Banh Bao, Vietnam

This banh bao stall by the road brought drive-through takeaway to a whole new level for me. Whilst we were driving back to Ho Chi Minh from Vungtau (on a highway mind you), the driver said he'll pull over for some banh baos. So he stops the car by the road and signals this lady across the other side for his order. I looked around for a pedestrian crossing, but there was none in sight, so... unless this girl could fly, she was going to cross a busy highway with a bag of baos; and that was what she did!

Look left, look right and look left again (actually she did none of the three)...

Climbing over the road divider...

Now she's on our side, steady girl, just a few more steps...

And there we've got it. Bao in hand. Banh baos are basically very similar to the Chinese paus that we get in dim sum joints. Nothing spectacular really, but the fact that a life was risked so that I could have this indulgence definitely warranted me finishing every crumb.

D

Mixed Rice and Gelato, Baria-Vungtau, Vietnam

Most breakfast places in Vungtau sell rice or noodle sets, but as I was hungering for something with more bite (read as more meat), I decided to walk around the town abit and see what else they had to offer. That was when I stumbled on this little queue. A mixed rice stall doing brisk business by packing a lot of lunch takeaways for people on their way to work. There were also numerous pre-packed bags of warm desserts to go.

Not knowing what was their specialty, we basically just requested for some of their "best dishes". An assortment was presented to us. The beef salad, soup and pork ribs were not bad but the winner in this assortment was the fried chicken with the tangy chilli sauce.

As such, we decided to order another serve of the fried chicken plus some grilled pork chops and deep-fried beancurd. All of them were pretty delicious but the chicken still took the cake. After this substantially savory and proteinaceous meal, I needed something sweet to finish it off but as the weather was rather warm, I had little interest in the pre-packed soup desserts and decided to scout around the town for something else, something cold.

That's when we chanced upon this gelato joint. After a brief chat with the owner we were informed that she had learnt her ice-cream making skills from a "Vietnamese master gelato maker" who migrated to Italy years ago where he honed his art. Interestingly enough, the flavors which made use of artificial syrups were more costly than the ones using natural fruits; she explained that the syrups were imported from Italy and therefore cost more. Needless to say, we chose the ones with natural fruits!

In order to taste a large variety of all their flavors (all seemed pretty good), we opted for their kem (ice-cream) special. Upon first taste, a refreshing burst of flavors surrounded my palate. These were really very good, from the top of my head, the flavors were jackfruit, durian, chocolate, strawberry, pandan, corn and taro. All of which were done very nicely indeed.

In addition to the gelatos we also ordered an ice-chocolate and a banh flan. The ice-chocolate, which I thought would be a drink turned out to be exactly what it was translated to be, some chocolate ice-cream and chocolate syrup on crushed ice! The banh flan however, was fantastic. Banh flan is basically creme caramel but there are quite a few variants in Vietnam. This cafe tops of the sweet and rich caramel with rich espresso coffee (instead of the caramel sauce) creating a bitter-sweet contrast which was just super.

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Hot Spring Eggs, Baria-Vungtau, Vietnam

In a more secluded area of Baria lies a hot spring resort which still allows you to cook your eggs in the hot spring water. I remembered how they allowed you to do that in the hot springs of Taiwan until the practice was banned due to health and hygiene reasons.

Pop some uncooked eggs into the rented baskets and slowly immerse them fully in the hot water. There are actually some cooking instructions on how long to leave them in there if you wanted them hard, semi-hard or still runny. But I guess all these instructions were pretty arbitary since the temperatures seemed to differ from various hot spring wells.

Apparently, these eggs are cooked inside-out, it's pretty hard to tell when they were all well-done.

Perhaps I was just really hungry or these were supposedly free-range eggs, but after a dash of salt and pepper, these did taste pretty damn good.

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Seafood in Loc An, Baria-Vungtau, Vietnam

On the way to Baria from Vungtau, we stopped by this pretty cool seafood restaurant in Loc An that serves the freshest seafood. The catch is either caught the day itself or from the man-made lagoons surrounding the restaurant, created for rearing various tasty morsels from the sea. These round fishing boats are unique to Vietnam and require a lot of skill to steer (like heaps!).

Raw fish salad, we ate this with rice paper like a roll. It was not too bad, but I was never really a fan of raw fish. Still, the tangy dressing made it rather refreshing.

These, I loved. Sundried shrimp that's subsequently charcoal grilled with some seasalt. Chewy and tasty, great stuff to go with beer!

The oysters are freshly shucked and grilled on the spot before being served. With just a drizzle of lime and salt and pepper, a few platters of these were easily wiped out.

There's always a place for steamed clams. The bits of ginger are put in to balance the overpowering scent of fresh clams but I never really was put off by overly "clammy" smelling clams anyway.

We were told they had some special crabs for us. So boy was I excited when this arrived.

Look at her, spread before us in full glory. A pity I'm not a fan of crab roe haha. I really appreciated their efforts but was actually hoping for something meatier. Nevertheless, this close-up is for all you crab roe lovers out there.

