Eating in Vietnam: a food diary

Bun cha breakfast and spring rolls (from 27 Dao Duy Tu)

Last fall when Jasmine and I began talking about a potential Vietnam trip, I started getting excited about all the food we would eat. A big inspiration for the trip was the caving trek, but as long as I could get in a few bowls of bun cha and pho, I was down. In seven days, we did our best to sample as many dishes as we could. Here goes!

Egg coffee from Cafe Giang, the place it was purportedly invented 

It's no secret that I'm not a coffee drinker, but I'm always game to try anything when traveling, including the intriguing-sounding "egg coffee" that graces many of Hanoi's cafes. It was just the perfect drink for me, as the creaminess/custard quality of the egg masked the bitter taste of coffee beans. If you're a coffee purist, you might scoff at this creation, but it certainly provided a nice buzz of energy nonetheless. As the story goes, egg coffee came about in Hanoi during the mid-20th century when milk was scarce and egg provided a creamier (and tastier, if you ask me) alternative. It's stuck around and you can find many egg coffee cafes in Hanoi. It comes in an espresso size cup which is then placed in a slightly wider and more shallow cup filled with hot water to keep its temperature warm.

One dish of from our multi course dinner at Koto

Koto (Know One Teach One) is a social enterprise founded by a Vietnamese-Australian fellow whose aim is to empower at-risk and underprivileged youth by giving them useful training in hospitality so that they can improve their lives. We enjoyed a satisfying multi-course prix fixe meal from appetizers to dessert.

Drinks at Sofitel's Bamboo Bar, a beautiful colonial-style outdoor bar with wooden ceiling fans, dim lighting, and strong drinks

Lunch at State Run Food Shop 37 (ration tickets)

State Run Food Shop 37 models itself after the government-run restaurants during the austerity period beginning in 1976. You purchase ration coupons (as seen in the picture below) which go towards your meal. 

Clockwise from top: interior of the restaurant; the tables were made out of repurposed Singer sewing machines (!); the exterior of the restaurant 

Lunch: fried morning glory (our "birth" flower, haha), spring rolls, rice, etc.

 Beef pho and fried dough at Pho 10, a no frills, very efficient corner restaurant our Airbnb host recommend to us

Breakfast on deck on our Halong Bay cruise

We had some time to kill (before heading to the train station) after we got back to Hanoi, so we went to another place for egg coffee. Not quite as good as Cafe Giang, but still did the trick.

Next stop? Central Vietnam (Phong Nha National park area) where we spent the first night in Phong Nha town. The following day we started our two day cave trekking adventure (for more, read Jasmine's amazing account on her blog here). As we entered our first cave, it was impossible to miss the lunch spread that was laid out across a tarp. We rolled our own spring rolls, made banh mi, peeled tiny, sweet-as-can-be oranges and capped off our meal with Choco pie, a Vietnamese delicacy. ;)

Our clothes at the campsite 

At the end of the first day, we went for a quick dip in the ice cold waters at our campsite, and hung our muddy clothes to "dry" before the following day's trek. (Spoiler alert: one night in February is not nearly long (or warm) enough to render clothes dry.) We meandered around the camp site, set up our sleeping bags, and got ready for our group dinner. 

Pre-dip!

Brrr!

The Oxalis cooks were talented- whipping up everything from grilled meats cooked over open coals for dinner to homemade crêpes in the morning.

Video of cooking in action

Just a sampling of our amazing dinner cooked outside: homemade French fries, tofu topped with flavorful tomato sauce, rice, grilled eggplant, chicken, soup, steamed greens, delicious cabbage. They also gave us local "moonshine" aka rice wine that could knock your socks off. 

Guava with salt dip and jackfruit for dessert

Day two of trek: Breakfast consisted of fresh crêpes with lime, sugar, & banana, piping hot noodles, assorted tropical fruit, and hot ginger tea before we embarked on the more challenging trek of the two days 

A digression from the food: on day two of our trek, we awoke in our tents and set out putting on our clothes for the day. Since Jasmine and I were paranoid about leeches (from the group we met at our homestay two nights before), so  I decided to reach my hands into my muddy boots before putting them on in case there were any leftover from the previous day's muddy trek. I felt something rubbery and immediately pulled my hand out only to see a huge spider in my boot. I screamed and tossed the shoe a good 10 feet. Bao, our guide, came over and was able to knock the spider out of my boot, while remarking, "Oh yeah, that's definitely poisonous." What a fright. 

The day two trek was an experience from start to finish and it was the the perfect blend of adventure, unknowns, and challenges without seeming impossible. By the end of the second day, we were exhausted but felt like we'd accomplished so much. Back at base camp, we showered off two days worth of caked-on mud (quite possibly one of the best showers of my life) and packed up our stuff before the Oxalis van took us down the dirt road to a local family's home for one final meal as a group. We cracked open cans of refreshing cold Coke as we slurped on mi quang, a savory soup of thick noodles, tomatoes, tofu, crushed peanuts, herbs, limes, and chili. According to Bao, our jack-of-all-trades trek leader, the dish is originally from Hoi An but served in a smaller bowl there. 

(Aside: As delicious as the bowl pictured above was, it was quite likely the culprit of Jasmine's intense food poisoning which she had to endure over the course of our 10+ hr train ride back to Hanoi!!!)

