Stickyrice

Curbside Workshop

A stiff fishy breeze lingers about this old quarter street at night. Daytime business shutters go down, giving way to a line of street stalls and narrow corridors offering up a snack that is prepared in a noisy workshop-like atmosphere.

There are tools about - not your typical cooking utensils, not a spatula in sight!

Instead, picture ye olde blacksmith shoppe, where hammers and hot fire are at play, though not to fashion a fire stoker nor a horse's shoe. Here the material to be fashioned is edible sea creature of the cephalopod family

Rigid leathery dried squid are propped up to attention on display stands up and down this stretch of old Hanoi. Single light bulbs shed dull light on these formally jet-propelled swimmers now flattened and well dead.

Once selected by the consumer, the squid hits the workshop floor for its transformation into food. Placed over a small hot box of red coals on the pavement, it curls as it is grilled in some kind of delayed final act of defiance against its earlier capture. The hammer is then used to batter the squid against a wooden board in an attempt to tenderise it.

It's Hanoi dining ambience at its best. The close proximity to the roar of traffic, the incessant horns, banging hammers and, as a special treat on the night of my visit, there was a special impromptu performance of street theatre, too. The stall's proprietor arrived back from an outing to find one of her young male workers asleep out the back. He shot bolt upright to receive a right royal cussing peppered with the kind of purple language one would expect of a fishmonger! The boy was dazed and still wiping the sleep from his eyes as she performed Act 2 at the front of the house, shouting a similar tirade at one of her competitors who was allowing her customers to park in the wrong "f***ing place."

Of course, I was the only one taking any notice of all this carry on.

 

Every other patron was on task, munching on their shredded muc nuong (grilled dried squid) and throwing back shot glasses of rice wine. After all the distraction, I started chewing, too. I'm not sure but maybe I chose the wrong squid specimen at the outset because I chewed and chewed and chewed until I had a wad of fishy papier mache forming in my mouth. Maybe not enough elbow grease was expended at the hammering stage. I was concerned that the squid might choke me on the way down.

I'm not going to give up on this as a culinary experience, though. I like the idea. It's a good beer match. I will try it again. Next time I will seek advice on selecting a squid which requires less jaw action.

Muc Nuong
36 Hang Bo
Old Quarter
Hanoi

Bun Cha of Choice

 

I've discovered superior bun cha.

The doorway from which it's served has been in my peripheral vision for a long time. In fact, I could've been wolfing down this fine exponent of the dish for at least six years - it's next door to one of my regular caffeine hangouts. For some ridiculous reason, I'd ignored it, thinking it shonky gutter style bun cha. My dismissal has turned out to be a huge error of judgement and, to put this wrong right, I am hereby nominating this barbeque soup vendor as my official bun cha of choice - if that counts for anything!

The husband and wife tandem and their team of young relatives from the provinces see to it that all the elements of quality bun cha are present. Herbs, lettuce and crisp white beanshoots are diligently rinsed in big plastic basins. The pork patties and chunks of pork belly are methodically arranged in wire grillers before being given the requisite charring over the hot coals. The husband must get a lot of the plaudits here as he doesn't rush the cooking process, ensuring that the meat is well done and edged in black. Nothing worse than under-cooked bun cha meat.

The wife is the chief of the operation, portioning big serves of bun (fresh rice noodles), handfuls of young papaya slivers, ladles of slightly sweet nuoc cham and the all-important meat bits. Crouched and surrounded by her ingredients, she swivels on her kiddie stool, her knees inserted into pink plastic bags to protect her floral slacks from splashes and drips. Her multi-tasking also includes the frying of the rather scrumptious spring rolls (nem), a normal accompaniment or side dish to bun cha, and doing the sums to collect the cash.

Chopped garlic and sliced chili on the tables allow the patrons to customise their dipping sauce-cum- soup. As no-one seems particularly concerned about garlic breath in Vietnam, I am heavy-handed with the former. The latter I am wary of. I like spice in my bun cha but I do take regular stock of the number of chili slices I place in my soup, as they can easily be picked up hidden in noodles or lettuce and accidentally swallowed. 

