Tết is so important to Vietnamese, so, again, I'd love to have one more post not about the street food but about how beautiful is Saigon in these days. Saigon in blossom.
Starting from the annual floral festival right in the heart of Saigon to the another favorite event - Spring's botanical & floral exhibition in Tao Dan park, Saigon is really rejuvenating, less stressful, more gorgeous in the last days before the New Year Eve!
The history of the Nguyen Hue floral festival probably started since 1960s, when it was just a simple flower market a week before Tết. I remember being a high school student, we were excited to come here after class hours and especially for the last graders, they loved to take a group photo for a good and sweet memory of their high school years in this flower market.
Nowadays the market has gone but instead of that the floral festival, this year it marks the 10th year anniversary.
Just a day before the opening - the fl oral festival in Nguyen Hue street - right in the city heart.
Year of the snake by Lunar Calendar.
These colorful bamboo lamps will light up at night.
Nguyen Hue street starting from the City Hall to the Saigon River is dressing up for Tết.
City hall considered as one of the best architectures in the city.
Countryside images: rice field, bamboo trees in the village.
The pond with lotus and white storks - a beautiful image of the peaceful life in countryside.
The stream of flowers - symbolized the water - the most important for the cultivation.
Symbolic moon light with these famous lamps from Hội An.
The last preparation for the opening ceremony in the evening.
The 10th year anniversary - a celebration with 10 different animals - the symbol of each year.
The ship of flowers...is it a reminder about our sea borders - a sensitive hot issue with China?
Amidst the swelling crowds that surged and rolled.
One of few famous poems that I remember by heart - about the Spring and those images which related to our traditional New Year - Tết, have faded away. Whenever our Tết is approaching, I always remember this sadly beautiful poem that I learnt in my childhood.
Acalligrapher in Saigon - a retro image of the old times, preparing his writing as best wishes for New Year.
Bao nhiêu người thuê viết
Tấm tắc ngợi khen tài,
Hoa tay thảo những nét
Như phượng múa rồng bay!
Nhưng mỗi năm mỗi vắng
Người thuê viết nay đâu
Giấy đỏ buồn không thấm
Mực đọng trong nghiên sầu.
...
So many people paid him handsomely
For his talent that they admired dearly,
The flourishes of his accomplished hand
That wrought dragons and phoenixes on end.
Each passing year saw fewer people come.
Where were they all who paid him so handsome?
Now his paper had lost its crimson red,
His ink dried out in its sad forlorn bed. (*)
...
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(*) "The calligrapher" by Vũ Đình Liên, translated byL.D. Le.
Pink cherry blossomed - a sign of the arrival of Tết, but only in the North.
and here you go: Golden Mai (Mai vàng) - a symbol of Spring in the South.
Flower market for Lunar New Year right in the heart of Saigon, next to New World Hotel.
Happy with a gorgeous red paper flowers, though it called "paper"but it's real flowers!
Curious about this flower, never need water, like immortals!
Orchids from highland Đà Lạt, a luxury choice for house decoration during Tết.
These orchids from a huge flower shop, not far from my place. So beautiful!
There was a year that I bought only orchids for house decoration and hope to keep it...
but failed, the orchids were dying after few months, despite our everyday care.
The round-about in front of Bến Thành market - popular spot for many tourists.
A flower kiosk in the park before Tết.
More people shopping when Tết is closer - a customer bought dried shrimp in Bến Thành market.
Quiet in the morning, even during Tết, but...
...when the dark falls, Saigon is ready to dress up for Tết - Lê Lợi boulevard.
Continental hotel where Graham Green wrote his famous novel "The quiet American" in 1950s.
Đồng Khởi street - famous with many buildings from the French colonial times...
...starting from the Notre Dame de Saigon to the Saigon river has been lighted up for New Year.
Typical Chinese decorations for Lunar New Year in Chinatown.
Two little snakes - symbol of 2013!
Those golden pigs - a symbol of prosperity are waiting for their customers in the sun.
Lion heads for lion dance can be another decoration in house - a souvenir shop in Chinatown.
Annual flower festival in Nguyen Hue blvd - under preparation - this year is a year of snakes.
Two days later, before the opening, the festival is going to celebrate the 10th year anniversary!
The first Starbucks opened in Saigon just a week before Lunar New Year, people queuing...
Kumquat - favorite plant for house decoration in New Year - sign of prosperity.
