Random photos of Vietnam Part 2

Fresh Sugarcane juice

My transport to the island

Drinking buddies

This in an embryo of a chicken

Grilled bananas try some

A tree but with wires

Home cookin

Rach Gia, Vietnam

Pork skin spring rolls

Banh Xeo

Pork with rice, its everywhere for a reason

Uncle Ho's birthplace Can Tho, Vietnam

Serenity

Suckling pig

As much as I stay away from using my Lonely Planet in places in Saigon, it really has its uses in smaller places.  Two miles away from the lovely and lively waterfront of Can Tho is La Ca restaurant.  When I was reading about this nice little city on the banks of the Mekong I read about this place.  This is a place that takes suckling pigs and butterflies them and then roasts them over an open flame.  Of course they have an extensive menu, which can go either way in my experience.  This is a restaurant where you should only order one thing and that is the pig.  I like when an animal is cooked in its entirety.  The combination of its fat and bones add flavor to the finished product and produces something succulent.  I wanted to add to my meal by ordering some vegetables because I knew that this was going to be a porky event.  This was the first dish I have not been satisfied with in Vietnam.  Squash flowers are a real treat and are common here, but these instead of being cleaned were dirty and sandy.  They had not been cleaned properly and that took away from the literally two heads of garlic that were thrown in.  Garlic is a good as ten mothers and usually I would have gobbled them up but these just tasted like a garden.  On the other hand the suckling pig was excellent.  It did not need sauce or accompaniments.  Vietnamese restaurants have a tendency to use a lot of salt in their dishes and they gave us soy sauce as our dipping sauce for the pig, which was unnecessary.  For people who like BBQ this would have been for you.  The skin was really crisp and the meat tender.  Like a Peking duck but with pork.  Crispy pork skin does make me weak.  I could eat it everyday if I knew it would not give me a coronary.    

Breakfast on the Mekong

The Mekong Delta is a thoroughfare of life.  Everything happens on its canals.  People use it as their playground, dishwasher, shower, food source and commercial highway.  I chose to go to the fourth largest city of Vietnam, Can Tho, with a population of 330,000.  This city is at the heart of the Mekong, and is a great place to see the "goings-on" on the canals, especially the morning markets.  I awoke at 5:30am to see life on the Mekong.  Some travelers may wonder when they awake at 10:30am or later why so many people are relaxing.  The answer is they have been awake since 4:45 or earlier trying to finish their day before the punishing sun crisps their skin.  To see the market in full swing you need to be up this early.  With a Café su da (Iced coffee with condensed milk) in my stomach and nothing else we set out on our seven hour boat ride with a wonderful woman who carved fruit and made bamboo bracelets for us during our time with her.  After an hour of traveling and seeing the massive long boats moving everything from gravel to tree trunks we arrived at the market.   

This market is entirely done on boats.  Some boats advertise their wares by putting the actual item on a large antenna so that other boats can see it from afar.  I was expecting a larger market but this was only about 40 boats.  However, it was a lively scene.  The boats temporarily moor themselves together and haggle over prices.  This scene plays out every day and all of these vendors need food to keep them going.  So did I.  In my broken Vietnamese I told our wonderful female boat driver (all are woman who do these types of trips) that I was hungry and needed food.   

We spotted a woman with many things for sale.  Sometimes you must trust in others and expect the best.  I asked for something with noodles (Bun).  As I watched the woman concoct my Bun I knew that I was in for a treat.  Like every great Vietnamese meal it involved fresh herbs, meat and pork skin.  Layers were as so: on the bottom were mung beans, two kinds of mint, and cilantro.  Then layered on top were some fresh noodles.  Next, thinly sliced pigskin which when cut so small takes away all the chewiness and just adds another texture.  It was rounded out with pickled daikon, carrot and peanuts.   She asked me if I wanted something that looked like grilled chicken on a stick and I of course had to say yes.  I am not sure what the grilled chunks were but with Nước mắm all over it I did not care.  The ambiance of your meal is so much a part of how you enjoy it; to be eating some incredible food in the morning Mekong sun was bliss.

The Noodle Factory

After the market we made our way to a noodle factory.  All of those fresh spring rolls that we know so well in the States and which are served with a bit of hoisin sauce--all start here.  I have wanted to see this kind of operation for so long.   After visiting the factory I have much more respect for those rice papers.  I counted at least ten people working hard to make just one of these rice sheets.  The process starts by soaking the rice overnight so that it has fully absorbed the water.  Then it is blended and let to soak again.  When it is the consistency of thin batter they take it to my favorite room.   

This room must have been double the already scorching temperatures outside and here these wonderful women were standing over these large steaming vats.  This contraption is fueled by rice husks, which produce an awful lot of heat.  A piece of cloth is placed over a steaming vat and made taut.  This creates a cooking surface that steams the rice mixture in less than a minute.  The rice sheets are then place on mats and brought out into that furnace-like heat to dry.  It is a deceptively simple process that takes many hands to complete.  The ironic thing is that the kind of rice they are using is not some Vietnamese brand but Cargill’s super rice.

The "Vietnamese Hooters" but with soft shell crab

Communism has socially liberated Vietnam.  The trappings about modesty that countries like Taiwan or Thailand have do not exist here.  Woman dress as if they are in the west.  See through shirts, short skirts and spaghetti string tops.  The restaurants are no different.  Some restaurants specialize in eye candy and slop on rice.  This restaurant that I have frequented with my guide Tai (who is 24) takes this all to new heights.  As Vietnam puts on the after burners towards modernization it is also causing a mass urbanization.  Many of the girls working at this restaurant make their way from the provinces to Saigon looking for work, sense of adventure and education.  Many of these young ladies are about 20-24.  They are chosen because of their looks.  This is the Hooters of Vietnam.  A place that tries’s to draw you in with looks rather than the food.  This is not the Hooters the truckers of the US have become accustom to.  There is serious cooking going on here and the food is just as good as the nice ladies. This place does not cater to foreigners but instead middle aged or retired Vietnamese men who make up about 80% percent of the clientele.  You may think that this scene would throw off families from patronizing this establishment.  You would be wrong; it all seems to coexist in yet another unique scene in this country.

            This was Tai’s last day in Saigon so we were going to eat things that he could not get back in Boston.  The first thing we ordered was fried fish in sweet and sour sauce.  

 This dish is certainly a derivation from a Chinese dish; the flavors were cloying and really like some Chinese food back in the states.  What made up for the pedestrian flavor was the freshness of the fish and the excellent execution.  When fried in this manner you can literally eat every part of the fish, scales, bones and all.  With a bit of rice and some soy sauce it was great.   

The second thing we got was a dish that I could have made at home.  Beef with one of the wonderful spinach like greens this one being hollow and slightly bitter.  I remember having this vegetable during my time in Taiwan.  I think that this dish is another Chinese invention made with Vietnamese ingredients.   

The best of the meal was when we ordered soft shell crab two ways.  The first came with green rice Krispies.  I’ve had soft shell crabs with cornmeal, flour, Panko and batter but never with green rice Krispies.  The plate threw me off but after dipping it into a bit of sweet chili sauce and biting I realized that it gave you so much more crunch that they were a great accompaniment to the crabs richness.  I guess everyone has his or her secrets.   I know that some southerner’s secret to great fried chicken is to use crushed corn flakes.  This may be it’s Vietnamese equivalent.   

The second was much more straight foreword and just battered and fried but still as delicious.  This restaurant may flaunt flesh like a meat market but it makes up for it with great food, excellent service and great old man watching.  

Tai my guide

Family friendly

Fresh fish balls made by hand