(Well, it’s Friday now, as we had no WIFI to speak of yesterday).
OK trip down from the mountains and we are heading to Ha Long Bay tomorrow. Hanoi is the logical stop in the middle, so another night here. But first we stopped at a place that supports deaf mute and disabled (mostly) women with job training and education. We had (yet another—oh what a trial!) great meal and learned about the work they do. There is a cafe and also a small production facility that teaches them to sew, and they produce little stuffed animals for sale. It sounds trite, but isn’t. And we all got to stuff a small animal, learn some sign language and see their working area. Then on to the hotel and this evening to the Hanoi Foodie Culture Tour.
Hanoi is a food town. I would hazard to say there are more coffee shops per square mile than Seattle, and people are eating at indoor and outdoor eateries literally all day and well into the night. Kylie, our guide, notes that while shopping is expensive, food isn’t and so it is a big way that people socialize for little money.
It goes on. There are restaurants, yes. And there are mom and pop little eateries in the back area of a shop that sells other items. Example, we ate our first food item (Summer Pho….know what it is? Yeah me either, until tonight), and it was in the back kitchen of a shop that sells adhesives and caulk and the like. Would NEVER have known it was there. Summer Pho, by the by, is the pho that is eaten in the summer months when yes, it is much too hot to eat hot soup, so they serve the noodles with a small amount of sauce and veggies and a bit of chicken, and you put lime juice and garlic vinegar on top and OH MY it is delicious.
Other places to eat are literally out on the sidewalk. It seems odd but these places have tiny plastic chairs so everyone is quite close to the ground. This is evidently so that it’s easier to scoot away when the police come as, evidently, it’s not legal to serve food at the outdoor cafes. And yet they are all over Hanoi. All over. People much prefer to eat out on the sidewalk and watch the world go by than sit in the shop. We had Banh Mi at one of these shops.
Another place served us Ban Xeo. Which is another ban. It means pancake and it is served a super thin rice flour crepe with a little beef, shrimp and bean sprouts folded over like a taco and cut into pieces and eaten burrito style with a super thin rice paper wrapper and veggies, and dipped into nuoc cham. Another OH MY, so so good.
Then on to dessert. This time it was pandan infused sticky rice in coconut milk and a mango. Yum.
Finally it was egg coffee. A little backstory here. During the 1940’s there was a milk shortage in Hanoi (or was it Vietnam at large, not sure). Anyway, an enterprising coffee house owner figured out that he could compensate for the lack of milk by adding egg cream to the coffee instead. What is it (because it sounds pretty awful, right?). It is egg yolks, sweetened condensed milk, honey, caramel, rum all beaten to a thick froth, and served on top of the coffee. Think like a latte, with the milk on top. Except this is thicker and both very light and richer than just frothed milk. And back in the 1940’s they did it with chopsticks, imagine how much arm strength it would take to do this multiple times a day…. Now they use immersion blenders. I am told the egg coffee was delicious, no idea. We had it on hot chocolate and it was a little like a tiramisu in a cup. Sprinkle of cocoa on top.
Another comment about coffee. In Vietnam, what is commonly served is Robusta coffee, which thrives in hot humid climates at lower temperatures. Vietnam produces the largest amount of Robusta coffee in the world. In addition to being more bitter and bolder flavor to Arabica, it is also double the caffeine of Arabica. So the addition of the egg cream goes a long way to moderate that, so I am told.
Comments
Post a Comment