One Last Meal - Hanoi

A last minute change of plans brought us back to Hanoi a day early, which meant an extra evening to hit the streets for food and stocking up on another batch of those oh-so-cheap DVDs *ah hemmm*.

I was really gearing myself up to a last minute gorge everything on sight. First stop, banh cuon. A rice noodle roll, much in the spirit of the cheong fun found in dim sum restaurants, banh cuon has an even yummier (is that possible?) stuffing of fried minced pork with fish sauce, garlic, dried shitake mushrooms and wood ear fungus. What isn't there to like?

Here's the banh cuon woman hard at work. A mixture of rice flour is ladled over a flat surface sitting over a big pot of boiling water, the pot lid goes on for a few seconds and when it comes off, a thin sheet of wobbly soft rice noodles is revealed; all ready to be rolled into banh cuon. The woman quickly peals it off the steamer and stuffs it with the delicious minced pork mixture. She works incredibly quickly, never once slowing down to let me take a proper photo ... ahhh tourists! :)

The finished product. A fuzzy photo reflects a hungry tummy :) and poor lighting. A mound of soft rice noodle rolls bursting with meaty goodness and piled high with crunchy deep fried shallots. Served with cha lua/gio lua - a local sausage, which came in a bowl with nuoc nam (seen at the top of the photo) and a plate the usual greenery - sweet basil and coriander. It was utterly delicious, even better with the shallots.

Despite gearing myself up to eat lots that last night, I was way to full for anything else. A pity :( We left with a feeling that the banh cuon woman overcharged us but hey - it was still came to about US$1 -1.50 per person, so no complains from us :)

Fooding Around Hanoi

Green Papaya Salad

Wandering around the Old Quarter near Hoan Kiem lake, we found this lady with her little stall selling what we thought were noodles. It wasn't until we had sat ourselves down on a teeny-weeny stools did we realise it was green papaya salad topped with fresh herbs, peanuts and bo kho (dried beef) served with lots of nuoc nam. Having never eaten green papaya salad before, I found it very light and refreshing eve if the dried beef was a little hard and chewy at times. Jo wasn't too keen on this dish as she's not a peanut fan (the woman was very generous in her portions and that's Jo scraping all her peanuts onto my plate - I love peanuts! :) There were extra bottles of chili sauce for those who wanted their salad spicy.

We sat by the woman for about 15 minutes and loads of locals stopped by for an afternoon snack. She had everything prepared and once someone sat down she'll grab a plate from a stack by her side and start piling on shredded papaya, cut the fresh herbs with a pair of scissors, load on the meat, sprinkle on the peanuts and splash on the sauce, kept handy by her side in a red carrier basket (seen in the bottom right of the above photo). Dish is served in no more than a minute or 2 of sitting down and all for less than US$0.80, brilliant!!

Fanny's Ice-Cream

I spotted a recommendation for this place in the guidebook and couldn't resist! Could you? Fanny's Ice Cream (lol) is located by Hoan Kiem lake and decorated with the air of a French cafe. There are loads of flavours to choose, from the usual suspects - chocolate, vanilla, strawberry to the more 'local' flavours of yam and mango. I went with chocolate chip (I'm still not quite sure why I went for such a boring flavour...) which was...well...boring, mango in the middle which was made with real mango and really yummy and last, the flavour at the other end of the bowl was com (young sticky rice). Having read about it I went to Fanny's hoping to try (as it's a season flavour) this strange, new flavour which was creamy, sweet and mellow. Quite delicious.

Cake

Who can resist a bit of cake? Especially chocolate cake? Another of the French colonial legacies in Vietnam - French style baked goods. Gluttons that we are (me more so than Jo...as the heat and humidity really wore her down), we indulged in a few bakery visits around the Old Quarter. Some were better than others but here's a particularly yummy chocolate mouse cake (more mousse than cake), which was light enough for our dinner filled bellies but chocolate-y enough to satiate our cravings.


Highlands Coffee

A local chain modelled after your usual American coffee shop (think Starbucks, CoffeeBean). A godsend in the oppressive afternoon heat! Jo and I were at the point of snapping at each other (yup, you'll know what I mean if you've ever spent everyday, every minute .. with another person, travelling) when we called a coffee break. Located in a building overlooking the Haon Kiem lake, we plonked ourselves on a couple of sofas by the windows which thankfully had a nice breeze coming through.

