Bakery

[Part five in a series on Vietnamese food]

Bakeries are alive and well in Vietnam and while most of the shelf space is wasted by gaudy looking birthday cakes or moon cakes during the Moon Festival, there are also some that carry some rather tasty, uniquely Asian delights. Here is our favourite place:


Moon cakes are a traditional Chinese pastry that usually combines savoury and sweet fillings as well as a salted egg yolk to represent the moon. These are given as gifts during the fall Moon Festival and most people I've met don't like them. Some are better than others, perhaps chicken filling is a better choice than clams?

[Moon Cakes]

Other sweet pastries line the shelves with fillings such as red bean, lotus seed, black sesame, and dried fruits, to just name the ones I like, and many of them follow the Moon Cake tradition by having a salted egg yolk in the middle.

[I would NOT recommend the Choco-Pies on the top shelf]

[My favourite, top shelf, half red bean half lotus seed filling]

Daphne wouldn't forgive me if I didn't mention the egg tarts and cream puffs that are behind the cake counter. Also very yummy, and also her favourites.

Veganam

[Part four in a series on Vietnamese food]

If you have sensitive tastes when it comes to food, Vietnam might not be the place for you. Although I have met people here who can't eat shellfish or are vegetarians, without the language it can be quite difficult to stay faithful to your dietary piques. Asking for no meat still won't ensure that the broth isn't meat based or that the water spinach isn't cooked in fat.
However, I have found this amazing gem in District 4 that serves exclusively vegan food to an all Vietnamese clientele.




Now, I'm probably the furthest thing from a vegan you'll find[I ate duck fetus a month ago] but Daphne and I became regular visitors to this establishment for its amazing variety of unique and delicious foods we couldn't find anywhere else. Located near a few Buddhist monasteries, its purpose is likely to cater to the neighbourhood's monk population, though I had a feeling that the majority of the customers, like us, just came to eat something tasty.

[This is what tasty food looks like]

Banh Mi

[Third Part in a series on Vietnamese food]

The mark of the French is not only found in the yellow-walled villas and a few street names that escaped being patriotically changed, but also shows up in some of Vietnam's mainstream cuisine. Coffee culture aside, you can't go far without running into a baguette[banh mi] sandwich stand. Fillings and price vary, usually containing paté with some fresh vegetables and some kind of meat. If you're not in a rush, its worth your time to stop for a banh mi op la served hotplate style.

[Our favourite banh mi lady wearing her traditional Vietnamese pj's]

First, they'll cut up some small Vietnamese deli meats. On a hotplate, an egg is cracked and then joined by several meats, fish cake...


paté...


And then served with a banh mi similar to French baguettes but airier, some soy and chili sauce and a plate of vegetables.



It takes skill to pack everything into one baguette. I recommend saving the cucumbers for last, as they are cleaner on the hand and keep the mess fairly contained.


Bon appetit.

Bun bun bun!

[Second part in a series on Vietnamese food]
If you know about one Vietnamese dish then its probably the soup known as Pho. Cheap, healthy, filling and very good. But 'Pho' isn't the name of the soup, its the name of the noodle. Noodles aren't just noodles here in VietNam. When you look at a menu, the food is listed by its ingredients, the word for rice, com, or one of the words for noodles always comes first in such a list. So Pho Bo, means pho noodle soup with beef[translation sounds longer,eh?] Even if you get an english menu, its good to look at the accompanying vietnamese text to know what kind of noodle you're getting. Among the ones I've come across there's pho[/fa/], a flat and tender rice noodle, mi[/me/], a thin, round egg noodle, bun[/boon/], a thin, round rice noodle, and mien, which is vermicelli.
One of my favorite lunch time meals is a Bun dish. I've only found a few places that serve bun in this manner, usually its served in some kind of soup, like pho. But fortunately for me, there's a stall that sells it right behind my building.



Nem Nuong is a grilled meatball, Cha Gio is a fried spring roll, Chao Tom is minced shrimp wrapped around a piece of sugarcane and grilled, and the Bi...I don't know, roommate's asleep so I can't ask him. So how do I order? I say 'Bun' and then do a wave of my hand over all the food to show I want everything in it[the same technique I use for baguettes].

[The chef prepares the sauce]

[Cha Gio]

[Chao Tom]

[First, some chopped lettuce, basil and some sprouts]


[The rolls are cut up and the shrimp paste gets sliced off its stalk]

[It's garnashed with shreds of pork, lightly pickled carrot, chives, peanuts and spices]

Hmmm...how about some dessert for after? You see that woman who's not doing anything?

[The round textured ones are my favorite, but I don't know what any of these are made of]

It's very common for stalls to be side by side and even work together. While these two women sell completely different products, I often see two stalls selling the exact same thing next to eachother, with the same display and same prices. Very strange.

[I don't like eating from a box]

[I was almost too hungry to keep taking pictures]

And there you have it, though the small stall behind my building has fewer options than a street restaurant might have. A place close to my school has four different kinds of grilled meats in their Bun. The sauce in the bag is a fish sauce mixed with Ot[spicy pepper] which I pour over the noodles.
Wow, I'm hungry just looking at it, but its too late for a meal so its off to bed. Daphne will be returning in just a few days and we have a small trip planned. No hints, you'll just have to read about it next week.