The morning after burning ring of fire is an affliction I can do without!

A further word of warning: even though bun cha is lunchtime fare, this vendor packs the punters onto her plot of pavement. One time I arrived at 11.45, only to be told that the barbeque was over. Get there early!

Brunch Money

Two serves of bun cha, two spring rolls - 50,000VND (USD$2.90, AUD$3.50)

Bun Cha
48 Pham Hong Thai
Hanoi

Poor Man's Cakes

I know what food looks like because I've really been exposed to it. I take note of what goes in my piehole. I examine food flavours on my palate and savor them, mostly. In some lobe of my brain, a complicated classification process occurs, recording smells, textures and tastes. One category becomes the realm of my gag activator, where nasties are noted. These nasties are divided into two sub-categories: those I can get down, if I don't think too hard, in a one-chew, one-swallow manoeuvre and those I have to spit out or I'll park the tiger.

What I'm trying to say is that I've developed, as have you, prejudices and pre-conceived ideas about food. These can evolve into lifetime barriers; for many years an olive was a salty rubber bullet to me and I'm still not convinced about oysters au naturale. The Vietnamese, in general, think that cheese is stinking rancid crud.

So, in a similar vein, I've had my suspicions about these peanut-studded discs for some time. Dense white spongy looking stuff, while not posing much of a threat to the gag activator, does not promise the tastebuds much in my experience. The preconception here is bloody bland and boring. But in the interests of research I'm willing to give these cakes, called banh duc, a try.

They are made from rice flour which has been soaked in water (and lime, as in the mineral, according to the vendor). Boiled while being stirred constantly to remove lumps, the mixture is poured into moulds or shaped into rounds, some of which contain peanuts. When prepared by this vendor in the Old Quarter, the rounds are cut into pie pieces and served with tuong, a fermented brown sauce made from beancurd and peanuts. The fermentation gives the sauce a mild hint of alcohol. The fresh chili clipped in gives it heat. The sauce appears to hold all the potential with this dish.

And the verdict?

While I can't say "I told you so", I can say "I told myself so!" There's an element of silky nothing to it, I'm afraid. The sauce makes banh duc palatable. As a culinary episode, it gets the thumbs down. I will defend its importance in this still developing country's foodscape, however. Not everyone can afford to eat like me. The shoeshiners, coal-carters, fruit-vendors and less fortunates of this city have to eat, too. 
Banh duc is traditionally poor man's food. It also has its own proverb:

                    "May doi banh duc co suong, may doi di ghe lai thuong con chong"

...which is difficult to translate into English.

Loose Change

One serve of banh duc - 8,000-10,000VND (USD45-56c, AUD57-72c)

Banh Duc
Ta Hien St
(near the corner with Hang Bac St)
Old Quarter

Big Old Plate of Noodles

Truc Bach village lays on the eastern shores of the lake of the same name, not far from the Old Quarter.

John McCain dropped from his shot-down plane into this lake during the Vietnam War, got a bit tangled in his parachute and was manhandled away to a cell in the infamous 'Hanoi Hilton'. I'm pretty sure he didn't go in for a dip for old time's sake on his recent visit.

I doubt whether he ventured into the village to sample the local fare for lunch either. The senator would not have ordered a starter dish of the village's specialty, pho cuon, a fresh spring roll of beef, lettuce and herbs. He would not have ordered a bottle of the local brew, it's cap snap-popped off by the upside of another bottle. He would not have smoothed the foil around the bottle's neck and drunk from it. He would not have ordered a big old plate of noodles wreathed in coriander, crushed nuts and dried shallots, surrounded by cucumber, doused with a sweet and sour sauce containing beef and pork.

I wonder if Obama would've. I'd like to think he would, even with the secret service detail talking into their shirtsleeves, warning off the motorbike parking boys and the poor little lasses flogging cheap chewie. I'd like to think he'd buy a packet, perhaps even have his shoes shined while swigging the last of his beer.

I'm enjoying the thought of it.

