On saturday Neville picked us up at half seven from our hotel and we were driven to the beginning of our food tour. I have just realised that there are not many photos of the actual things we ate, we were too busy with food in our hands I think.
I will take you through what we had but I will not do it justice. The food tour was a fab experience, many thanks to Jen and garret and Lynn and glynn for this tour. We decided to do a full day ( so both contributions were used for this as it was more expensive) and so we skipped a cookery course whilst in hoi an and spent from half seven until 1pm on the tour.
We began at a little street side cafe with tiny plastic chairs and sat down to try sinh to trai cay, a mixed fruit vitamin shake with a whole host of goodness in it. It looked pretty yuk but tasted great. The Vietnamese are big on textures of food and the ying and yang of it, the sweet and sour, crunchy and soft, so this shake is that in a glass with loads of fruit, ice, crunchy bits of dried apple and other stuff I had no clue of but I drank it all.
Then we went for a walk through the market and onto many different street vendors to stand or sit to have the following;
Banh xeo- savoury pancakes with pork, shrimp and bean sprouts, fried!! Phill loves them.
Xi ma- a sweet water grass and black sesame seed elixir- I didn't like it much, it had a kind of vanilla sweetness to it but an odd texture and looked like tar and oil.
Kem flan- a small creme caramel
Thit nuong- BBQ pork with citronella and turmeric
Pho bo- traditional beef noodle soup, the staple brekie over here. It was so yummy I drank the remainder out of the bowl, it had little roasted peanuts in the bottom of it.
Can you notice my lovely new addition of mossie bites? It went right for a big vein.
Banh mi- a banquette sandwich with char Sui pork and cheese- phill has had a couple of these since
Cao lau- noodle soup with pork and salad leaves, a hoi an speciality because the noodles are made with the water from a ancient water table
Mi quang- turmeric noodles with pork, shrimp and quail egg
Rau Muong - morning glory, water spinach, vietnams most famous and popular vegetable, needs butter and salt!
Ca tim- eggplant in shallot oil
Goi cuon- spring roll with pork, shrimp, egg and noodle
Banh bao- white rose- small shrimp dumpling
Hoanh thanh chien- fried wontons, pork, shrimp and salsa, these are yum
Choui- fried banana- we have already had a few of these, addictive!! Would be great with green and blacks icecream. I'm gona have to invest in a deep fat fryer.
Banh kem gau- panda bear cookies
Mut dua- candied coconut strips
Banh dua nuong- toasted shredded coconut biscuit, we brought some of these
Banh dau Xanh- mung bean cookie, horrid!! Like a rock
Che- sweet soup, did not like it!
Xoi- savoury sticky rice
Banh cuon- thin rice rolls with pork and woodear mushrooms.
Banh beo- steamed rice flour disks with dried shrimp filling
Cha gio- lattice paper spring rolls with pork, carrot, mushroom and celery
These were the main ones and the rest I am not writing out but they are on the list on the photo, they are mainly sweets, drinks and dips. The lemon drink was lovely, phill loves the coffee.
Gem: after the street food tour we quickly walked straight to the life start foundation as we were booked onto a traditional painting class. The foundation was founded by Karen, an Australian lady who set it up so that disabled and uneducated people could learn a trade in order to make money and then they also have a shop to sell the products. We got a taxi from the shop over the water to a lovely little art studio Annexe building that was attached to a massive house and restaurant that was undergoing some renovations. We were met by sinh, a really cute Vietnamese guy who turned out to be 21 and his English was really good. We were taught how to paint in the traditional style and made a notecard each.
Mine
Phills
We learnt about sinhs life story. He was an orphan when he was six and lived in a room with about twenty other boys and took up painting. Karen saw some of his drawings when she visited the orphanage when she was looking to adopt. He didn't speak any English at this point and Karen was just setting up her foundation and she offered sinh enough money to purchase some colours, brushes and canvas and then he ended up attending a college course in Ho chi Minh, funded by the foundation. Karen ended up adopting sinh and she has recently built him the workshop and now he is married and a baby on the way. A good example of when someone's life can really change for the better, he was a lovely guy.
Phill:
So after the art class we went for a coffee and decided the best thing to do with the rest of the day was to wander around all the great shops.
Hoi An is definitely the place to come for clothes as there are so many bespoke dress and suit makers. You can basically walk in and choose any style of dress or suit, in any of the fabrics they have available and have it. Custom made within 24hours!
I have discovered the joy of Fresh beer! It's a rice beer, very tasty and super cheap... ,,a great combination I'm sure you will agree.
So after a few beers and some Banh Xeo we headed back to the hotel to get changed go out for our tea.
The Rain had started to come down pretty hard at this time, and by the time we had gotten changed it was Monsoon again.
Gem: we got a taxi as this seemed to be the heaviest rain since Saigon and asked to be dropped at the streets restaurant, a restaurant that trains street children in the hospitality trade. As we entered the restaurant the owner was at the door and told us he was closing the hatches for the typhoon. Oh!!! We thought it had passed now. So, as we were hungry and had got ready to go out and other people were walking around the street also we decided we wouldn't be scardy cats and go back to the hotel to hide under the table! Instead we put on our rain macs and headed down the street in search for an open restaurant. It quickly became obvious what the local people were expecting as all of the shops that were open at 9pm the previous night had closed and people were helping each other put wooden barriers up.we headed towards the white marble bar as I remembered they did good tapas style dishes. It was open! And quite busy. We sat at the window seats and had wine, naturally! And an array of vietnamese fusion dishes,Moneybags, fish cakes, spring rolls, ribs, prawns, squid, noodles, seafood crepes. It was all yummy. The rain was still pretty heavy but I had arranged earlier in the day that I would collect some lattice paper that they use here for spring rolls from a restaurant that Neville recommend so I left phill in the bar and headed to getsome. Fifteen mins later I was back at the bar and we were putting on our macs to find an open bar. We went to the q bar and had cocktails, it was really good. It was really late when we eventually got to bed with the wind and rain still rather heavy.
Phill looking like he has had a few beers
Location:The taste of hoi an food tour
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