Stickyrice

Essential Laos Ingredient

Last year in Laos, I got myself in a bit of a quandry when I came across some eggplants being burnt to a frazzle. Completely charred - enough to sketch a scene of the nearby Mekong with - I couldn't possibly imagine how they were going to return to an edible state. At the time, witchcraft and potions, even toothpaste got offered up as suggestions but nothing particularly culinary came to light.

Until Manivan Larprom weighed into the impasse with a definitive answer.

A second trip to Laos along with knowledge gained from another Laos-phile gave further insight into the digestible uses of this very attractive vegetable. In my country of origin, up until about thirty years ago, the average home cook wouldn't have known what to do with one - unless they had mates from the Mediterranean or thereabouts. I first came across them in moussaka, the Greek dish, and thought them quite odd. I've since acquired the taste for their complex properties and flavours.

The stunning variety of eggplants in Asia make them a versatile bit of veg in this region. They're seared and pounded into pastes; deep fried whole, cut and topped with minced pork and fish sauce; eaten small as a fruit with the watercress and cucumber alongside laap; or pickled and dipped in fish sauce as part of a Vietnamese rice lunch.

I'm sure the possibilities don't stop there.

Hanoi Pho Swoop Top 20

I've sucked them up all over town. Up alleys, down lanes, in gutters, next to churches, with exhaust fumes puffing in my face, with a grandad coughing his last bark in a bed right next to me. Pho knows no boundaries in Hanoi. Morning, noon and night, these noodles are slurped as a snack, a meal, a cure for a cold, a chill or a hangover.

Almost 18 months ago, I began crapping on in public about Hanoi's signature dish on this blog by way of the Hanoi Pho Swoop. There was talk of some mythical scrap of paper known to some as the Hanoi Pho Map. It hasn't materialised. I've abandoned that search. Its urban legend status remains unchanged.

Do not despair, however, as I have solid findings about pho, not on a map per se but found easily enough on the back of any xe om worth his ounce of street cred.

I present to you, dear readers.....

THE STICKYRICE 'HANOI PHO SWOOP' TOP TWENTY SLURPS
(as at 26/11/07)

1. Best Pho Ga By Far So Far (posted 26/7/06)
    "Get me a whole bird in my soup!"

2. Would You Queue For Pho (2/8/06)
    "...a joint that Hanoians spruik up as one of the places to slurp one's noodles"

3. Pho Corner (12/9/06)
    "...cleavered chicken pieces, diced up hearts and livers, sliced fillets of breast covered in lime leaf needles, a huge pile of fresh pho, a pot, a sieve, a ladle and some bowls"

4. Thick Pho (4/12/06)
    "...extra thick noodle straps...add an indefinable dimension here"

5. Clean Stern Pho (3/9/07)
    "all of the Hanoi standards are rigidly adhered to: floral bowls, tick; bamboo sticks, tick; red sauce in plastic cups, tick; lime wedges, tick; refuse underfoot, tick!"

6. Pho Franchise (9/11/06)
    "classy almost minimalist, a far cry from the cluttered detritus of the average family pho show in Hanoi"

7. Old Quarter Market Pho Ga (13/8/07)
    "...plenty going in to each bowl here, birdwise and otherwise"

8. Major Pho Stop (10/2/07)
    "Three white-coated pho maids head up this operation"

9. Up Market Pho (7/10/06)
    "...no slap dash affair. Someone cares"

10. Crabby Faced Pho (29/7/07)
      "Retro-post-war-functional and communist"

11. Pho Map Installment No.15 (16/4/07)
      "Fine cow indeed!"

12. Stumbled Upon Pho (11/7/07)
      "...all deafening shout and bang here"

13. Pho Ga Blur (8/8/06)
      "...this rambling kerbside affair is an evening only slurp in a dark section of the old quarter"

14. Religious Pho (13/3/07)
      "... a drop of it might have descended from the original Hanoi pho pot from a century or so ago"

15. Pho Poser (10/7/06)
      "...there's half a cow on board this bowl"

16. Market Street Pho Ga (21/1/07)
      "... a space no bigger than a prison cell, lit similarly with bright fluorescent light"

17. Pho Map Installment No.16 (25/6/07)
      "Steaming and robust, shiny yellow oil pills dotting the surface"

18. Friendly Grotbox (17/11/06)
      "...bargain basement territory..."

19. More Pho Tails (20/8/06)
      "... a definitive little pinch me moment of "bloody hell, I live in Vietnam"

20. Pho Map Installment No.2 (18/8/06)
      "...chewy, fatty and if I think too hard I might be forced to spit it into a serviette"

Tum Tum Bamboo

Luang Prabang had royals in residence before half of them were taken to by the communists and the others swam across the Mekong to Thailand and then further abroad. The royal cuisine still exists, however, preserved in the book 'Traditional Recipes of Laos', which was published from notes scribbled down by the chef to the royal family, Mr. Phia Sing.

Adaptations of these recipes are available in the high street in Luang Prabang, just up from where the Royal Palace is situated in its present incarnation as a museum to an institution the present government probably wished never existed.

But before I get the mis-informed rants up, I'd best get back to the food.