Bail out

One serve pho cuon, one serve pho tron chua ngot, two Hanoi beers - 85,000VND (USD$4.80, AUD$6.65)

Pho Cuon Vinh Phong,
40 Ngu Xa Street
Truc Bach Village

A Sunday Soup

 

I gave up on leisurely Sunday morning breakfasts years ago. For me now, it's a motorcycle ride through stupefyingly frenetic traffic to some kind of noodle nosh purveyor, of which there are plenty to choose from as you might imagine. I have my favourites but every now and then I get bored with them. At such times, the motorcycling becomes aimless and I get channelled along the thoroughfares and narrow roadways of Hanoi by other road-users. It's a mad kind of masochism, breathing in dire doses of particulate matter, struggling to control the road rage within and defying death at every second turn.

But eventually I find a new noodle.

Last weekend, I ended up kerbside on the edge of the Old Quarter. A couple of thirty-something sisters operate this venture, where a version of the peasanty soup, bun rieu, is the single menu item. It's one of those robust noodle soups where almost anything goes, the common feature of each variation being the rich tomato crab broth.

The sisters - resplendent in spangly, dangerously high-heels, thick with make-up and eyebrows re-shaped for business luck - advertise a southern variant, bun rieu nam bo. I'm not sure if this is just clever marketing or in fact, true differences are apparent. The fresh white vermicelli (bun) is a standard ingredient along with the above-mentioned broth. In most Hanoi eateries of this type, customers tailor-make their soup by selecting pre-fried bite sized pieces of tofu, rare beef, blocks of congealed blood, mystery lengths of processed pork (nem) and/or knuckled joints of pig cartilage. Here, along with these, the sisters juggle a couple of very fishy fish balls into the mix.

I don't like them.

But I do love the aesthetics of the condiments at the table. The shredded green leaves, wedges of lime and the red spice containers allow further customising to taste.

So I have to fuss about a bit, squeezing and dotting stuff into the soup and scooping and flinging other stuff out. Waiting customers are breathing down my neck, invading my personal eating space, and the motorbike repair shop next door is a clanging, banging, rev-ving headache.

Nothing remotely leisurely about it!

Sunday Soup Money

Two bowls - 40,000VND (USD$2.30, AUD$3.30)

Bun Rieu Nam Bo
Cnr. Hang Bong & Phu Doan
Old Quarter
Hanoi

Eggy Herby Splendour

 

Really this here bit of blogfluff is the second part of a trilogy. It's the story of three dishes prominent on the Hanoi foodscape. Admittedly the scope of the work is hardly Tolkienesque - a few billion words short.

But no matter.

A crescendo of sorts will be forthcoming. It may manifest itself in a shower of vomit. There could be tears. Dutch courage will surely be my accomplice. For it is the third dish that I most fear, that I have been contemplating for seven years, that looms large and must be conquered. But my story is getting away from me. Let me get this bloody trilogy in order.

Back in 2005, I discovered a wayside stop on Yen Phu Street not far from where I live. A crudely erected shelter up on a platform from the road, this little morning and evening snack shop introduced me to a quirky fowl dish named ga tan. Unbeknownst to me at the time, in fact right up until I had a second glass of wine last night, that post about coke can birds was to become the first part of this trifling little blogpost trilogy. Read part one here.

Since that time, I've been a frequent patron at this table. The second snack offering here is an exotic omelette, also with medicinal properties. Ngai cuu (artemisia) is a slightly bitter bit of green, chopped roughly by the vendor and mixed in a little plastic mug with a couple of eggs and salt. The big pot containing the steaming soft drink cans is taken off the heat, replaced by a shot of oil in a frypan and my cup of eggy grassy juice. While this fizzes awaiting to be flipped, my dipping paste is combined in a small bowl, the ingredients magnificent in their simplicity: salt, pepper, a squeeze of cumquat juice and fresh chili.

At the same time, I'm nosing about on the vendor's side of proceedings, angling the camera for a shot of the cooking process. When my egg cake is turned over, I drool. I want it then and there. Lusciously golden, I can't believe I have to wait several more moments before I put this eggy herby splendour to my lips.

As I scoot around to my side of the table, I notice the plastic basin containing the waste produced by an hour or so of trade. I see my egg shells, fragmented and brown. I see two cans which not long ago housed birds and herbs. There are discarded cumquat skins, too.

