Archive for May, 2009
Some pictures from Ha Long Bay, in the north of Vietnam. This place isn’t far from Hai Phong, and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It’s absolutely stunning and these pictures don’t do it justice at all.
There are caves on some of the islands, and we got into one. The shapes of the stalagmites were so organic it was eerie!
I’ve been up early most mornings and have gone for a walk around the lake (Hoan Kiem) that is near my hotel. Every morning the path that goes around the lake is full of people walking, streaching, doing Tai Chi, lifting weights and being social. Most of the sidewalks around the neighborhood are marked off in badmitten courts and at 6:00am most are set up and full of foursomes playing.
I love Vietnamese food, and Sunday morning I had an opportunity to take a cooking class here. The Old Hanoi restaurant offers a class every morning that starts with a walk to a nearby market where you buy some ingredients, and then you’re back to the restaurant to prepare (and eat) three or four dishes. I’ll cut to the chase – it was a blast, and the food we prepared was great.
The walk through the market was really interesting. You could find any kind of ingredient you’d ever need (and more) to prepare anything. There was a lot of seafood; crab, shrimp, squid, catfish, fish I didn’t recognize and so on. Plenty of meat, too, with pork, beef and chicken readily available.
Most often the meat was just a hunk sitting on a cuttingboard and you’d ask for an amount, say how you wanted it cut, and the vendor would do the rest. It was really impressive to see how thinly some of the meat was being sliced. The chickens, while defeathered, were otherwise whole.
As is often the case, everything from the animal was sold, so walking around we saw everything from hooves to brains. Spices and herbs were everywhere, too, along with fresh rice noodles, rice paper, and various sauces. We picked up a few things and headed back to the restaurant.
First we made a simple, but delicious, dipping sauce from warm water, fish sauce, rice vinegar, sugar, garlic and chili.
Next we were on to fried spring rolls – we had to chop and mix the ingredients, then prepare the rolls. Each pair of people had a little parafine burner (no sterno or gas here!) and a skillet with a bit of oil in which we fried the rolls. It was amazing how quickly the pans heated up – I had no idea that parafine burned with such heat!
The third dish was a Hanoi-style fish made from Snakehead fish. This is the fish that was introduced into the mid Atlantic region a few years ago that caused so much concern because it does not have any predators. Well, add us to the list as predators now. The fish was cut into bite-sized pieces, marinated in shreaded galangal, tumeric, fermented rice, oyster sauce, fish sauce and grilled. We also turned these into spring roll-like goodies with pinapple, cucumber, carrot, rice noodles, and a little onion. Yum!!
Both of these rolls really finely balanced a lot of different flavors. No one thing came blasting through, so you could really taste almost every ingredient. Amazing!
Next was a rice dish to accompany the rolls.
and then for dessert a sweet potato and ginger “pudding”. This was an interesting one, as much for the recipe as for the reaction of the others taking the class. The recipe was simple – cut sweet potato into 1/8″ – 1/4″ cubes, julianne the ginger, and boil until the sweet potato is soft. Then add, a bit at a time, tapiocia powder dissolved in water until it thickens. The flavor was delicious! The texture, on the other hand, was rather mucousinal.
There were six of us taking the class. I was joined by one of my fellow travelers; there were two young women from Australia holidaying in Vietnam, and a Brit (living and working in Saigon) whose sister was visiting. Between us, we covered three of the four corners of the globe. The Brits and the Yanks were a little more open than were the Aussies to new flavors and to seeing where our food came from. We all had a good time and came away with some new things to make at home.
I ended up back at the same restaurant for dinner last night and had a cinnamon beef that was stewed. Quite good. One of the guys with whom I’m travelling had a chicken dish that I’m going to have to make at home. It was simply cubed chicken that was wrapped in kafir lime leaves, skewered, and grilled. Served with lime, some of the dipping sauce, and rice it was a really flavorful dish.
Pagoda in the middle of Hoan Kiem Lake
Temple on Hoan Kiem Lake
Teacher – I’ll get his name next time I walk by!
Park near the Opera Metropol hotel
So here I am in Hanoi after a long, really long, flight from DC. Everything about the travel itself went well, so there’s not a lot to say about that. Hong Kong does have a new airport since I was last there (too many years ago) and it’s nice, but biiig.
We actually arrived Hanoi on Thursday night and after checking in to the hotel there wasn’t much left to do but crash, which I did. Friday had me up at 5:30, which was a little too early for my taste. Thats what it was, though. I had hoped to go walk the city a little but it was raining like mad. There was thunder, lightning, and rain just pouring down – streets were flooding and shops on the ground floor of the hotel were doing their best to keep out the water.
Around noon it began to let up and we walked the two blocks to our office to do some preliminary set up work for the rest of the day. No surprises to find that the staff in the place are great, friendly, and so on – no surprise, but still great to discover. After set up, we were back to the hotel to crash again. The jet lag is tough.
Today, though, it looks like there is a break in the rain. I’ll get some breakfast shortly, and try to head out for a walk with the camera to see what I can find.
Tired. Need to shower.
made it this far. one more stop!
And so I am going to Vietnam this month. The cab’s on the way. Next stop, Hanoi!