that we had seen near Saigon - as the Cu Chi tunnels were basically used for fighting, and the Vinh Moc tunnels were for living in - several hundred people lived in them for about 3 years - 17 children were born in there!  As such, the tunnels are quite a bit bigger than the Cu Chi tunnels, and have not really been modified for tourists, except for the entrances.

 

 

 

 

After the tunnels, we went to see another site, which I'll skip... but the drive on the way there was very pretty....

 

Rice fields and lotus blossoms... they're commonly grown together.

 

Small plots of rice fields going right up to houses.

 

So many shades of green.

 

After the last stop, it was getting late and we were starving!  We had originally told the hotel that we wanted to go to a local place for lunch somewhere along the way, and they told the driver to go to a certain restaurant - but we got our signals crossed a bit as the restaurant they recommended was actually not far out of Hue, and we would have gotten there way too early for lunch time.  So instead, we found a local place right outside of our last stop.

 

 

Rice with fried chicken, some fried shrimp (eated with the shell on, some tofu.  Very simple, but tasty.

 

Afterwards, we went back to the hotel, and hung out by the pool for a couple hours - we definitely needed the time to decompress and absorb everything we had taken in earlier in the day.

[KennethT]

That night, we went out to dinner to have a different version of the banh khoai - this time, at a restaurant that is supposed to specialize in it.  The name of the restaurant is Lac Thien (luk t-hee-en), and they are in every tourist guidebook, but are also highly regarded locally.  Aside from the banh khoai, their also known for being owned by a man who is deaf mute, but is completely understandable when he mimes how to eat certain dishes, or when he asks if you're enjoying everything.  He is also known for making a custom beer bottle opener where he can open 4 bottles at once - if you get a beer, he will even give you an opener to take home!  Not only is he understandable, but his joy and enthusiasm are totally infectious... it was great just to be around his presence.

 

 

The restaurant is operated by his daughters, who are all super friendly and nice.  One of them even speaks a little English.

 

Their banh khoai was incredible - so crispy and crunchy - definitely the best we'd had on this trip.  We ordiginally ordered 2, plus a few other Hue specialty dishes... but it was so good, my tapeworm made me order one more at the end!

 

 

 

It's served with:

trai va and cucumber

 

Lettuce and herbs - mint, fish mint and mini thai basil

 

Dipping sauce made from pork liver, shrimp paste, garlic and who knows what else, but it was really good!

 

We also ordered:

 

Banh beo (buyng bayuh), which is a dish of rice steamed rice cake topped with dried shrimp and pork, served with a sweet fish sauce - awesome.

 

banh nam (buyng naam) which is rice paste topped with dried shrimp and pork, then steamed in a banana leaf. 

 

The people working there were so nice.  After eating, we were trying to get a taxi, but couldn't find one of the ones that didn't rip you off.  After standing at the corner for like 10 minutes, our waitress comes out, asks us which hotel we were staying at, and realizing that it wasn't that far away, offered to take us there on her motorbike!  While the offer was very sweet, and I realize that many tourists take motorbike taxis in Vietnam, we had to decline... so after a bit of back and forth with her trying to convince us of how safe it was, she relented and went inside and called the non-rip off taxi company to pick us up - which came in just a few minutes.

[KennethT]

The next morning, we decided to skip the hotel breakfast and go to a local banh canh place.  We went here:

 

Hy'o'ng banh canh cua roi

 

They specialize in making the banh canh as seen upthread, but they do it with crab (cua)

 

The quenelles were either made from shrimp or crab, and there were lots of pieces of crab meat floating around (most with the cartilage).  Like before, the dominant flavor of the broth was of black pepper.

 

From there, we walked to the Dong Ba market, which is a giant market selling absolutely anything and everything.

 

 

 

 

[KennethT]

Later on, for lunch, I had wanted to find a place that made another Hue specialty, banh bot loc.... so we found this place:

 

Ba Do (bah duh)

 

We got some of the specialties:

 

Banh beo (buyng behuh) - like before, it's a dish filled with steamed rice cake, topped with dried shrimp, but this one was also topped with a pork cracklin' - because, pork cracklin makes everything better.  Served with a sweet fish sauce with and without chili.