But disquiet descends as I realise how many of another kind of egg shell are present, tinged with blue on the outside, ornate with webby, feathery capillaries imprinted on the inside. I put the thought out of my head.

I do enjoy my omelette I must say. It truly is a satisfying snack. Deep down I'm worried though.

Because all that remains on the menu for me now is that which I have shunned for seven years - trung vit lon, which sounds harmless enough until translated into English and you get embryonic duck egg!

I'm freaking ... but stay tuned.

Egg Bill

One omelette (trung ga ngai cuu) - 10,000VND (USD57c, AUD87c)

Ga Tan
88 Yen Phu St
Hanoi

Artful Bowl

 

Hanoi's cooling.

The tourists in town are still braving the conditions in t-shirts and shorts, making me shiver. I'm used to high humidity with my heat! In summer, the season that tourists generally avoid, the temperatures hit 40c and the wetness index is over 90%. It sucks. But after seven summers, I've learnt certain techniques to cool the perspiration on my brow.

And, indeed, under my armpits.

What transpires in the lead-up to the silly season is crisp dry days bookended with misty grey mornings and pollution-poisoned but brilliantly red sunsets.

Right now, for those of us who live here, the coats are on. A motorbike journey without one is mildly masochistic. The gloves, scarves and red-baron-esque helmet flaps for the ears are on standby, soon to be deployed. Winter is descending.

So today, I took myself off at lunchtime for a bowl of winter warmer.

Chao ga is rice porridge with chicken. In an alley in the shade, with an edgy wind at my back, the steaming porridge was poured over my selection of diced breast and scissored herbs. The feeling of warmth I experienced while anticipating the first mouthful was just like getting in front of the radiator in my pyjamas as a kid.

On top, more warmth was added in the guise of chili flakes, pepper and sharp white spring onion ends. When dragged about with the shell of my spoon, I have speckles of green and comets of chili.

A warm and edible Jackson Pollack in a chipped China bowl. 

The Bill

Two bowls of chao ga - 40,000VND (USD$2.35, AUD$3.50)

Chao Ga
Phat Loc Lane
Old Quarter

Oh-So-Good-Street Grill

My latest obsession is streetside bo nuong (grilled beef). Three times in the last ten days I've found myself loitering in Hang Cot Street at dinner time waiting for this one particular vendor to whack some furniture on the footpath. Ravenous, I assisted the process by looping the light bulb cord over the bough of a tree.

Lights on means open for business, I reckon.

This woman starts serving at seven, later than her competition so as to give the merchants in adjacent shops time to close up for the day before food detritus gets flung around their patch of ground.

We sat, the first customers. A number of trips were made to our table to deliver the equipment and ingredients to ready us for cooking. To quell my hunger and petty impatience, prawn crackers in perfect discs arrived first, accompanied by stubbies of Hanoi beer and a jugful of ice. A good time was clearly beginning on the right footing.

Plastic plates holding quartered lengths of cucumber and thickly sliced chunks of jicama were set down at the same time as our parrafin wax fueled cooker was being fired up. Dipping dishes, red plastic jugs of oil and chopsticks followed soon after. No main fare yet but the beer and crackers were getting a fine workover.

And the staff were running. They'd been slammed by three or four successive parties of arrivals, all making demands for this, that and the other. A couple of young local twenty-something women sitting close to the gutter had me intrigued. They had completely hijacked the entire staff, as if by some invisible power of persuasion. Each time one passed their table, another minor behest was issued, for vodka, for a different vodka, for a jug of ice, for water in that jug of ice...it went on. The fact that two young Vietnamese women were knocking back straight Hanoi Vodka in shot glasses without male company was a sight you don't see much around here. I immediately liked them. They were breaking the mould.

But they were hindering the delivery of my dinner.

Once they settled, the rest of us got our fill.

Of cow. Plateloads of it. Thinly sliced beef topped with spring onions comes on a cushion of white onions, carrots and tomatoes. Udder of cow (nam), pink and sloppy, comes as a side. All was grilled roadside with chopsticks before being shoved in bread rolls (banh my), which at meal's end, had added rolls of fat to my stomach.

