Sticky rice cake in southern style (bánh tét)

I was born in Saigon. I'm a southern Vietnamese. So, to me - this sticky rice cake in southern style is something that I love to buy regardless of time or need. As we say "Just buy!"
I love this bánh tét - a sticky rice cake in cylinder shape, sometime big and long, sometime shorter and slimmer, I do prefer not too small as the quality is far from good!

           Bánh tét in Mekong Delta, more colorful and with salted egg yolk! 

            Traditional bánh tét - filled with simple but tasty mung beans paste! 

Talking about this savory (and sometime sweet flavor) cake - we have a legend which related to our first King, thousands of years ago! The cake is a symbol of the Heaven, and another one, also sticky rice cake but in square shape, from the North, symbolized the Earth! This is a good educational story for children to remember our history! We learn it when we were kids and it's quite easy to find, this story, in many site about Vietnamese traditional food!

                 Bánh tét with banana - my favorite, I bought from Cần Thơ market - Mekong Delta

Another different thing between bánh tét and bánh chưng - not the shape, not the ingredients (as both cakes - made of sticky rice, filled with green bean paste, pork meat...bánh tét can be filled with sweet green bean paste or beautiful sweet banana - bánh chưng seems more conservative - never has sweet taste!

             Bánh chưng - another sticky rice cake in square shape - northern style. 

               Bánh chưng in northern style - very loyal to the original taste...

                always filled with green mung bean and pork. 

Chicken rice with "gà xối mỡ"

Again chicken rice!
But this time we have a special chicken, not steamed, not boiled, not deep fried - and in Vietnamese it sounds nicely funny! It's difficult to translate into English within one word and the dish is so popular among foodies - cơm gà xối mỡ!  
Gà xối mỡ should be another version of Chinese chicken rice, it has been localized to the local taste for many many years. I'm not a real big fan for this tasty dish but some of my friend and my nephews - yes! They know where the best, where just so so!

Gà xối mỡ or literally means "chicken poured by oil", and the oil should be animal's natural one! We don't dip chicken in the oil, instead of that we "shower" them on the rack with the boiling natural oil! Spoon by spoon, one after another, until the chicken's skin becomes golden crispy and it's just cooked but still a little bit bloody pink near the bone! Any difference between deep-fried or poured-by-oil or not? To me probably no, but to the chef or some picky foodies - maybe a big yes!

I did mention previously about the chicken quality, it's extremely important - chicken should be a "garden" one (i.e purely "domestic"breed not mixed or imported one from the industrial farms!). Our chicken is smaller in size but much better in meat quality! And it should be a young hen (female chicken), not laid over three eggs (!?), this kind of hen (probably we call "gà mái tơ!), giving the best meat!

About the rice, not only cooked with chicken broth but also mixed with chicken fat, so chicken rice is not only tasty but quite rich in fat!
Good thing that "gà xối mỡ" is widely served in the streets, almost at night and curiously more popular in Chinatown. Probably too hot to "pour oil on chicken" in the cramped tiny kitchen, so they prefer doing right on the sidewalk? Not really, as we still can find many "indoor" places!

So, where is the best Gà Xối Mỡ ? Different people, different ideas...but one of the most popular spots could be in Trần Phú street, Lão Hương Thân, used to be at the corner of Ngô Quyền and Trần Hưng Đạo, but now moved to the new address - 402 Trần Phú, district 5!  Give it a try!

Sui cao - Chinese traditional food in Saigon

Before 1975 Chinatown in Saigon could be one of the largest Chinatowns in South East Asia, but after the incident in 1979, the town had changed...a lot! No more signage in Chinese characters that I used to see, no more sparkling Chinese restaurants...with joyful, louder speaking Chinese...it became quiet, deserted for many years until early 1990s, the town began reviving!

As I'm living in district 5, right at the entrance gate to Chinatown, but every time with someone I try something there, it's always a new discovery to me! So many things in this vibrant part of the city! Tonight with friend I came to a small place in 125 Chau Van Liem street, famous for their homemade sui cao and noodles (different from dumpling noodles that I did review before). That place has been recommended by a Japanese foodie living in Saigon for 10 years!

            Fried sủi cảo - filled with meat and veggies, dip sauce is chili saté with soya sauce!  

Sủi cảo Đại Nương (Đại nương literally means Big Lady (!?), so hopefully she's a great chef too!) The most popular and probably favorite dish here is sủi cảo, so we have either steamed or fried ones! But there is something we need to know about this traditional Chinese dish! 

             Steamed sủi cảo are also good but we prefer fried ones!