 

cha tom (chah tomme) - this is a shrimp mouse that has been steamed

 

This little oddity is banh bot loc (buyng buht luhk) - a cube or pork and a whole shrimp (head, tail and shell on) are encased in tapioca starch and steamed.  The tapioca starch winds up with the texture like a warm gummy bear, with a crunchy shrimp inside!  Fascinating and tasty.

[heidih]

I've only had that tapioca starch bundle once from a Vietnamese friend who made it -At first it was odd but I've caught myself thinking bout it over the years

Edited July 18, 2017 by heidih (log)

[KennethT]

We wanted to get dinner that night really early since we had to wake up ridiculously early the following day to make our 7:30AM flight back to Saigon.  So, we just decided to wander around the area near the hotel in the early evening to see what looked good.

 

In our wandering, we stumbled on a few interesting things...

 

An unknown pagoda...

 

Selling sticks of incense on the street. 

 

We saw this fried rice vendor setting up for the night, so we decided to sit down.

 

He did fried rice and fried noodles... 

 

Fried rice with beef, cucumbers and pickled mustard greens on the side

 

Shrimp

 

Perfectly cooked and not oily at all... not bad for less than $2.

 

 

 

 

Goodbye Hue!!!!

 

The hotel was so nice - we were planning on leaving at 6AM to get to the airport to make our 7:30 flight - and the hotel breakfast doesn't usually open until 6 - but the night before, the front desk staff asked us if we'd like, the restaurant can open at 6:45 for us to eat breakfast before we go!  I declined, but I really appreciated the offer.

 

Once at the Hue airport, which is tiny - there are like 3 gates - we got airport bun bo hue for breakfast:

 

It was actually really good, especially for the airport... slightly shrimpy-er than other versions we had, and a wonderful lemongrass aroma.  The price was double what it was on the street, but for $2/bowl, still a bargain.

 

Once in the Saigon airport, we had some time to kill, so what to do?

 

 

Surprisingly, the airport pho bo was quite good, although on the sweeter side, even for Saigon.  Herbs provided were thai basil (standard size - not the mini size as was in central VN) and sawtooth coriander.

 

Finally, one parting shot... while in the Taipei airport on the way home, I decided to get a snack, even though we had already eaten 3 meals already...

 

Char siu bao and loose leaf oolong...

 

So that was the trip... we loved this trip - there is such a raw beauty to central VN - it's hard not to get gorgeous photos almost everywhere you turn... the food, while not as explosively flavored as in Saigon, was really interesting and I thought provided a good insight into the lifestyle of the people living there.  I hope everyone enjoyed following along!

[rotuts]

@KennethT

 

 

""   We got some of the specialties:  ""

 

I see  at least 14 small plates of items that might be fried ?

 

are the all different ?

[KennethT]

@rotuts I think you're talking about the banh beo, right?  There's a bunch of small dishes on a tray?  Those are steamed, not fried - and all the dishes are the same, but each one only contains about 1 mouthful...  The whole tray cost about $1.

[Shelby]

Oh I wish this blog would go on and on.  I have the biggest craving for pho now........

 

Thank you so much, Kenneth!

[rotuts]

OK

 

this :

 

 

are they the same or Sl. different ?

[KennethT]

They're all the same.  Steamed rice cake with dried shrimp and pork cracklin.

[Shelby]

I've been ruminating and I think out of everything--and trust me, I'd like everything--I'd like to try the rice paste in the banana leaf.  Oh and a mangosteen.

[KennethT]

Yeah, the rice paste in the banana leaf, topped with minced pork and shrimp, with that sweet fish sauce... it was awesome.  Don't get me started on my love for mangosteens....  but don't pass up a really good, tree ripened SE Asian mango if you ever get the chance... they taste almost nothing like what passes for mangoes in the US.  Right now, in NY, we're getting "champagne" mangoes, aka ataulfo mangoes, grown in Mexico - but since they're picked green and "yellow" on the shelf, as opposed to ripening on the tree, the flavor, texture, aroma and juiciness totally lacks by comparison.  I made the mistake of getting a couple of these mangoes over the weekend, and made a viet style mango salsa for some salmon last night...  I am so sorry I did.  The memory of the awesome mango is too fresh in my mind, so these mangoes tasted like crap - even though I know in my head that they're really the same things we always get during some times a year, and I am usually a fan - at least mostly...