A few other memorable food experiences with sadly either no pictures or address (or either):

• Milky tea outside a random cafe in Hanoi
• Gin and tonic on the terrace outside Tadioto, a cute bar in Hanoi
• Beer corner (Bia corner) in Hanoi for more G and Ts
• Delicious beef noodle soup at an makeshift place on the sidewalk near Beer Corner. No sooner than I could finish the bowl did the cops shut down the place and make the owner dismantle his impromptu "restaurant"
• Sidewalk Banh mi at an inconspicuous food cart in Hanoi
• Delicious strawberry smoothie across the street from said unmarked banh mi shop
• Vietnamese coffee at Kafe village 
• Drinks at Avalon BBQ rooftop over Hoang Kiem Lake (drinks are nothing to write home about but the view is quite pleasant)
• Happy hour (buy one, get one free wine) during our Valentine's Day Halong Bay cruise with 60-something Europeans
• Banana peanut butter smoothie at Bamboo Cafe in downtown Phong Nha
• White wine in front of river at our Oxalis guesthouse in Phong Nha (not memorable but it was locally made, from Dalat)
• Tasty BBQ dinner at Oxalis guesthouse's Expedition Cafe

A few random, non-food observations:

The address plates in Hanoi were identical to those in Paris, a random remnant of colonization? 

Constant smog and haze blanketed Hanoi's skies so that we never saw a clear day

Motorbike drivers carried the randomest of items including extremely bulky, full-size trees

Little stools are the way to go for sidewalk eating- great for a short person like me!

And finally- many streets in Hanoi are  dedicated to selling solely one item, i.e. Mirror Street (pictured above), Sunglass Street, etc.


What an adventure. Vietnam, I hope to return!

Pom & Flora Cafe in Stockholm

My favorite food spot in Stockholm happened to be just down the street from our apartment. Pom and Flora Cafe is the most darling brunch/lunch hangout in Stockholm's Södermalm neighborhood.  We first stopped in on a weekend morning and the owner was so sweet, taking time during the busy brunch rush to help us out, item by item, with a translation of the Swedish menu. Each brunch came with a "bread basket" of homemade biscuits (made on site) and hearty breads sourced from local bakeries. We also got homemade ginger-orange marmalade, yogurt with berries, nuts & seeds, a meat & cheese plate, lattes, and fresh-squeezed juice.  Everything was delicious.  The restaurant is small and fills up quickly with neighborhood residents, children, and babies. We felt right at home.

When leaving, the owner suggested we come back to try the lunch. On our last day, we did just that and enjoyed tasty chicken curry sandwiches, a tuna-sesame-humus salad, and a unique bread salad with mozzarella and pesto that featured three different types of pickled tomatoes. 

The owner mentioned that the cafe has been open for about nine months and she created it because she didn't think Stockholm had a place of its kind. (She was influenced by the idea of the "Le Pain Quotidien" cafes.) I don't know exactly when I'll be in Stockholm again, but I'll make sure my first meal is at Pom & Flora.

Pom and Flora Cafe is located at Bondegatan 64 in Stockholm

Dining at NY's Eataly: Le Verdure

I flew out to New York at the end of May to celebrate my five-year college reunion --and of course eat. I was determined to make a pilgrimage to Eataly and I accomplished it towards the end of my visit. Three dear friends from college and I met outside the warehouse-style building and wandered inside the Italophile's dream.  The layout of Eataly is open and seamless so "restaurants" and shops flow from one to the next- everything is exposed and there are no real walls. This makes for an interesting dining experience as shoppers and tourists are constantly walking by your table. After much deliberation, we settled on the restaurant Le Verdure. Despite the unconventional layout, we had a wonderful dinner sharing different vegetarian foods from the Piemonte region, with a little twist here and there. Eataly may not have existed when I was living in New York, but it is a great addition to the city.

polenta

cannelloni

"gnocchi" alla romana

Le Verure is located at 200 5th Avenue in New York City (inside Eataly)

Puget Sound Bite: The Whale Wins

The Whale Wins just got named by Bon Appetit magazine as one of the best new restaurants in the U.S.  As if it wasn't difficult to get a table at TWW before, I can only imagine what it will be like now.  But that's ok.  Because this restaurant deserves every bit of praise it's getting.  And if you go at 5pm (like I have on the past two occasions), you can bypass all that waiting anyways. Which is important because the food passing by your table will begin to make you impatient for your chance to try. I liken The Whale Wins to a fine indoor picnic.  The food isn't fussy, much of it is room temperature, and their salads are the shining stars on the menu (imho). Please don't leave this restaurant without ordering the roasted carrots and yogurt. And do me a favor and finish off your meal with a slice of their life-changing zucchini bread. The Whale Wins is everything you'd want in a picnic, minus the bugs (and with the addition of great drinks). Can't get much better than that.

their amazing zucchini bread (the trick? they smother it in butter before roasting it)

The Whale Wins is located at 3506 Stone Way N in Seattle

My Salerno

Salerno will always hold a special place in my heart.  First and foremost, I still have cousins that live there.  It was from this part of Italy that my great-grandfather immigrated to Boston, where he met my great-grandmother from Friuli.  Ever since my first visit to Campania, my relatives have always been the most hospitable, wonderful family.  But aside from my personal attachment to Salerno, this is a beautiful part of Italy.  Salerno is a sizable city not far south of Naples.  That means lots of good pizza as well as a rich culture. It's close enough to the pretty yet touristy towns of Positano and Amalfi, and far enough away that you can return in the evening and walk among Italians dressed in their finest, tasting an ice cream cone, and lingering about during their passeggiata.  

 

Ancient botanical gardens

Gulf of Salerno

Dinner at the cousins!

My favorite part of the trip is every night when we sit down for dinner where we partake in simple food at its best.  They make their tomato sauce once a year and bottle it up to use for the next twelve months.  We enjoy vegetables like green beans, roasted peppers, zucchini, and a simple lettuce salad-everything tastes like it was picked from the garden a few minutes ago.  We'll finish with different cheeses- buffalo mozzarella of course, some parmigiano, and another type perhaps.  And finally, melon, gelato, and cake for whoever still has room.