Sủi cảo is important to many Chinese, as it's a part of their traditional meal during the Lunar New Year Eve, it's symbolized as the reunion after a hardworking year, away from home, now everyone in family gathering behind the dinning table for a good meal, good stories!

Sủi cảo fillings is chopped meat with veggies. I heard that the combination of meat and veggies sounds in Chinese  as "a fortune", when people prepare the fillings, how they chop is important - the longer, the louder they chop the meat together with veggies - the bigger and last-longer - their fortune! Interesting!   

"Stretching" candy! (Kẹo kéo)

This special "stretching candy" or we say kẹo kéo in Vietnamese, the name describes exactly how does it looks - this candy! Stretch and stretch...the longer we stretch, the longer, the thinner candy we have!
Many Vietnamese love this candy, especially in our childhood, it should be one of very few candies that we find as a sweet on the street, along with cotton candy!

            Kẹo kéo vendor - an old image from the past seems attract today's youth! 

                  Kẹo kéo vendor is stretching skillfully a candy... from a huge mass of candy!

I remember that long in the past some vendors offered us even a game of lucky wheel, we bet money, how much we won, how many candy bars we got. Usually not much or even nothing! But the vendor gave us anyway at least one bar! He always tried to make us, loyal customers, happy!
Quite some time ago, suddenly as a new trend (I really have no idea from where the trend came!) stretching candy vendors were only young men or good looking gals, even with heavy make-up, in fancy pink-sky blue clothes, with noisy music. So whenever we heard the music from the street, we knew it - they arrived - joyful kẹo kéo vendors!

                                 He is kind to show a candy bar, it could be longer but easy to be broken!  

Love potion - ginseng drink at Le Hong Phong

It's not a love potion, so don't jump up to find out where is it!
It's just a simple natural sweet drink with different flavors. But to emphasize their magic sale I would love to compare it to love potion, I really don't know why at this specific place - they sell hundred and hundred glasses, if not thousand, per day! Just a simple natural beverage, but a good refreshment!

             Three most popular drinks at Nước sâm Hồng Phong!

I'm talking about "nước sâm Hồng Phong", literally means "ginseng drink at Hông Phong".
First thing first - this is not a ginseng but by somehow they keep calling it, probably because it's good to cool off our thirst during the heat, to quench ourselves! Hồng Phong is a shortened version of the street name where this beverage shop is located.
Most popular drinks here are (from left to right for the above picture) : nước sâm (beverage made of some plants, herbs...), nước rong biễn (sea weed drink) and trà cúc (chrysanthemum tea)!

Deep fried cake "Cóng" from Mekong Delta

I really had no idea why we call this deep fried savory cake "Cóng", also no glue about the name, the meaning, the origin...until one of my many trips to Cần Thơ, to try this speciality and to discover the name's origin! People probably named  the cake Cóng, after the cake's mold!

            Bánh cóng - a speciality from Mekong Delta

The cake's mold is quite unique, it looks like a ladle - big serving spoon for soup, but the handle has been designed specially long with a hook at the end ... for deep frying function!
By the way, in Vietnamese, to call this big serving spoon we have different words: in North - we call "môi" or "mui", in South - "vá" and it causes a big confusion between people from North and South when we talk to each other.

Coconut candy (kẹo dừa)

Coconut candy or kẹo dừa, one of the most popular candies in Vietnam, esp. in the South, along with banana candy! Both of them are purely traditional candies from Mekong Delta. Coconut candies are mostly from Bến Tre, the coconut's homeland!

          In small workshop in Cái Bè (Tiền Giang), the workers demonstrate how to make the candy!  

Kẹo dừa is simple but very tasty! Mainly with original coconut flavor, sweet, soft...sometime mixed with durian or pandan leave flavor or roasted peanut. I enjoy durian, but I don't like coconut candy with durian flavor, I prefer a combination of coconut and peanut! Long in the past I didn't like how to unwrap the paper from the candy as they sticked together : the paper and candy! Nowadays we have double wrapping: inside with edible rice paper and outside oil paper! The problem solved!  

             Coconut candy made of coconut cream mixed with malt sirup...

Coconut candies are very affordable, so affordable that's why kids in Saigon rarely request these candies as gift from anyone, but people from Mekong Delta keep buying it as presents to their relatives living in big cities like Saigon, Hanoi...and everyone always enjoy regardless of their value.

Eating coconut candy, I prefer taking not only one but two pieces...at once, in order to feel the rich and tasty coconut flavor, but at the same time my mouth can do exercise...because the coconut candy is not that soft, always pretty chewy!