Water melon in a shape of wine bottle - sign of happiness? Water melon is a must fruit for Tết.
Even in a shape of golden bullion - a hope for a better prosperous year?
The pre-Tet dragon dance in my neighborhood, they will come back on the 1st day of New year!
Lion dance is a part of our tradition for many celebrations, they bring a good luck!
Lucky money envelop - as a wish of the best of luck to receivers, mostly for kids and the youth!
And very special moment - New Year Eve, it's a time that almost every family, every house set up a table with offerings such as fruits (usually 5 different fruits that we call Ngũ Quả), sweets or traditional sticky rice cake - in front of the house...to welcome the New Year, to pray for the best to family, to loved ones...To me it would be one of the most spiritual moments, at this time I always have mixed feelings : quick flashback to the past, some deep thoughts to the future...
Symbolic altar with offerings for New Year Eve to pray for the best in the new year.
Best wishes to everyone, who follow my blog over the past first year! Thank you and Happy Snake's Year!
How can I translate this into English, is it ham? or is it sausage ? I prefer to call it ham as I feel our traditional chả which made of lean pork or beef, more similar to ham, but we can call it sausage too.
I said chả - speciality from North because in Hà Nội the variety of chả is much richer than in South, and the quality is also different - better!
Vietnamese ham shop in Lý Tự Trọng - Giò chả Minh Châu, popular spot with good quality ham.
What's chả ? This's a special dish made of well-pounded lean pork, potato starch with some other ingredients such as garlic, peppercorn, fish sauce... And it depends on what kind of chả, some other secret ingredients may be added, such as young rice for fried chả cốm (tasty but sticky!) or special spice like aromatic dill to fried beef ham (chả bò) or cinnamon to famous chả quế (cinnamon ham).
Chả bò - fried beef ham with an extra flavor from dill.
But here we are not talking how to prepare a good quality, irresistible chả, it would be a big secret that we may never learn from the makers, esp. in North, when it's a generation-to-generation family business without leaking out to the outsiders.
Chả cốm - ham with young rice, tasty but a bit sticky due to young rice (?)
One of my very first posts about street food was our famous sticky rice, it's also in the list of 10 foods that Vietnamese can't live without, but along with the other sticky rice dishes, we still have another sticky rice speciality that we prepare mostly for celebrations: either death anniversary, wedding ceremony or the newly-born baby party, birthday party...it could be thousand reasons for us to celebrate! Why? Because this dish is not only good, tasty but also beautifully, colorfully presented. We call this special dish - xôi vị (literally means tasty sticky rice, my guess!).
Xôi vị is very rich in taste and beautiful in color. This dish represents the unique mixture of different flavors, colors: rich coconut, aroma from pandan leaves with its special green color, piquant smell from magenta plant which also gives the dish a beautiful purple. the yellow from sweet mung bean paste as filling in the center and slight aroma from star anise!
Xôi vị is also special due to its shape, it's not like the other sticky rice dish, xôi vị should be molded. either in square shape with some characters on the top as "Double Happiness" or "Good Luck", or in round shape and always topped with aromatic roasted sesame.
The preparation requires time and skill, how to make the sticky rice shining, not too wet, not too dry, not too sweet, not over tasty with coconut flavor and the beautiful color also - everything should be in a good portion. That's why no wonder "xôi vị" is one of very few sticky rice dishes in the menu for the important traditional celebrations.
The other version of xôi vị - the combination of sweet gourd and magenta sticky rice and sweet mung bean paste in the middle and on the top. This well molded xôi vị could be a good gift to friends, to loved ones in any occasion, eps. during Tết (Lunar New Year) with a wish for The Best of Luck!
Now the question where can you get this beautiful and tasty dish? My simple answer is - right in the heart of Sàigòn - Bến Thành market. Very delicious, very good-looking dish and surprisingly very good price! Please do check my post about the cake of 9 layers of clouds to find out where is the place in that famous market.
Beautiful xôi vị in sale display in Bến Thành market, together with the other traditional cakes
First thing first - I love the name of this cake! Nine layers of clouds! It sounds very nice in Vietnamese - bánh chín tầng mây. When I first heard this name - I was really curious what's is the cake with 9 layers of clouds!?
Then I found that the cake has another name - more original. And it may make you laugh, because the original name of this cake is totally a contrast to the title of this post. "Cake of pig's skin" or bánh da lợn, that's a real name, which is very popular, very close to us, and of course also very down-to-earth!
