Operation Nha Trang, February 2012

We are taking streetfood tour operations to the south central coast for the first two weeks of February. Nha Trang is a resort town a short flight from Saigon and very much on the standard tourist trail. While most visitors tend to spend their days on the beaches and their evenings at the bars - something we are not averse to ourselves - there is a fantastic street food scene in this town, one that we've been enjoying on a regular basis for the past ten years. In fact, in the case of Vietnamese God, his whole life as Nha Trang is his home town.

We'll be there over the Tet (lunar New Year) period, which adds a degree of colour and excitement to the atmosphere around town, as the locals hit the markets and shops in their preparations for Vietnam's biggest family occasion. But, that said, because Nha Trang is a southern coastal town, the feeling about town is still relaxed. Remember, there's always the beach.

So, what does Nha Trang have to offer the food-obsessed?

Seafood has to be the number one attraction. For breakfast, it could be in the form of fish noodle soup. In Hanoi, of course, it would be pho. In Nha Trang, expect lovely chunks of mackeral or tuna, along with fish cake slices with your threads.

After breakfast, coffee can be had street side or in a cafe by the sea. 

Street food eateries and restaurants alike are pandering to the hankerings of those who want to eat stuff from the sea morning, noon and night. Let's make the pictures do the talking.

Some of our other favourites around town include banh mi with fish cakes, banh xeo (rice flour pancakes) with baby squid and the best spring roll in Vietnam, nem nuong.

If we've whetted your appetite, and you'll be in Nha Trang between February 2-13, drop us an email for further details of our itineraries/costs. (Mark: lowiemark@yahoo.com.au & Tu: tuvancong2003@yahoo.com)

Scenes from a Street Food Tour

The streets of Hanoi tend to be a very foreign place for most of our street food tour clients. There's a lot to take in. A lot might be said. It can be sensory overload. Indeed, if Hanoi is a person's first ever stop in Asia, it will most likely be bewildering and confronting. And there is no doubt that a street food tour can accentuate those feelings.

While we don't want to protect or molly-coddle our clients, we do want them to have an enjoyable and relaxing experience rather than a stressful or confusing one. So we wander. And we see things and we eat and drink things.
At certain points, we explain things. But we don't talk from go to woe. Much of the experience of Hanoi is about allowing time for the brain to process the message from the eyes...or the nose...or the ears. If we yack too much, it interferes with that process.

But we do get a lot of questions.

Which we love answering.

Like, what is that bright green thing wrapped in plastic?

Or what is that drying on the handlebars of that bicycle?

Do people really eat that? Um...and what is it?

And then later, when our customers are relaxing back at their hotel, we send them some information from here and there, which they can peruse at their leisure.

I suppose you would call it 'after sales service'.

Egg Coffee

Egg coffee??? It sounds fascinating and I have been wondering how they make it. After 10 years living in Hanoi, I finally tried egg coffee the other day with my clients from Australia.

After half a day walking around eating heaps of different street food, we walked into Cafe Pho Co in Hang Gai street and tried their signature drink and signature view over Hoan Kiem Lake. The egg coffee is made with normal black Vietnamese coffee and egg yolk whisked with milk and sugar. It tasted a bit like tiramisu on the top, very creamy and rich.
This is a good place to stop for an hour for a coffee , juices or a beer as it located right in the middle of the old quarter even though it is a bit dearer compared to other cafes in town.
Cafe Pho Co
11 Hang Gai Street
Hanoi

A Sweet Stop

Vietnamese cuisine, in fact Asian cuisine in general, is not particularly known out of the region for its sweets or desserts. The people who come on our tours are generally well-versed in the main features on Vietnam's plates; the range of herbs, rice and noodles, the use of fish sauce. But get them to name a dessert and they struggle.

So, on our wanders, not only do we eat savoury but we also seek out sweet.

Just north of Hanoi's Old Quarter, we sit low to the pavement for a sugar fix. Out of a narrow alley comes a northern speciality known as sữa chua nếp cẩm, which translates roughly as yoghurt with fermented wild rice. This dessert house is a Hanoi institution run by some wily elders and a bunch of enthusiastic teenage boys.

The wild rice, predominately purple in colour, is cooked, covered and left to ferment for a period of days with the aid of men ngọt (sugar yeast/fungus), shorter in summer, longer in winter. Laid out in bamboo baskets on withered banana leaves, what eventuates is something akin to jam - minus the fruit, or with rice playing the role of fruit!

Dolloped on top of sweetened yoghurt, it gets delivered to customers. In Hanoi's pulsating summer, a generous scoop of shaved ice adds another layer. All that is required of the customer is a rigorous stirring with the spoon.

And, the enjoyment of the flavours - a slight twist of sour alcohol from the fermentation, the milkiness from the yoghurt, sweetness - a true dessert and a Hanoi tradition to boot!

Street Food For Honeymoon

A couple of weeks ago, I led a tour for a "Just Married" couple from the US. They were not too concerned about an itinerary, just stating that they wanted me to surprise them.

First off, we headed to West Lake for fish noodle soup which is a pretty standard breakfast noodle dish in Hanoi. This was followed by a morning visit to the Quan Thanh temple to explain about how Vietnam's people make offerings to the Gods and ancestors.

At this point in the tour, coffee is generally a good idea and in Hanoi, there are quite a few choices about how you have your coffee. Sweetened condensed milk and even yoghurt are used in some coffee drinks. It's also common, because Hanoi is pretty hot most of the year, to have ice in coffee. Some of our clients worry about the ice but it is all commercially produced this days. Vietnam's hot so if you don't have ice in your drinks they won't be very refreshing.

With caffiene in our systems, we headed to market which can be a challenging experience for westerners who are used to doing their food shopping in supermarkets. Vietnamese wet markets are a place where many processes occur, even the killing of animals like chickens, ducks, fish, even frogs. My client Patrick helped the vendor pull the skin off a frog, saying that he thought that if you are going to eat animals you should be prepared to kill them.

After the market, the eating continued. We had Hanoi's most famous lunch dish Bun Cha which is served with Hanoi spring rolls. To celebrate their recent wedding, we had some beers too. And then cake...but not wedding cake. Instead, a traditional cake made from pounded rice, mung beans and sugar which is actually eaten at engagement parties in Vietnam.

We stopped off in one of Hanoi's streets where ceremonial merchandise is sold, stuff for altars and festival occasions. In between, we took the paintings that Patrick and his wife, Kelly bought at the temple to my favorite framing place and it turned out super cheap for them.

We finished our day at Bia Hoi (draught beer) with grilled dried squid in the old quarter. I had a brilliant day with them and I guess it was a unique thing to do on a honeymoon.