Go there.

Beef Bill

Plates of beef and vegetables and udder, six Hanoi beers - 155,000VND (USD$9.55, AUD$11.40)

Ngoc Tuan Bo Nuong
47 Hang Cot Street
Old Quarter, Hanoi

Fish Porridge

Right at the beginning of the main tourist drag in Hanoi, Hang Bong, just up from a junction where half a dozen or more roads intersect, there's a little slot in the streetscape. Hardly noticeable amongst all the fashion boutiques, this crack is inhabited by a family purveying chao ca, or fish porridge.

The number one son is a jolly chap with bad teeth and an almost constantly lit fag in his hand or hanging from his lip, the ash from which, just by the law of averages, I'm sure has dropped once or twice into someone's porridge! He manages a handful of young relatives with ease - a nudge or a bit of banter enough to keep them on the job. Mother it seems has retired from active duty and, on the night of my visit, was dozing in a banana lounge on the footpath, completely oblivious to the mad and deafening cacophany of motors and horns shooting by. Occasionally she lifted the eyelids to wave patrons to a safe parking spot or to curtly direct one of the staff.

There is a simplicity to this dish that actually doesn't require much human intervention. Mother ain't moving anytime soon, that's for certain though she no doubt got the ball rolling earlier in the process. Broken rice is used in the making of chao. Water is added says number one son, only water. His wry smile does not convince me of this fact nor the actual flavour of the stuff once I got it to mouth, with a clear hint of seasoning or stock evident. Bland thick ricey water it was not! His reticence is either to guard the family recipe or an unspoken admission that Ajinomoto is involved.

Assembly is straightforward once the porridge has been stirred to the right consistency - essentially that of a nicely pureed soup. Flaked pre-cooked ca chep (carp) and chopped herbs are drowned in a large ladle of porridge and, to be honest, the product delivered to table resembles grey paint.

It is transformed by the sprinkle of chili powder and pepper and the stir of a spoon, revealing hidden colour and texture. A basket containing additional sprigs of hung que (Asian basil) and ngo gai (saw leaf herb) can be torn at and flung in the soup at the table. After almost six years in Vietnam, I'd begun to take the fantastic herbery for granted but this dish is a nice reminder of just how they can be used to complement and lift both flavour and appearance.

A fave since 2002 which still rates highly in the 2007 Hanoi foodscape.

Fish Fix

Two bowls, two serves of cha ca (fish cakes), two beers - 68,000VND (USD$4.80, AUD$5.10)

Doan Xom Chao Ca
213 Hang Bang
Hanoi

Salad Season

The mercury's up. Cooking is out of the question. Today, tossing together a salad would've put a bead of sweat on the brow.

So I didn't.

A bloke in the Old Quarter did it for me. He's got this souped-up little glass cabinet on wheels out front of his shop. It's loaded up with plastic plates, salad ingredients and bottles of liquid all ready for some kind of street food grand prix. He's set to take pole position when I pull up for some take-away salad, having had a brainwave to save myself from a sure-fire meltdown in the kitchen.

From under the bonnet of his cabinet, he tongs out a mess of shredded papaya and carrot, jamming it into clear take-away bags, on top of which Vietnam's fine green leaves are placed. I sense a healthy summer salad signal. Jenny Craig and Weightwatchers would approve.

Dried and cured beef is clipped finely with the scissors into another bag. Crushed peanuts, too. A third bag contains the dressing, a process which conjured up images of Professor Weirdo and his monster formula, the balancing of the flavours vital in its success. Fish sauce, soy sauce, water, lime juice, sugar and chili go in with effortless precision. He's done this before.

I've eaten this before. It's known as nom.

Right now, the nom bags are chilling in the fridge downstairs. I'm going to race down there, tip their contents into a bowl and fork them into my gob.

No sweat!

Bill
Two serves of nom - 30,000VND (USD$1.86, AUD$2.22)

Long Vi Dung
Nom Thit Bo Kho
107 Ma May
Old Quarter