Tum Tum Bamboo is a restaurant that constitutes one part of another mini-kingdom of sorts in Luang Prabang. Cooking classes, guest houses and eateries incorporate under the Tum Tum umbrella, where elegant relaxation is the presiding atmosphere. On the day of my visit, stunning posies of orange wild flowers adorned the tables.

They were shoved to the side when the food lobbed.

Seaweed crackers, a snack I nattered on about after last year's Laos trip, got to table first and was dispensed with soon after. A clear soup of mushroom and chicken, tanged up with galangal, lemon grass and kaffir lime, really got the taste buds primed. These flavours combined may seem somewhat snappy but the stock was finely balanced to resist being over-powered. I loved this liquid. Drank it right down, I did.

And then something truly heavenly occurred. I discovered or lam, the Luang Prabang stew heavily dependent on a base of pounded eggplant. The ingredients can vary but generally contain herbs like dill and Asian basil, vegetables like snake beans and tree-ear mushrooms and spices such as chili and sa-khan (an exotic wood from the Laos forest). The meat is buffalo but the dish can be vegetarian if animals are scarce.

It's a hearty meal of sophisticated flavours truly fit for a king.

Tum Tum Bamboo
Main Street
Luang Prabang
Laos

Banana Barbeque

Along the roads of Laos, the sun beats down on foodstuff laid out to dry. Bananas are a common sight, peeled and regimented in tidy rows on flat bamboo baskets. The sunning process is not to shrivel them into dried fruit or banana chips. Instead it hardens their outsides, taking out any surface moisture and stickyness.

This makes them easy to manoeuvre around the barbeque. These babies are transformed into fruity sausages full of mushy hot banana goo just gunning to burn the roof of the mouth of anyone who's willing. Bite through that attractive browned outer layer at your own peril.

It scars!

What the.....?!?

The wet markets of Asia are zones of frenetic activity. Almost anything goes! Pushcarts are shoved along muddy paths. Chickens are force fed rice gruel to bulk them up for the scales and increase profit margins. Negotiations are barked and spat. A vendor's coveting of another's loyal customer results in an acid word or a smarting touch up with the broom handle. Motorbikes and bicycles are ridden right on into these markets. Fish meet their maker and duck's blood is extracted from their wrung necks.

All of this I can handle.

Wet markets are also places of incredible beauty and colour. Morning rays shine across whole forests of leafy greens, clipped and bundled for sale. Mangosteens and limes are lovingly arranged into perfect cones or pyramids. Flower vendors pluck the withered outer petals off roses letting them float for a second to the ground beneath them. Wizened old faces laugh through black betel stained teeth, their eyes wired with life. The silver scales of fish flash like shards of mirror.

It's a gallery I can appreciate.

Until I chance upon an abstract installation of unidentifiable animal bits.

Cholera or just the 'Jimmy Brits'

Earlier in the week, Vietnam's Health Minister was quoted on it. The US embassy has issued warnings and guidelines to its citizens located in Hanoi. The Hanoi Family Medical Practice is encouraging stool exams for anyone with symptoms. The Vietnamese national broadcaster is reporting on it. The WHO has yet to mention it on their website. They have offered to assist in the investigations but have stopped short of making any definitive statement thus far.

"We have been informed about severe acute diarrhea," spokeswoman Dida Connor said. "We haven't had any confirmation of cholera."

Today the government has seemingly done a back-flip, saying it is "acute dangerous diarrhea", and that any deaths occurring in the last few days are unrelated. It's turned into a bit of a circus. Not a very amusing one!

About 1000 people in the north, including Hanoi, have got a decent dose of the 'jimmy brits' and some of them are in hospital. The origin of the outbreak is suspected to be the much loved (maligned by westerners) mam tom (fermented shrimp sauce).

It's off the menu.

Washing one's hands and taking care is on it.

Who ever took them off?

Coffee Strip

South of the old quarter in Hanoi, in Trieu Viet Vuong St, there must be coffee sluicing through the plumbing mains. This street is coffee shop central, with hardly another business breaking the pattern on either side of the strip. The footpaths have disappeared under a chaotic throng of motorscooters, plastic furniture, wayward banyan trees and squatting caffeine addicts.

Naming my poison is no problem. Scrounging a patch of pavement to wedge our plastic stools into, however, is a dilemma at Cafe Tho, a 23-year veteran of Trieu Viet Vuong's cafe scene and favourite of the god's 20-something mates, with whom I'm having my daily hit. It's French era atmosphere to the hilt with shuttered windows that haven't been dusted since they left. In fact there seems to be a caffeine and nicotine residue on every exposed surface, inside and out. Rustic is definitely the prevailing adjective for this one.

In between sips, the shoeshine boy takes me for a tourist, wanting the shirt off my back for his toil. Another drama plays out when Cafe Tho's resident fortune teller gives a theatrical wave, only to knock the waitress and half a black caffeine hit all over her clairvoyant self. A catty spat ensued about who was to blame. While the locals have an uncanny knack for ignoring such an episode, I find myself both not knowing where to look and perversely hoping that something solid gets thrown.

It doesn't. Instead it's all smouldering glares.

Then my black drug kicks in.

Score

Three cafe nau da (with condensed milk and ice), one cafe den da (black with sugar and ice) - 28,000VND (USD$1.74, AUD$1.85)

Cafe Tho
117 Trieu Viet Vuong
Hanoi