I'm a real sucker for ice-blended coffees - icy, creamily smooth..emm.. My guilty conscience usually tells (commands) me to say no to the cream but I happily lapped most of this mountain of creamy goodness (the waitress didn't ask if I wanted any, she piled it on all her own and I couldn't possibly have let her down LOL). The little brown specks on top of the cream are bits of ground coffee, which I usually dislike (why would anyone want to bite into hunky bits of coffee??I'm happy just to drink it, thank you!) but these bits were so fine, it passed right by my radar for bitter coffee bits.

Jo opted for a fruity slushy/smoothie. I think it was mango... it was nice and icy and really refreshing.

Cafe 69, 69 Ma May Street

Sadly, as average priced food went, Cafe 69 was probably the best we had while in Hanoi. Slightly downtrodden on our food choices so far, we headed to this restaurant just metres away from our hotel. With a bar downstairs and a restaurant up a flight of rickety stairs (yes, another of those, argh!), Cafe 69 is a restored Tonkin tube style house (according to a sign by the main entrance - though I have no idea what a Tonkin tube style house is - Google has let me down this time).

First up, some Bun Cha (yes, i know....what were we doing eating this in a restaurant when there's a stall selling this at nearly every street corner?looking back..I honestly don't know..) with vermicelli, grilled meat patties, spring rolls, greens and a dipping sauce of fish sauce, vinegar, sugar and chillies. I really quite enjoyed this but I'm guessing this was nowhere as good as those roadside stalls we passed with wafts of smoke from meat being char-grilled. The spring rolls made with rice paper wrappers were filled with minced pork, wood ear fungus and glass noodles were crispy and delicious.

While the spring roll that accompanied the bun cha were made with rice paper wrappers, these were made with flour-based wrappers - much to my disappointment. I love the other sort and was really hoping (rather greedily) for a full portion. The filling was similar and nothing to shout about. We also had some very yummy caramel pork - luscious chunks of pork belly braised in a dark caramel sauce with lots of garlic and chillies. The meat was melting tender and went beautifully with rice.

To Cha Ca La Vong For Some Cha Ca

Touted as a bit of a Hanoi institution, this one dish restaurant was high on the list of must trys when we were in the city. Jo and I had already made it across Indochina in one piece by ourselves (the rest having left us to our own devices for the comfort of KL). We even managed to get from Hanoi airport to the hotel safely (not terribly hard since we had already arranged for a car beforehand - thank heavens for tripadvisor.com!) but as soon as stepped out of our hotel, we were almost tripping over ourselves in panic :) Perhaps we should have wandered out when it was still light but the comfort of the air-condition and internet in the room was just too much of a lure to stay in. But we made it out eventually and walked straight into the chaos that makes Hanoi's Old Quarter a gem. Motorcycles coming from every direction, pavements blocked by parked motorbikes, incessant hooting .... ohhh a nightmare, especially if you've just arrived from the sleepy backwater that is Siem Reap!
Grumpy and hungry, Jo and I stumbled upon Cha Ca Street and a few feet away from dinner! The restaurant is tiny but we were ushered up a flight of creaky stairs (it creaked so badly I didn't know if I should just leg it up or close my eyes, pray really hard, hold my weight and creep up very, VERY slowly). The floorboards upstairs weren't any better but hey... if it manages to hold so many people for this long, I guess I really don't have much to worry about. Seated, we were pushed a piece of paper that said something along the lines of 'We only serve one dish Cha Ca' along with the price - which I can't remember. Something laughably low if you have foreign cash to spend.
Within minutes of us nodding to the man who had to make sure we really did want to eat Cha Ca, a little charcoal fired stove was brought to us with a pan of sizzling fish in oil. We also got a plate of bun (cold vermicelli noodles), peanuts, chopped red chillies, nuoc cham (a dipping sauce made with lime, fish sauce, sugar, chili and water) and two huge piles of herbs. The man then starts stirring our fish that is still sizzling madly in the saffron tempered oil while throwing lots of herbs in from the first pile he brought over of mainly spring onions and dill. After a few stirs, the man seems satisfied the herbs had cooked down and points to the noodles and condiments he brought over earlier and then to an empty bowl. That's our cue to tuck in. Noodles in, peanuts, chillies, herbs (coriander, mint, basil and even more dill this time), fish, lots of oil and nuoc nam over the top. It was good and it was interesting... but dare I say it? I over-anticipated this place and it let me down. This is awful... I sound terrible but I did really want it to be very good. It was quite an experience and really quite fun but ohhhh the dampening of the spirit ........!