This just happened:
The part with the rice throwing? Yes. That part. That’s where I went for dinner last night, upon the recommendation of several sources, including Allison Wong, aka “Sassy Urbanite” and the incredibly helpful Joe and Hai of Eating Saigon! If you’re in Ho Chi Ming City (HCMC or Saigon) and you’re there to eat, these are your guys. I dare you to find a post that doesn’t make you hungry.
That is, unless you’re a vegetarian. There’s a whole lot of offally (not a mis-print, spellcheck) porky and beefy soups here. Well, more beef to the north, to be fair, but HCMC has a mix of everything in the country. And while there’s tons of street food, it so far seems a lot more hygienic than Bangkok. Actually, everything seems just cleaner and nicer and friendlier and more livable here.
I’m staying in District 3, close to markets, restaurants, shops, but not the backpackers district. So I get stared at when I walk around. A white girl on her own? What’s she doing here? But people are friendly and curious, and if they spoke more English they’d ask me themselves what I’m doing here.
Despite the lack of English, I’m in a more affluent area of the city, apparently. My affable airbnb hosts, Mr. Tan and his wife, showed me around a local market and have set me up in a lovely apartment with A/C, internet and a kitchen. They showed me my first custard apple and mush melon. The papayas are different here, too. Mangoes are still better in Peru, but I’m getting over it. I mentioned the affluent part, and to prove it I hung out in a couple cafés aimed at young people here. While I’m sure the prices on the English menu are ridiculously higher than the Vietnamese version, this shaved ice dessert place had large fruit bowls of mixed exotic fruit (dragon, watermelon, mango, mush melon (starchy, tasteless melon that responds well to sugar, milk, and ice) with homemade sweetened yogurt (the French influence, I’m sure, since Bangkok has none of it), maybe a little condensed milk, and a separate bowl of ice with Monin flavour syrups (I think there was some rose). That way you can combine your fruit, yogurt and ice to your own liking and never have melty ice mush soup.
The cafe is cool. It’s called Trop B. Here’s Hai and Joe’s review of the place. I skipped the sticky rice with ice cream and mulberry, but enjoyed the tiny tables with stools (it’s how street food vendors set up too), and being among the groups of young Vietnamese people hanging out on a Sunday afternoon. Older men go to coffee shops, but young people eat shaved ice apparently. Or go to cooler coffee shops. There are lots of those.
I’ve also already had amazing pho ga’. That’s homemade chicken soup with charred ginger and shallots made into a sweet broth with rock sugar and fish sauce, then the chicken meat is added to a bowl with fresh rice noodles, and you add as much of the table extras as you want: bean sprouts, mint, basil, fresh chili slices, other greens (there was this crazy fern that was like citronella but not). Then you can make a little dipping bowl of hoison, Sriracha, fish sauce and this anchovy chili oil that was crazy good (don’t pour these directly into the broth. Just dip some noodles in it on the way to your mouth. The broth does not need your adulteration). Especially at Pho Huong Binh.
Today: the big market, some rock climbing, maybe a wine bar, and chicken and sticky rice for dinner, I hope! Mr. Tan and his wife helped me buy good Vietnamese rice yesterday, though, so I’ll be cooking in sometime soon. Suggestions?
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