              It could be added with durian flavor or roasted peanut to enrich the taste! 

The production line for coconut candies is quite simple, but to make a good quality candies is far from ease! We need to select a right coconut with super fresh flesh, then grate them, press them to extract the coconut cream and milk! The next step is how to mix with the good quality malt sirup...and this is the maker's secret how much to add the sirup or probably some other ingredients...we never know!

           Ready-to-pack candies! 

The coconut candies have been exported to some markets as US, Canada or Europe, to be sold in some grocery stores for overseas Vietnamese or other Asians who loves the flavor of this special candies, there was a time or maybe still now, the legal fight between a famous Vietnamese coconut candies manufacturer with Thai or Chinese ones as they produce candies somewhere else in China or Thailand, different flavor, different quality, but always label as "Product of Vietnam"!

          The final packaging with the maker's label! 

I regret that no one in Vietnam can build up a good brand for coconut candies from the Land of Coconut - "Bến Tre", with super quality, in rich collection, with eye-catching packaging so we can be proud of it as the Swiss - with their chocolate! Let's hope for one beautiful day!

 

Chicken rice (cơm gà)

Chicken rice - I just wonder is it purely Vietnamese or Chinese dish, probably from our big neighbor as most of good chicken rice places in Saigon, either run by Vietnamese with Chinese origin or Singaporean-Chinese! Anyway Vietnamese or Chinese - no matter if it's good! I love chicken rice esp. the flavorful steamed rice cooked with chicken broth...until now I still remember a small shop in Vo Van Tan - Shanghai chicken rice, but since they have a new big 2-3 story building, it seems that their chicken rice is no longer good as before and they start selling different dishes...and I never come back there!

Some people like the chicken rice in Chinatown, or Nguyen Tri Phuong street or even in Hai Ba Trung ... so I really have no idea which is the best now in town! I also tried a famous chicken rice in Singapore at a luxury hotel (recommended by my old colleagues in Singapore) or even at some food court with local friend - the popular Hainanese boneless tender chicken rice! So to me - the best and the most important from this dish are always good rice with good chicken (what's else?!)... and probably with the excellent dip sauce!

Today our dish is not from Singapore, no either from far-away Shanghai, it comes from our Central part! It would be another version of chicken rice - has been localized to the local taste! Chicken rice with fried fish-sauce chicken (cơm gà chiên nước mắm)! Very tasty!

For certain reason, most of chicken for this dish should be either "garden"chicken, definitely not chicken from those "industrial" farms, because the chicken meat should be specially tender . Either it's cooked or fried - the meat should be flavorful, tender and not powdery soft! The rice is soft not too dry and tasty thanks to the chicken broth. Here, you have a choice : either cooked chicken or roasted with fish sauce. I vote for the latter! More tasty!

       The thick sweet fish sauce with garlic and chili and a bit of ginger! 

Besides you still can order a chicken salad, it's good to have some veggies, quite tasty as it soaked in sour sweet spicy sauce! Good to try here, because if we go to the traditional chicken rice place - they don't serve this salad!
Ok, where to try this chicken rice with fried fish-sauce chicken ? At the same place where I had a noodles with jellyfish! 61 Le Thi Hong Gam, district 1!

Ice cream -from the street to the branded shops!

Many many Vietnamese love ice cream, probably because we are living in a tropical country, so to enjoy the cold, sweet, flavorful ice cream is almost everyone's favorite thing!

When I was a kid, I remember I bought not one but at least 2-3 ice cream bars, put all of them in a glass, crushed them...until they have melted and enjoyed the sweet, thick, cold melted ice cream liquid! Another very cheap ice cream - made from only ice and sirup. I bought and just few minutes later only ice left as I already sucked all the sweet sirup mixed together with the ice-melted water. This cheap ice cream used to have only orange flavor. These days this kind of simple cold snack seemed gone!

                The ice cream vendor near to the school

But one more favorite thing from the childhood: how much I loved to get it after the afternoon nap, the ice cream in a sweet soft bread! The vendor puts two or three scoops of ice cream, up to the order, into the bread as sandwich, top it with roasted peanut and condensed milk!

                                   The bell is almost a symbolic sign for ice cream cart in Saigon! 

The taste of the cold sweet and flavorful ice cream together with sweet soft bread, roasted peanut, condensed milk...always makes me happy!

