A simple family meal

Amazing how the simple family meal in Vietnam can equal the best meal you can get in Vietnam. The food can be so much better sitting on the floor in a small dark family room in behind their road side business. It is nothing fancy but it busts with flavor that has been refined by years of cooking with simple but fresh local ingredients. All accompanied by the refrains of 'House of the rising sun' being played on a cell phone as the electricity is off in the area. A common occurrence in Vietnam, roving blackouts. As such no pictures of the delicious food we were served in the dark, the barbequed pork was perfect.

Countless meals made in millions of Vietnamese homes everyday and I have had the honor of being a guest to a few over the years and I am normally very impressed with what I have tasted. That is overlooking the raw duck blood dish I had the misfortune to taste in a village several years ago. Hard to spit it out when you are the guest of honor and they store watching you eat it. The must have noticed me turn a paler shade of white as I just about heaved.

The family we joined for lunch sells a banana based dessert from the front of their house in the evenings to passersby on the main road. Being on a noisy dirty high traffic road is a business opportunity that does not go to waste. The family assembles all the ingredients  bananas, coconut, rice and creates the dish from scratch.

The banana is wrapped in a mixture of shredded coconut and sticky Rice  then grilled over an open fire at their roadside stand. This would be hard to do at home as I have yet to taste a banana at home that tastes this intensely banana flavored, we truly miss out on the the real taste of bananas at home.

 

Another item they sell is a deep fried sweet bread made with all purpose flour and sesame seeds. The mixture is rolled out and deep fried into a sweet pita like bread. The final product was slightly crunchy on the outside and soft inside,  sightly sweet and oily a delicious treat.

 

Their stand is a simple home made item that looks like is going to collapse at anytime but it holds out and does the job. They place it tight next to the road in amongst the dirt and noise where it will be seen by the speeding traffic. They wait for some hungry motorist to stop and buy their treats. 

The banana treat was soft and sweet on the inside and slightly crunchy on the outside.