Famous traditional cake with 9 layers of clouds (bánh 9 tầng mây)
I like both names - if "cake with 9 layers of clouds" emphasizes the quality of beauty, the intensity of emotion to this special traditional sweets - simple, nicely tasty but requires a perfect skill to make 9 thin layers (actually 11 layers as I count on the actual cake, but number 9 should be a good number!) with only two favorite flavors: sweet green mung beans and flavorful pandan leaves.
or another name - less poetic but more folkloric - pig's skin cake (bánh da lợn)
While the other name - more original - Pig's skin cake or bánh da lợn, very good comparison between the cake texture and the image of the animal that many Vietnamese families in the country side consider as one of family members, a popular image in our folklore. We knew this cake and loved it since our childhood, until now!
flavorful with pandan leave, sweet mung bean, nicely sticky and very tasty.
Talking about this cake, I take a trip down memory lane when I was a little kid: someone in our neighborhood prepared this cake by using the mold made from the bottom half of Coke's can (due to the cane's bottom shape gives the cake a nice look!) and what I loved the most: to watch how my neighbor did one layer after another: the green one first with pandan leave flavor, then the yellow one with sweet green mung bean and the white one with coconut flavor, then she started with the green again... we couldn't wait until all of us could take the first bite of this tasty, yummy cake!
on sale display with another traditional sweets at Bến Thành market.
Cake with 9 layers of clouds is glutinous soft, so always handle with care!
Bánh da lợn or a poetic name - bánh 9 tầng mây remains a favorite traditional cake for many of us. Nowadays I noticed that the cake is widely sold in the streets, small bowl size, much less layers, and each layer is thick, so it could be over rich. It seems not many foreigners hear about or taste this unique cake: sticky, not very sweet, strong pandan leave flavor, slightly oily from the outside (oil has been used during the preparation, to avoid the cake sticks to the mold).
The only place at Bến Thành market selling a terrific good bánh da lợn!
So in case anyone want to taste this cake - a super good quality, please come to Bến Thành market - there is a tiny stall in small connection between the meat section and the grocery section - selling this cake but very quickly sold out so please go there before 8:00 am, hight recommendation!
Very sorry that I didn't update my blog for almost a month, my sincere apology!
Sometime we have different priorities in life, but in 2013, not promise but I will try to post something new, interesting, especially during our Lunar New Year, which is only few weeks away from now!
Tết that we call our New Year by Lunar Calendar!
This year is a year of snake, I don't like snake and no one like it, I don't like either the number "13" but it could be my lucky number! Let's hope!
Tết is always very special time for everyone, especially for kids, it's simply big holidays with a lot of freedoms: free from school's home works, free to eat, to play, to gamble, free to do many things that they are probably not allowed to do, if not Tết. But for us, Tết is a big burden now! The preparation could take away from us a lot of efforts until the last moment - New Year Eve or Giao Thừa. So some time we have no longer good feelings about this traditional celebration. "Tết is coming, I'm tired!", that sentence we may hear more often nowadays.
A stall selling "mứt" in Bến Thành market. The choice seems less and less.
However Tết still brings to us sweet memories...time to go back home, to gather with loved ones, to share different untold stories and to cheer another new stage in our life.
Talking about Tết I never forget the traditional sweets (or simply "mứt"). This's something that we should have at home during Tết. I still remember when I was just a young boy, around 15 year old, I went to market to buy ginger, coconut. sweet potato...to make "ginger sweets" (mứt gừng), coconut sweets (mứt dừa) by myself ...without any instructions from my mother. "Mứt" probably originated from our neighbor as I notice that in China, or some other Chinese speaking areas in South East Asia, like Chinatown in KL (Malaysia) or in Bangkok, people over there have something very similar.
Most favorite mứt: coconut with different flavors: green with panda leaves, yellow - durian.
Mứt is fruits stirred in sugar for hours...until it's ready, i.e either dry or wet as jam. The wet sweets (or jam) - we usually call "mứt dẽo", not only sweet, but sticky and a bit sour! This's a kind of preserved fruit which is very popular everywhere around the world! What kind of fruits can be preserved for "mứt"? It should be a long list! Most popular are coconut, ginger, winter melon, pineapple, water chestnut, sweet potato, lotus seeds, tamarind, soursop, star fruit,...etc. There was a time some mứt made of tomato, carrot, plum, dried pineapple. green papaya...were very popular, but now I couldn't find anywhere in the market.