Special edition: Sleepless nights in Bangkok (Part Two)

These days travelers mostly rely on the online booking, esp. those popular sites for hotels as Agoda or Air Asia for flights and we believe their offer is always the best! It's not always true!
Especially for  hotels in Thailand, there is so many choices! It's good to check with Agoda and at the same time directly with the hotel! Compare the price! Most of the time, the offer is almost the same! Exactly the same thing with Air Asia, if we don't book long in advance, no much difference compared with Thai Airways, plus the inflight meal!

           Late at night on the street in Bangkok

About the hotel, every time going back to Bangkok, I tried a new one. Location. Facilities. Price. To me - location is No 1. This time I stayed at Bally's serviced apartment in Sukhumvit, soi 20, it's a real long walk to Asok - a sky train station. It was my mistake as I booked in hurry but on the other hand, it would be good for me, an extra 15' to exercise!

                      and at the night market in Patpong - not crowded on weekdays!  

Rice noodles with jellyfish at Lạ (bún sứa)

Jellyfish or we call sứa in Vietnamese, to me it could be one of the most beautiful sea creatures that I have seen. Maybe not those red jellyfish in Vũng Tàu that hurt me in my childhood summer vacation but at least those that I saw in a special tank in a famous spa in Tokyo. There, in the relaxing top floor they keep extremely white, extremely beautiful jellyfish in a nice glass water tank with the ocean dark blue background, the special lighting. Just imagine sitting in a cold, dark room, hearing the sound of ocean waves and watching those white fluorescent jelly fish swimming as they perform an exotic belly dance in the water, all heavy feelings in my mind suddenly have gone! Only me, alone, bathing in the ocean with these miraculous creatures! That was in Japan.

Back to the reality, in Vietnam, we eat jellyfish, we do jellyfish salad and jellyfish rice noodles! Ok just think Japanese kill bigger fish for their sushi, and here we have jellyfish - much smaller for our noodles...in order not to feel uncomfortable!

I did try jellyfish salad, quite popular dish at certain seafood restaurant but my jellyfish noodles at Quán Lạ last night was my first time! It was good, very good!

          Jellyfish noodles but some tuna, fish cake are added and topped with roasted peanuts! 

          Here we go: chewy jellyfish in a dipping sauce - fermented fish sauce (mắm nêm) 

         I love the taste of the soup: a bit sweet, a bit of pineapple flavor, a bit sour, a bit spicy...

So if you want to try, here you go the address:

Quán Lạ - 61 Lê Thị Hồng Gấm! 35,000 VND/ bowl! Worth to try! 

Special edition: Sleepless nights in Bangkok (Part One)

Bangkok. Bangkok. Bangkok!
One of the most popular destinations for tourists from around the world! A flight from HCMC to BKK lasts for one hour and 10', but we may stuck at the Thai immigration for more than an hour, then the taxi ride from the airport to downtown (either Silom or Sukhumvit) - another hour or even more due to the traffic jam! But people keep coming to this very easy going city...
I used to go to BKK, very often! Some times for business, sometime for pleasures...but over the past several years, only once a year for my personal medical check-up.
Some of my friends didn't like Bangkok, they have their own judgments: either dirty, messy, commercial...but to me I realized Bangkok is very smelly! It's not a negative comment as this smell is quite unique, and only few cities have the smell...Singapore also has a special smell and surely Saigon has something!

           Famous Patpong with karaoke clubs, massage parlours...a sin in the eyes of God! 

The smell from Bangkok is indescribable, it's like a combination of many different smells, flavors: from the massage oil, to the fried chicken, grilled fish, spicy salad on the street, from the strong perfume of those nicely dressed ladies, standing in Patpong, keep saying some Japanese words...to the stinky dark water canals around the city! Bangkok really has many things that we may not find in another cities in Asia: the land full of smiles and smells!

          Fish cake wrapped in banana leaves, grilled on fire, together with rice - a luncheon for Thais! 

Cambodian dessert soup in Saigon

Some time ago, even before my trip to Siem Reap, I heard about the Cambodian market in Sài Gòn, where you can buy different specialities of our neighboring country, or to taste some special Cambodian dishes. And it's not far from my area - Lê Hồng Phong market! To be honest I have no idea where is this market until I realized it's so close to the popular wholesale flower market Hồ Thị Kỷ!
We went there after the sticky rice at Xôi Gà No 1, we were full so decided to go for only sweets! Actually there is quite small selection in this food market. I don't know how many but the most popular for students could be the stall selling Cambodian dessert soup!

             The owner is so nice, she helped me to set up a nice bowl for my photo shooting! 

            The Cambodian dessert soup has quite interesting ingredients: from steamed pumpkin to ...

Million USD business with sticky rice in Vietnam!

