There are way more things than five that I would tell you about Vietnam related to food, but alas, we know that reading fatigue is real.
1. Some things aren't "free" that you'd expect.
Be aware that wet napkins that come with your meal might be an extra charge on your bill. If you don't need them, check for this and let your waitstaff know. Or pay, and save for when you might need them on your trip-many bathrooms don't have toilet paper or sinks (which is why I invested in travel hand-sanitizer and we carried some tissue in a ziplock bag), or never know when a sticky situation arises (ya' know, like mushing your big toe while wearing sandals into trash someone left on the ground in Saigon-not that I know this personally or anything 😜).2. Go to Da Lat for many reasons.
One, if the humidity and overall heat of Vietnam is getting to you and you have extra time you can take a quick plane ride (want to say it was 2 hours in air) from Saigon to Da Lat's cool mountain breezes for respite. But two, for the food reasons/blog purposes, this city is known for Bánh Tráng NÆ°á»›ng: Grilled rice paper, we tried this at the Red House hostel’s nightly BBQ. They called it Da Lat's pizza, and topped it with egg, dried shrimps, and spicy sauce.
This city is also known for a snack called bánh căn -rice flour cakes cooked in a cast iron mold pan with quail egg cracked in the middle. Eat with a soup or we saw kids after school eating it with a dipping sauce. The soup was not vegetarian at the place we went to 😥 Also the vendor wanted to charge us extra for the soup (when we didn't order/ask for it) and didn't mention this when they brought that food to our table. Travelling without a local guide, we had no idea what typically comes with a dish or what is the cultural norm. But after this incident, we asked every place that gave us a small soup with a meal if it was extra charge or not.
My friend who has family in this city told me I needed to try coffee while I was there. My travel mate hopped on an extensive tour of 7-8 places, one which included the weasel poop coffee farm (not it's name but gives you a description)-maybe fun for shock value to tell your friends and family you brought them back such a souvineer. However, we were told during our cooking lesson that this coffee is among the most expensive per kilo because of the long processing time and having to care for the weasels. My travel mate decided not to pay to have a cup so I can't report on it's enjoyment factor.
But the Son Pacamara coffee tour that I did instead of the "highlights of Da Lat", told me they didn't think too much of weasel poop coffee. I read about several coffee tours on Christina's blog that featured sustainable coffee places in Da Lat. Use the first link for getting to the company Facebook page to message and arrange for a tour.
I took a motorbike taxi there since transportation was not included in the fee. But I don't recommending using that as amazing as the fresh air and great views were, it was shaky getting down the dirt path but my driver was a good sport and helped make sure I found the place before he left me stranded in the middle of a bunch of farms. Fun 3 hours learning about coffee properties, growing to harvesting to roasting coffee (challenging to pick out defective beans by hand and also timing the brewing correctly), tried coffee berry tea, got extra samples of coffee while waiting for my taxi that the coffee volunteer called since none would come out that far using the Grab App.
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| Tool for measuring amount of sugar in the coffee beans |
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| Tool to measure the amount of moisture in the coffee beans |
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| Fermentation of the coffee beans |
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| Did you know you can drink the outside fruit of the coffee ? |
3. Try the gluten free spring rolls in Cat Ba (and be a beach bum!)
We had a few disappointments with restaurants in Cat Ba (not getting anything close to what was pictured on the menu-think tiny dried shrimp rehydrated instead of the big plump ones in the summer rolls. Or think regular boiled pork instead of a fatty belly with a combination plate)
However to improve our chances at meal time happiness, my travel mate kept a sharp eye out to go to place where more locals were eating. I can't tell you the name of this place, but show you on a map! It has been years since I had the fried spring rolls, lumpia, egg roll, any other similar Asian snack so trying this dish below was a real treat! The filing reminded me of an egg roll-shredded cabbage, carrots, maybe mung bean sprout in there too.
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| Fried veggie spring rolls use the rice paper as the wrapper! |
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| Simple clams steamed for another gluten free winner |
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| We just asked the waitress to pick something for us. Garlic and greens! |
After your belly is full, you can see it's a short walk to one of the beaches! Don't expect it to be like Krabi in Thailand, no kayaks to rent or massages to be had, just good old fashioned sunbathing and braving the chilly waters when we went in November. And a beautiful cliff walk to do-also a nice way to wake up from your food coma.
4. In Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City), I wish we had saved room for the hot pot...
We had wanted to hop on a free student tour by motorbike here to get introduced to street food but the abnormal rainy/stormy weather cancelled tours. Instead, we walked over the the Flower Market mentioned on a few of the student tours. On the way there, we stopped at some non-descript street vendors to calm our hunger pains, our meals were average, but I truly wished we had waited until the flower market because we saw a jam packed restaurant serving hot pot!
You can stop and smell the flowers like we did. The whole street is lined with vendors selling blooms of all types, for all occasions-the smell was intense, complex but pleasant (not like headache inducing of going into some body lotion/candle stores). But seriously, save some room and go try out this place for me. Watch out for motorbikes down these narrow streets.
5. Slurp a bowl of pho in Saigon at Royal Saigon, Bui Vien Street
Finding a bowl of vegetarian pho can be a challenge in the US, but also in Vietnam (finding that darn broth made without meats!) Typing it into Google is really the way to go. You can wander around asking, but if you are just plain hangry or have a time table to keep that day-Google it!
This is how we found Royal Saigon. I was so happy with the flavorful broth (I have attempted making vegetarian pho and home and so far all batches have been miserable, lacking depth) and the noodles had the right amount of bite to them. Good amount of veggies and broth. No weird veggies for pho like celery! (unless I'm wrong...I'm no pho expert. Just had my few fave pho places in San Diego) Also...A/C. As much as my travel mate loved the plastic stools and having street food, the heat of SE Asia really got to me, so I needed that blast of cool air for a blissful 30-40 minutes of resting our weary feet from all the walking.
Questions:
1. What kind of food or drink making tours have you gone on?
2. What is your favorite kind of soup for cool weather this year?
