The taste of Vietnam
Vietnamese cuisine deserves its own article because there is just so much I tried. And so much I didn’t. I am the kind of person who loves trying local food.
One of the first things I ate in Vietnam was the famous Phở Bo (beef noodle soup). Pho is actually noodle soup and there are more varieties. Phở Gà is for instance chicken noodle soup. I didn’t try it though. You can get Phở Bo pretty much anywhere and have it even for breakfast. Another very common dish is spring rolls either fried or non fried. The fried one are called Chả giò in Vietnamese.
With Lin, my host from Dalat, I had a chance to try the so called seafood hot pot. There are different kinds of hot pots and this is just one of them. It basically means that you get a pot with hot broth and a lot of other ingredients based on your choice and you actually cook the meal yourself in the restaurant because guess what! There are single burner stoves on the tables! So you cook while talking and so teasing your appetite before you can savour the meal you cooked yourself. What a thing! It was the first time ever I had done that.
On my last day in Hanoi just two hours before taking the night train to Saigon, I had a frog hot pot (lẩu ếch in Vietnamese) with my second host Ha. It was the first time I had eaten frog meat. And it was really delicious. It was very fine meat, but with the teeny-weeny bones it was almost hard work. In Hanoi I also tasted Bún chả – dish of grilled pork and noodles.
In Hoi An I tasted the local specialty Cao lầu – a dish made with noodles, pork and vegetables and supposedly, it’s found only in Hoi An. In Hue, I ate – Bánh Bèo, Nậm, Lọc which is shrimp and meat with sticky rice wrapped in banana leaves.
Another delicacy was Chè – a traditional sweet Vietnamese dessert. It can be made from different kind of beans, jelly, fruit, tapioca and cocunut milk. I could have it right now. Sooooo gooood!
As for drinks, mango smoothie/juice is my all-time favourite. I just couldn’t get enough of it. I also drank sugar cane juice which was really sweet but tasty. As a coffee lover, I could not go without drinking coffee. Or actually I could because I disliked the Vietnamese coffee. It just didn’t taste like coffee I am used to drinking. It had this chocolate favour and it was just strange.
