Street Food

From 10/20

Alex did the best thing ever by convincing me to do the street food tour. I didn't want to do at first because it was kind of expensive (for Vietnam), but we signed up after I read the NYTimes article on the guy (Mark Lowerson).

To give you the short description of him, he's originally from Australia and had lived in Hanoi for about 11 years. He worked and started blogging about his food and travel experiences in Vietnam. He slowly but surely gained traction with other bloggers and larger publications and had to quit his day job to focus full time on street food tours. What a life right?

We got picked up at 8:30 from our hostel and grabbed a cab to West Lake. It was just me Alex and Mark, so we could ask him anything and we got all his attention! We started with a savory noodle dish called Bun ca. I'm going to provide the links from Mark if you want to get the professional explanation of the dishes, but I'll also give my two cents.  

Bun ca: It's fried fish with delicious noodles. This is their breakfast, no Lucky Charms for them. They make the food with no spice, and give you control of your own spice at the table (this is for all street food dishes).   http://stickyrice.typepad.com/my_weblog/2011/03/fish-dish.html

Banh Ran: their version of a donut. Fried dough with sesame seeds on the outside and a legume of sorts on the inside. 

http://stickyrice.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/03/fried_cake_ball.html

Herbal omelet: it's exactly as it sounds but sliced into small square for you to easily eat with chopsticks.  

http://stickyrice.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/03/my-entry.html

Coke can bird: it's like a slow cooked chicken, but in a Coke can (or beer can). It's stuffed with medicinal herbs and other fun stuff. It's super tender. You can look gross when you eat it and it's cool. 

http://stickyrice.typepad.com/my_weblog/2012/10/medicinal-bird.html

(Here you can see the omlet on the big plate, and the bird in the bowl)

Cafe Duy Tri: this is a coffee place that also makes a coffee drink with a frozen chunk of yogurt on the bottom. For those non-caffeiners like me, you get fermented purple rice with the tart yummy frozen yogurt (nothing like "fro-yo"). 

http://stickyrice.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/01/barista_artista.html

Banh Tom: the best. Double fried dough and sweet potatoe slices with shrimp on top. The shrimp were still alive when she put them into the fryer #fresh. 

http://stickyrice.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/04/at_the_bottom_e.html

Pho Tiu: like pho but not a wet soup. Noddles and pork shoulder and veggies. 

http://stickyrice.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/04/at_the_bottom_e.html

A ton of cool things about the so I may repeat myself. He reassured us that the Vietnam culture is to ensure the food is fresh. They do this by only buying enough food they need for that setting (whatever meal they're making). Sometimes they go to the markets multiple times a day to get the food they need, but they always buy enough just for that day. When they run out, they're done. 

Also, each vendor has their specialty. You sit down on the little plastic chairs and tables and get what they're serving. There no menu. They may have a couple little dishes, but it's their one thing. 

As for the markets, it's the same thing. They know how much they want to sell so they only bring that much of their product (fish, chicken heads, bugs, whatever). 

All of this information helped Alex and I feel more comfortable with the street foods, in Vietnam at least. Also, SO FULL at the end of the three hour tour. I couldn't finish my last dish despite it tasting so delicious. 

Needless to say it was an amazing experience and would recommend it to anyone who comes here. He was an awesome guy and super easy to talk to between bites. 

After binging for three hours we needed to walk, or nap. But we walked. We headed over to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. It's where they have the preserved body of great leader Ho Cho Minh. It's apparently an amazing thing to see, but we showed up and it was closed. A fake tour guide told is its closed for two months of the year, and this is one of them. He offered us a ride to the Museum of Ethnology for 100k VND, but we know better and said NO!

Instead, with our new found confidence thanks to Mark, we hailed a taxi and got there for 70 instead. The museum of Ethnology explained all of the different ethnic groups that make up Vietnam and it's people.

(Map of Vietnam showing the different ethnic groups)

It explained and showed the differences in their culture from food, to clothing, to musical instruments, to their houses. I never knew that so many different groups of people made up Vietnam and it's culture. 

By the end of the museum we were tired out, but still went to the outside area to see the actual replicas of the different houses. This was my favorite part, I got tired of reading and the houses allowed us to actually experience how they lived (more or less).

(A communal living space for one of the many ethnic groups)

After being museumed out we headed back towards our hostel and found a cafe to post up and relax. We got cool drinks and enjoyed the bustling city from a second floor balcony. I finally got some time to write and we played a little cribbage of course. I lost again but I'm over it at this point. 

We headed to some street food places for dinner now that we felt comfortable with it. It was a little different doing it ourselves with the language barrier, but we just sat down at places that looked good and they gave us plates. They helped us a little bit by showing us how to eat it, but it was a fun experience. And dinner for two cost $6!

We headed over to the Water Puppet show because it's something you have to check out once while you here, despite our guide Mark telling us that it's 20 minutes too long. However, on the way over there we found or favorite government propaganda store! We decided to forget the puppet show for tonight and spent about 30 minutes looking through and buying some propaganda. We figure we can go to the puppet show tomorrow before our overnight train. 

Now that we didn't have a show to go to, we sat on the street level and had a beer before heading back to the hostel. 

On our way back Alex got bombarded by a vendor who literally put her shoulder strap on Alex as we walked by. She told me to take a picture! Then she gave it to me and told us to take a picture. We knew she was up to something and right after I took it off she said "take picture now you buy something". I said no and walked away. 

I'm sorry but if you force us to wear your things and then tell us to buy something I'm not taking it. If you asked us if we wanted to take a picture with it and we wanted to I would be more likely to buy something after. I have no remorse for taking the pictures. Also they're awesome pictures. 

We made our way back after that without any further interruptions and called it a night. Alex was getting up the next morning at 4am to head to a photography class and I just wanted to sleep. Tomorrows our last day in Hanoi and then we're off to Sapa on an overnight train. 

"Every one of a hundred thousand cities around the world had its own special sunset and it was worth going there, just once, if only to see the sun go down."

- Ryu Murakami