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Banh Mi, Baria-Vungtau, Vietnam

A review of the foods in Vietnam will never be complete without featuring banh mi. Banh mi basically means "bread". These bread loaves resemble sub-style mini baguettes and are ubiquitous in Vietnam; probably another reflection of their French colonial past. Banh mi comes with a variety of fillings, the most common one being "banh mi thit" which is basically a mixed meat sandwich with a very tasty pate spread. Other varieties include banh mi nem nuong (with the grilled sausage), banh mi ga (with chicken) or banh mi rao cai (just vegetables).

For simplicity's sake I'm lumping Baria and Vungtau together as a single province but they aren't really. Baria is about 20km from Vungtau. Baria has about 20 bakeries that make banh mi, of these 20, only three are still using traditional wood-fired ovens.

So here I was at the oldest wood-fired bakery to get my fresh and warm banh mi.

There's a lot of wood stocked outside to fire these ovens, not surprising since they hand-make (all the dough is kneaded by hand) about 2500 banh mi a day and always sell out!

So here I was with a warm banh mi in hand. What's in it? Was it a banh mi thit, banh mi nem nuong? It was just empty banh mi. The warm and crisp crust gave way to reveal the soft, chewy and delicious bread.

Plain banh mi and a cup of ultra thick Vietnamese coffee. Sometimes, the most enjoyable things in life are best kept simple.

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Quan An Ngon, Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam

Quan An Ngon (loosely translated as "delicious") is a pretty trendy eatary which has a dining concept that is quite unique in Vietnam. It aims to deliver street-food in a clean and comfortable dining setting. The perimeter of this predominantly open-air restaurant is lined with various stalls cooking popular Vietnamese dishes. You order from the menu and the waiter will place your orders with the various stalls and serve the food to you when it's done. It's a good place to introduce friends and guests to a wide range of Vietnamese foods under one roof and the fare here is very decent as well.

Ordered a serve of banh cuon just for comparison's sake. The one at Ben Thanh Market is still slightly better because the rice skin is softer and thinner but this one comes pretty close.

Banh Xeo is a Vietnamese savory pancake. It actually reminds me abit of thosai.

The thin crisp shell encases shrimp, minced pork and bean sprouts. This is eaten with basil leaves and a sweet fish sauce. Very tasty.

I can't remember the name of this but it uses a similar batter to the banh xeo so I'm going to call them mini banh xeos for now haha. This tastes pretty ok, it doesn't have the shrimp or minced pork like the larger banh xeo and the batter is slightly thicker making it more like a savory cake.

Bun chao tom is minced prawn meat wrapped around a sugar cane stick and grilled over a charcoal fire. It's commonly serve with these vermicelli sheets. The sweetness of the sugar cane slightly permeates the savory prawn meat making this rather delectable indeed.

Deep fried squid, this isn't really Vietnamese and comes with a very generic bottled chilli sauce but it was fried, crispy and tasty, so I still loved it anway.

Fresh springrolls eaten with a thickened sweet fish sauce with crushed nuts. A refreshing snack on a hot humid day.

Goi du du tom thit again. The raw papaya salad here tasted fresher than the one I had. A pity the serve was rather small.

The sea snails here are alot larger than the ones at the street stall but the sauce although fragrant was a tad bit too sweet for my liking.

I don't even know if this is a Vietnamese dish but I'm a sucker for grilled meats on sticks, so when I saw these pork kebabs, inevitably it appeared on my table.

Crab cooked in tamarind sauce. The crab was very fresh and the sweetness of the flesh prevailed but the sauce was ridiculously tart making this quite a waste of good crab.

The warm desserts in Vietnam seem to share some things in common, namely coconut cream and ginger. This is similar to the glutinous rice ball dessert available in Singapore but it was served with a ginger syrup and a dash of coconut cream. Ginger haters will loathe this but I actually found this rather nice.

Even the sweet soybean curd is served with ginger.

Glutinous rice and green beans served with more coconut cream and ginger syrup.

This is the taro version of this popular dessert.

I'll definitely pop by Quan An Ngon again when I'm next in Ho Chi Minh. Sure it isn't hardcore street-style dining and the prices are comparatively more dear but its convenient eating concept and the decent quality of the fare served is good enough to warrant a second trip.

D

Night Market, Da Lat, Vietnam

Da Lat's night market is not like the night markets you get in Taiwan at all. This market is actually one where you go to get groceries and daily needs, not a large variety of snacks and cutesy gifts haha.

Even the meat is just sold in the open. It helps that Da Lat is a hilltown and experiences pretty cool weather (quite cold at night even), so the meat is still quite fresh even though it's just laid out on tables.

A stall selling hot drinks to warm you up abit. There are green bean, soy bean and peanut drinks here. Besides the dough fritters, there was also an assortment of other pastries including crossants; reflective of their French colonial past (there are many exellent bakeries in Vietnam).

Banh trang nuong is a grilled rice paper snack that's quite popular.

As the rice paper sheet is slowly grilled, it loses its translucency and slow becomes more opaque and crisp. Shallots and chilli sauce are then spread on it.

It's then folded and eaten almost like a taco. This was pretty good but I think it would have been better if there was some meat in it.

Smelled someone grilling corn cobs with butter from a distance and decided to grab one as well. Hot snacks on a cold night, great stuff.

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