Well for all you "gastronomes" (is that a real word?) out there, I thought I'd write a little about the food of Vietnam and what we've eaten and drunk so far. The people here seem to be eating at all hours of day and night. I have no idea where it all goes because they are so skinny!
For drinks we love the freshly juiced sugar cane sold at all corner shops (in a glass if you sit there - at small plastic tables - or to take away in a plastic bag with a straw sticking out of it!). at "proper" restaurants we have lemon juice or mango lassis on occassion. And of course we go through litres of bottled water a day (50c - $1 for a 1.5 litre bottle)
On our first day in VN we were taken out to one of the best Pho places in town and so sampled top notch Pho Bo (pronouced "fur baw") which is rice noodle soup with slices of beef, bean sprouts and a mindboggling variety of herbs such as mint. Very yummy (BTW Graham, your pho bo has stood up very well to comparison! We are impressed!).
Ben also had snake curry (he picked it curried so that the taste wasn't easily discernable!). Apparently it's rare to get cobra these days.
Fried little spring rolls as well as fresh spring rolls (the dipping sauce is what always makes these dishes tasty), wonton things etc.
We had fried frogs legs in the Mekong Delta which tasted like - yes, chicken! Let's just say that I'll never make a good frenchman! It's the thought of it that get's me.
We've enjoyed the food in Hoi An most of all. Their speciality is Cao Lau (said cow l-ow) - doughy flat noodles, mixed with croutons, bean sprouts and greens and topped with pork slices. Apparently the most authentic cao lau is made from the water drawn from a certain local well.
Another speciality here is the delicate "white rose" (shrimp awrapped in rice paper and steamed). The nuoc cham (fish sauce with chilli pieces) that it's served with is delicious. I dip everything into it too much to the restauranteur's disapproval!! Fried pancakes which are stuffed with shrimp and bean sprouts and who knows what else are my favourite!
Tried fish barbequed in banana leaf yesterday (a big piece of fish with ginger, pineapple and chilli with other herbs and spices all wrapped in a banana leaf and baked in some way). The first mouthful unfortunately had a huge bit of chilli in it that totally destroyed my tastebuds and wrecking the meal for me! Ben says it tasted good.
And then there's the fruit (rambutans, durians, great big "jumbu", "gadu guda", mangos, and the more run of the mill papaw, bananas and the boring pears, apples and oranges), the street stalls and the women carrying their goodies in 2 baskets off a pole balanced across their shoulders. Cracker type rice cakes, the VN version of peanut brittle, grilled corn on the cob, corn kernels stirfried with shrimp and onion (my personal favourite! mmmmm), steamed pork buns and fresh crusty baguettes stuffed with all manner of things - especially bbq pork!
A gastronomic feast!
A filling meal costs anything from 70c to $2.50 per person! At our biggest splurge we only paid $30 for the whole family and that was for two 4-course seafood set menu and a 4-course beef set menu meal PLUS a drink or two all round.
And we haven't even got to the deep fried cricket or spiders yet! Apparently the silk worm that they get out of the crysalis tastes like a peanut - "very nice" we were told. As a local said to us "we Vietnamese eat anything that moves"!
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