Hanoi Trip pt III (Travel for Glutton)

Hanoi is indeed a pearl of heritage and culture. Although nowadays it is flooded by sea of foreign tourists (am in no position of complaining as I’m one of them as well), but the deep rooted culture and boundless spirit of the locals is still very much intact and preserved. This has been best portrayed through their culinary and local cuisine.

The food is definitely one big highlight of the trip. The local vietnamese cuisine is very much simple (fast to prepare) but absolutely delicious. On top of that, you have the privilege to share the table with the local vietnamese as well as the fellow tourists, very much like in the busy dim sum restaurant in Hongkong. The only thing is that the table and chair are much shorter. And its kinda funny to see the foreigners which is like 5 feet tall sitting on the short chair, its like the giant sitting on the midget chair.

PHO

Pho shop

Half of the Pho menu

Despite of all the stories of diarrhea threat, I have finally tried the famous hanoi street’s PHO at Cham ca street (mind you this is not the KLCC Vietnam Restaurant’s Pho which cost a bomb), of course with charcoal tablet ready in my bag. It’s a rice noodle which taste heavenly with the clear but tasty soup. For 18,000 dong (around RM4), I've tried tai chin, which means a mixed of half cooked and thoroughly cooked beef slices. I cant describe the different of the pho with Malaysian’s rice noodles soup but it just different. The beef was soft and tender, and if you have good toleration towards raw meat, half cooked is always a better choice. Well, not to say we didn’t eat raw food like sashimi and sushi in Malaysia.

The cooks prepare the pho behind the glass window (lots of corriander, yucks)The happy me with the yummy pho

Bun Cha

Bun cha is another great local dish, it’s a dish consist of barbeque pork cutlet, char siew like pork, fresh salad (mint leaves, salad leaves, coriander and some other herbs), rice noodle and a funny tasted soup (sweet and sour) which has pieces of vegetable (carrot, cucumber in it. The way to eat the dish is to mix everything in one small bowl and eat together in a mouthful. The pork comes with some fat and burned choacoal taste, exactly how i wanted it to be. yummy! Apart from that, i've also ordered 1 roll of nem (by showing '1' finger), which i have no idea why they have served me a plateful of at least 3 rolls of nem.

Bun Cha Dac Kim at Hang Manh street

Bun Cha
showing the nem

Aunty frying the nem

If you ask anyone what they know about vietnam cuisine, Nem is definitely in their list. Nem is like the veitnamese version of popiah, with pork, glass noodles and some vege in it. They have two types which is the grilled and non-grilled type. Well, unhealthy oily grilled food always tasted better, arent you agree?

Yummy nem served with pieces of tomato and salad leaves

More vieliscious food to come!