Eat Walk Drink

British actor Adam James joined our morning street food today.
Together, we hit some of Hanoi's main eating stages and Adam was up for the challenge. Our three hours started with Bun Ca - deep fried fish with noodles and herbs. This was perhaps his biggest challenge of the day as he indicated that seafood was not something he was all that fond of. With some apprehension, Adam tasted the fish and was surprised that it wasn't that fishy. Who knows, it may be that the experience will add another dimenion to his diet in future.

A lakeside coffee followed before we continued our route into one of Hanoi's wet markets. Adam noted the differences between markets here and markets back in the UK and was impressed with the freshness of the produce and the fact that there were no flies.

We made our way back into the Old Quarter for a dessert dish typical of Northern Vietnam, consisting of fermented wild rice with yoghurt. Other sweets we enjoyed during the morning included banh com, a traditional rice made from pounded rice, mung beans and sugar and che chuoi, dried banana with coconut cream.

As lunch time neared, the bun cha experience loomed. This Hanoi barbeque of pork belly and pork patties is a must for all visitors to the capital. Adam was particularly interested in the range of herbs that accompany Vietnamese cuisine and, of course, they are not in short supply when bun cha is for lunch.

An after lunch coffee was our last stop on the tour. Adam departed the tour with a full stomach and a kind word. And we thank him for choosing us to guide him through Hanoi's street food scene.

Fun Evening

Over the last few days, we've been receiving quite a few bookings for our evening snacks tour. I do love this tour as it's like a social occasion, like going out with friends for a beer and some tasty treats. It's more relaxed than the chaos of the markets in the day time.

With Hanoi resident Joanne and her friends from Sydney and KL the other night, we did some serious eating. For starters, it was fried noodles with beef which is available along the lengths of many old quarter streets in Hanoi. A special dessert followed; only available from October through to April in Hanoi's cooler weather, local TV personality Pham Bang serves the Chinese influenced sweet dumplings known as Banh Troi Tau. I like to do some taste testing with our clients whenever I visit this place...see if they can guess some of the exotic ingredients that go into these daumplings and syrups. It's fun!

We needed wheels for our next stop. I wanted to show Joanne and co my favorite duck noodle soup so we took a short trip by taxi to a vendor just out of the old quarter. Duck with bamboo and Asian basil served with fresh vermicelli noodles and a robust broth is a nice proposition on a cool evening in Hanoi, everyone agreed. Walking towards West Lake, we stopped in to Truc Bach village for some spring rolls known as pho cuon, a fresh spring roll with stir fried beef and herbs. Joanne actually suggested that one as she didn't want her friends to miss out on one of her local favourites.

Steamed rice pancake with some Hanoi beer was next on the street food menu. By this stage in the tour, there is normally quite a bit of sharing going on rather than everyone having their own serve. Sensible because we had two more stops; for lemon iced tea and sweet banana with jelly and coconut milk followed by grilled dried squid and a beer nightcap to top it off.

Thoroughly full, Joanne and her friends waved me off saying they had experienced something special. That's the way we like it.