What Happens at T & R

The best laid plans...Wednesday was the first day of my Vietnamese lessons, a free perk of the job, but before going I had a plan laid out for the morning. I was going to go climbing, even woke up earlier so I'd have time, but I had to stop by the bikeshop first to get my motto fixed. What was wrong with it? I'll get to that later...
I was planning on stopping back at the house after climbing for a shower and change of clothes before class. The class was taught at the same school I teach at, but only for us teachers, and taught by one of the Vietnamese TA's. The school has a dress code for teachers that we have to follow even if we come in on a day off: pants, tucked shirt, tie and shoes. I don't adhere to this, but I still didn't want to come to school in my sweat-stained climbing clothes.
So, a bowl of cereal later, I'm downstairs driving to the bikeshop. The repairs end up taking FOREVER. I was getting the bike rim replaced because its was dented, but I also got talked into a much needed replacement of my gear chains, an oil change, tighter brakes and I had to replace a passenger footrest that came off somehow. The chains take quite a bit of time to do, my ice coffee long drained. My butt goes numb from sitting on a metal stool that is barely a foot off the ground. After the mechanic's done with that there's still the rim to do. So he hands it over to another worker and motions for me that we need to go eat. He speaks no English. So we go around the corner and have a small lunch at a rice stall. I get some eel with ginger and meat stuffed tofu. The mechanic keeps trying to guide me through how I should eat. Showing me to wipe the chopsticks before use, making sure I drank my soup, that I used a spoon for the rice instead of sticks and even told me to wipe my mouth at the end! When we get back the wheel's done and I pay up. But when I drive a few meters down the road I can tell that the bike still has the same problem that I brought it in for. So with a quick u-turn I'm back at the spot shaking my head. The mechanic takes the bike for another spin, comes back and questioned me with the gestures of his arms whether I had crashed it into something. No, I try to explain, but...
The night before, not drunk but drinking, I had convinced my friend, Rob, that he needed to have a lesson, then and there, since the streets were pretty empty and he was still afraid of getting a bike. Rob, drinking and drunk, though I didn't think him to be, agreed very reluctantly under my ill advised persuasion. Outside of T&R Tavern I began to explain how the bike works, but he had already had a lesson and supposedly knew, so I got on the back and told him to drive to the end of the ally. Which he did. The short way. He drove across the street, straight into the metal shutters of a business that was thankfully closed. No fear, family and friends, there are no injuries to report at such a low speed and distance. After I managed to get him, to stop saying 'oh my god' repeatedly and turn the bike off I found myself laughing, as well as our friends across the street. Rob was the only one that wasn't. He was shaken with guilt and was down with a drop in confidence that he'll ever drive a bike again. I gave him a ride home, then noticing that my bike was having difficulty maintaining a straight line and that it kept wanting to turn left. Rob did the gentlemanly thing, offering to pay for repairs, but I declined. Partially because it was my fault for not knowing better than to let him drive drunk[without really knowing how to drive at all], and also because bike repairs are cheap to do, even at the worst of times.
So anyways, I try to gesture what happened to the mechanic, and he tells me that the bike has to get its frame hammered even. So he drives it off, I sit my self down on the stool that an eight year old would feel too grown up for, and look at my watch noticing that I have an hour till class. No time to climb. No time to even shower. So I leave my bike in their hands, after finding out its going to take an hour to fix, and grab a xe om[motorbike taxi] to school. Walking in with my helmet still on, ashamed to show my unkempt hair.
I had to take a driver back, too and got caught in some nasty rain, my coat still attached to my bike. But the bike was fixed and is now in better shape than ever before, so I guess that can count as a happy ending. Moral of the story: teach 'brake' before you teach 'accelerate'. There's another one too, can you guess what is?

[Side note: For those on the other side of the world watching the news about all the bad weather, I am in a pretty safe spot. We don't get earthquakes, and it is central Vietnam that gets the typhoons and flooding every year, not the south where I am. Plus, the Philippines serves as a protective wall against tsunamis(sorry Philippines). So aside from daily rains, nothing to worry about in my slice of Asia.]

Banh Xeo

[First part in a series on Vietnamese food]
Now that life here has settled down a bit I thought it would be good to focus a bit more on the setting. And how better to understand a place than through its food. Saigon has a lot to offer in culinary delights and great prices to match. You can even find really great western options[spanish, french, italian...]
Today I'm featuring the banh xeo. A word of caution to those learning Vietnamese or trying to make sense of a menu with no English, just because you recognize one of the words in a menu item, doesn't mean you know what it is. In this case, 'banh' could mean either sandwich, cake, meat dumpling, pancake, croissant, shrimp crackers, pudding or pastry depending on what other words follow it.
Banh xeo is basically a rice pancake, of sorts, that may or may not have egg in it.
Here are some pictures of it being made:





My roommate informed me that his mom makes it without egg. The yellow comes from the oil that's used. On top there we have some sprouts, mixed with some shrimp, meat and green onion.



Adding more oil.



A satisfied customer. It's served with some greens and a fish sauce with chili. When I was served I was given nothing but chopsticks. I wasn't sure how to eat it and seeing the confused look on my face the woman grabbed the plate from me along with a bowl and some scissors. After chopping everything up and mixing it into the bowl, she poured the sauce over the whole thing and handed it back. I don't know if that's how your supposed to eat it, but I had no complaints. I think the way it was meant to be eaten was with the lettuce around the pancake and dipped into the sauce. The 'pancake' was actually very crispy on the outside. The whole thing makes for a good breakfast or light lunch and costs around 20,000VND[1.1USD].



And just what you need before taking your siesta.