How we eat fruits in Viet Nam?

I wonder who was the inventor of those magical mixture of ingredients for eating fruits!
Not every fruits! But many!

I remember my student time! Sitting with some friends from Cuba in the train on the way back to our city, after one month working in the farm, we talked about many things, just to kill time and we ate green apple. With salt mixed with sugar !?

Cuban seemed surprised and asked why salt & sugar? I said "for better taste!"

              Ready-to-eat mango Keo stall near to Ben Thanh market. 
                 Do you notice two big pots of salt & chili and chili saté on the right hand side? 

That's true!  But I can't remember why salt & sugar. Usually no sugar!!!

Anyway it reminds me how we eat some fruits, even sweet but especially green, sour ones in Vietnam we always need special dips!

Sweets from Chinatown!

   Can you guess what's this? 

   Inside banana leaves? 

   I'm sure you can! If not continue reading...

   

Rice noodles with grilled pork in Southern style

Week ago I tried "bún chả Hà Nội", famous street food from North Việt Nam, I said that's very similar to Southern style rice noodles with grilled pork (bún thịt nướng)!

Similar but different! 

So what's similar and what's different?
Similar! Same concept: rice noodles, grilled pork, veggie and sweet fish sauce!

             Rice noodles with grilled pork in Southern style (bún thịt nướng)    

And different! 

In South we don't soak grilled pork in fish sauce! And we don't have "chả" ground pork cake!  

Fish sauce is not that light as in Hà Nội! I should say I prefer Southern taste! Richer! 

Veggie. We have additional bean sprout and cucumber as a must veggie for this dish. Hà Nội - no!  

Roasted peanut for topping! Hà Nội - no!    

Green onion stirred in the oil to spread on rice noodles! No for bún chả Hà Nội! 

Pickled carrot & white radish. Hà Nội version - green papaya! 

Bún thịt nướng super popular street food in Sài gòn. Easy to find around the city, esp. together with grilled pork you can always order deep fried spring rolls! 

This weekend as usual we prepare some good food at home, so I decided to have homemade version of bún thịt nướng! 

Here you go my big bowl of the rice noodles with grilled pork in Southern style! 

Late supper for night crawlers

Sài gòn at night probably is not that active as Bangkok or even Phnom Penh, but anyway we still have many night activities to offer! Those activities behind closed doors could be not for us, but I'm happy to recommend what Saigonese (or Saigonaise) love to eat at night. Late at night.

I know many people don't like rice porridge (congee), at least in my small circle of friends - more then 3 people hate this watery meal! I don't know why! Thousand people. Thousand taste!

The rice porridge or cháo in Vietnamese is very popular traditional dish eps. for breakfast or light meal at night - late supper! If in the old days cháo considered as a meal for the poor, but today is favorite by many trendy young people. Good for diet!

At the same time - Hot plain rice porridge with green onion, black pepper is a good medicine to get rid of the cold! Eat when it's still hot, you will sweat, trust me, a lot! Then the cold will be gone!

                   Black bean rice porridge served with coconut cream sauce and other side dish!

                     Plain rice porridge with pandan leaves flavor can go with any side dish! 

Congee or cháo has many variations. Plain rice porridge or with green mung bean, black bean, pandan leaves...it's  served with different side dish as salted duck egg, thousand-year duck egg (hột vịt bắc thảo), braised pork, braised tofu or braised snakehead fish, anchovy (cá cơm)!

           Thousand year duck egg, special preserved duck egg, originated from China. 
           Good side dish for rice porridge 

Last night with friend I went to one small stall on Nguyễn Thượng Hiền street - Cháo Bông, I was really surprised by a number of the side dishes that we can select for our rice porridge.

             Side dish to go with cháo - thin slice of fried snakehead fish, crispy and tasty!  

Best street food from Hà Nội! (Nem cua bể)

Deep fried spring roll with "sea crab" in Northern style! 

My first experience to taste this specialty from North Vitenam was long time ago but only when I had a dinner at Tuan Tu restaurant in Tran Cao Van street, I tried it again and realized it's very good!

Spring roll is our traditional dish, super popular!  Esp. for many celebrations as New Year party, birthday party, weeding, death anniversary to weekend family, friends gathering!

In South we have different recipes. With shrimp, pork, mixed with taro, green bean, glass noodle, wood-ear mushroom, vegetarian...Deep fried. Fresh rolls!

              Nem cua bể at Bún chả Hồ Gươm, near to Equatorial hotel on Trần Phú street! 

But spring roll from North is unique.
That's why no wonder "nem cua bể", in North we call "nem", i.e spring roll, is considered as one of  best street foods in Asia!

Dumpling noodles in Sài Gòn

I used to bake.
Sometime it was good!
Sometime it was just a disaster! I told to myself...learning process! No problem!
But. I'm quite good at making certain cakes. Banana cake is one of them!

I intended to have a post with only creative photos showing this preparation process.
I and my photographer friend spent almost a hard half-working day!
Finally we got some photos! But my intention is on hold due to my Photoshop skill!

Anyway today not about photos, but about our lunch after that photo session!
We went to Tân Tòng Lợi for dumpling noodles (mỳ sủi cảo).

 Dumpling! Sủi cảo!
 Even though living in China town, but I have no idea where in Sài gòn serve the best dumpling!
 Later I learn that Hà Tôn Quyền, a small street in China town is full of dumpling stalls.

Talking about sủi cảo I remember when I and my colleagues were in Xian (China) with our dealers,
we had a dumpling lunch. Big lunch!

 Oh dear! I still can't imagine how many kinds of dumplings they have in China!
 The restaurant kept serving and serving.
 First, different fillings. Then same fillings but in different shapes!
 It was very good in the beginning but ended with bore!

Ladder noodles ? or bún thang!

This review is one of my very first posts! I feel it should be rewritten, with new photos! And I did today with support from my friends who invited me to taste this speciality at their home! Thank you! 

I really don't know how to translate this noodles into English - Bún thang (literally ladder noodles???)

I have no idea where the word "thang" comes from ? In Vietnamese "thang" literally means "ladder" but if we call "ladder noodles" it would be very very funny and no Vietnamese could understand that!

So "ladder noodles" just between us!

Bún thang originally from North, but already found a new home in many places in South, esp. in Saigon where has been considered as the largest food hub (!). Easy to find bún thang around the city!

In Hà Nội in the old days bún thang traditionally prepared on the fourth day of our Lunar New Year (Tết), when we have a meal to see off our ancestor.  All the left-overs in the kitchen from ham, chicken, shrimp, pork to some veggie have been used for this bún thang! That's why everything has been cut into shreds!

Today bún thang seems simplified a lot, from the ingredients to the cooking process, esp. in South where is far away from the origin place!

Our today bún thang is neither from street vendor nor sidewalk stall but at my old friend's house!

We used to be classmates but lost contact for over 20 years. We met again only by chance when I worked for a mobile company and he - our distributor! From time to time we gather together for good food and good time! My friend's wife prepares an excellent bún thang!

Bún thang requires long preparation! How to keep the soup clear, how to make thin omelette, to cut it and Vietnamese pork ham into super thin shreds as you see from the photo!

And also how to tear the cooked chicken meat into small small strips, but we missed shrimp floss this time! Otherwise our color picture would look nicer with red shrimp floss, yellow egg shreds, pink pork ham strips, green Vietnamese mint and ivory chicken floss!