Sticky rice is so popular in Vietnam, I have a post about this famous dish and it has been selected by many websites as one of the best dishes from Vietnam!
Sticky rice can go with Chinese sausage, with braised intestines (phá lấu). with roasted chicken...and today I tried for the first time : my sticky rice is served with chicken's internal organs: from liver, gizzard, to the young eggs!

I actually prefer sticky rice simply with chicken, it should be good enough, but when I heard from the waiter "You want to order chicken's internal?". I was curious and said "Yes". And here we go a small plate of sticky rice and with ...what you see in the photo!

I don't want to say it's not good but it's probably too much for a tiny plate of sticky rice! The young eggs are always good but to me, they are just ok here. The liver, the gizzard could be not a good choice to go with sticky rice due to its texture! And it costs 35,000 VND!

Maybe someone like it, so here you go "Xôi gà No 1" (Sticky rice with chicken No 1) on 21 Nguyễn Trung Trực street! They used to have only one small stall but now it's expanded into the next two houses...so the news about the Sticky rice Yến in Hà Nội (Xôi Yến at 35B Nguyễn Hữu Huân, Hà Nội) should be true: 60 millions VND (equal to 3,000 USD) as their daily sale, and 1,8 billion VND (equal to 85,000 USD!) per month! It means more than one million USD per year!
Talking about these figures, I suddenly remember an old lady, a street vendor, selling her famous corn sticky rice on Lê Thánh Tôn street (Sài Gòn) for 50 years . Good but expensive, 20,000 VND for a corn sticky rice, smaller than my fist! She has 11 children and all of them have not less than one house!

Can you imagine? Selling a simple good street food in Vietnam, that could bring you a big money and blossom into a huge wealth! Let's open the shop and sell sticky rice in Vietnam! 

Moon cake (bánh Trung Thu) is no longer a cake!

The moon cake festival or the mid-autumn festival (Trung Thu) is not far away!
The moon cake isn't a street cake as it's expensive and probably not affordable for many people (but only long before the festival, few days before or right after, buy one get one free!)
Some moon cakes can be covered with gold dust (!) or filled with "the best (ingredients) from the mountain, the best from the sea"as we call "sơn hào hải vị" in Vietnamese!

             Snow skin moon cake (or sticky moon cake) filled with lotus seeds

I'd like to share it here because these days, walking around the city we can see everywhere a plenty of big street stalls, in red or yellow color, selling different kinds of moon cakes in Saigon!

          Two most popular brands of moon cake: Kinh Đô and Đồng Khánh stalls in Nguyễn Trãi street 

          and another ones in Chinatown!  

In the past or even now the moon cake (bánh Trung Thu) is always a sweet dream for many kids in Vietnam! Remember, how much we desired to have a moon cake in a pig's shape together with mid-autumn lantern (lồng đèn) and small, as toys, colorful exotic animals (con giống) made from flour.

Golden apple (cóc vàng)

I wish it's a real gold so one kilo can cost over 50, 000 USD!
Just kidding, it's simply a golden fruit with very attractive color of a real street fruit which is in season these days! So many street carts selling these golden apples, in Vietnamese we call "cóc vàng"!

          Golden apples (ambarella) or cóc vàng in Vietnamese!

            Many street cart selling golden apples. The box on top with ready-to-eat fruit!

Golden because it's ripen, when it's not ripe it's simply green!
And we also can enjoy a green apple as a healthy snack that many teens, adult fall in love, especially when it dips with either salt & chili or shrimp paste!

To be honest I can't remember since when I tried cóc vàng for the first time! I got a feeling that I never saw this fruit before 1975! It seemed we didn't sell cóc vàng on the streets! Or maybe I'm wrong! I was just a little boy at that time! 

            One kilo of golden apples is about 30,000 VND (1,5 USD!) 

Golden apple or ambarella has a nice sour sweet taste, very juicy but crunchy when it's still green or even ripen but not too ripen! While eating either golden or green ambarella, the only thing I hate is the big ugly seed in the center! It could be one of the strangest seeds that exits in the world of fruits!
I quite like the nice flavor of golden apple. It's more sweet than sour (if we are lucky to get the good ones, as some time it could be more sour!), the sweet taste is not that strong or too sweet, something light!

              Juicy golden apples (cóc vàng)  

In some coffee shops we may order freshly fruit juice of golden apple, but mostly green apple (cóc xanh), golden apples are very rich with vitamin C, so it would be a heathy juice!
Many people say "eat cóc, get ride of cold!". So please try it when you feel not good!