District 1 sights and food delights

This is from the same day we went to the bakery I wrote about but I wanted to separate the day so here is some of the sights and food delights around District 1 and at a market in another district we visited.



The famous Ben Thanh Market

 

 

 

Soup is on 

 

Need your shoe repaired?

 

Dried shrimp for sale

Four weddings and no funerals





Part of trip is about family and hounoring the connections that are so important to Vietnamese culture. We came to Ho Chi Minh first this trip to attend a family wedding and to see the various extended family that remains very close even across the devide that separates us from them in Canada. Of course my eye is always on the food and cultural experince that occasions like this provide an outsider like me.

 

      The main dish was Bo Kho (sp?) which I did not capture but did eat

 

 

 First to the name of the post, it is a take on the movie of a simular name as the church wedding was a bit different than I am use to and of course there was not furneral. At the church it was a bit of an assembly line with four weddings being done in one shot. No single spot light here for the bride, there was three other brides doing the same thing at the same time. Kind of "I do" repeated eight times in a row with wedding handers, photographers, videographers, witnesses and priest crowded into the event. I tried to take a few photos but it was a confusing scene of movement and action to get all the weddings done.

 

My reason for the post was to show some of the food we had after the event back at the house; catered for the event and brought to the home to eat.



 

 

Where Vietnam beats the McMeal

Go anywhere at lunch time and you can find a small hole in the wall restaurant serving precooked dishes that are the ultimate in fast food. Quick and tasty is the trade mark of a busy small restaurant as to not meet that requirement is to perish as there is competition all around. We walked about 5 minutes from our hotel to find a great place to eat.

 

From the outside it is not much to look at and the inside not much different but as we were here for the food not the ambiance it was OK. The food is pre-cooked then placed in a glass case at the front for the customer to see before they buy. No whimpy  re-fridgation or four hour hold time; this food sits in the heat of the day until sold. Totally unsafe and so delicious it is worth the investment in anti-diarrhea meds just in case. I have to say I have been very lucky eating at these places and have profited from the risk. 



Like a small Scotch egg

I find I want to try everything that I see in the display but know it will be impossible as the food is filling. We order the items we want and they come on a plate of rice. A bowl of soup comes with the order along with any sauces that are needed. Digging in is always a delight as we get to taste the particular flavors of the cook. The place was a good one with a talented cook making tasty favorites.

Home business

Just about everywhere you travel here you see people making a living where they live rather than traveling to another place to conduct business. Home sometimes a small room at the back of a low profit business or a large fancy home behind a profitable business. The separation work and home life is only slowly occurring with those few Rich people who can effort to have two places or those working for someone else. 

Some homes are more factory than home,with children playing in among the business tools and the dinner table. And yes we were eating during these photos but we were just having Vietnamese sandwiches as we met with family.

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.  

Revisiting another favorite eating spot down town

In district 1, the tourist area, we have a place that we found many years ago

Nhu Lan bakery more info‎ 64 Hàm Nghi, Bến Thành, Quận 1 

 It is a bakery but a lot more as it has a full menu sit down restaurant and sells other items that you do not normally find in a bakery. The set up is off sales booths around the outside of the place and restaurant seating in the middle. Not fancy but a good place to get out of the sun and enjoy some good food. It is not a tourist place but you do see a few in there trying out the the food.

 As you can see they do have bakery items for sale and they seem to do a brisk business with the local people lining up to take stuff home. They have various stations making and selling food to the customers on the street and for the orders from the restaurant. It is a great way to see your food being prepared (some is done in the back kitchen) or at least to watch the selling of food from the vendors point of view.

 We had just had a snack at a coffee shop but once we saw the place we had to go in and eat. When we are Vietnam and we find something we want to eat we tend to get hungry no matter what.

 We started off with a couple of fresh salad rolls that were deliciously crunchy and tasted great. Nothing surprising here, just well made Vietnamese staples.

 Next some barbequed pork that was being cut up right behind me, great way to make a customer want some. The look and smell was selling it; even the sound of the chopping was making me hungry for a taste.

I have to say that it was good but I have had better a a couple of east Vancouver Chinese shops. It had all the important BBQ points covered; but it was not quite as strongly flavored as back home.

 Next for me was a bowl of Banh Canh Cua that was tasty with crab and shrimp. The noodles were perfect and everything satisfying to the palate. It did remind me of the best bowl I ever had of this soup. It was a tiny place run by a woman that had only two soups on the menu; the whole menu was the two soups. She had only the two dishes but they were excellent. I was a daily stop for me for about a week when my wife was away doing business. The place was gone the last time I was here and I miss the food and the friendly service.

 My wife had roasted chicken with rice, flavorful with a soya based dipping sauce.

Views of the various items for sale, would have gladly tasted them all. W had wanted some of the barbequed duck but they kept selling out as there was a line up outside the restaurant waiting for every scrap.

 Pizza










The view from outside

Went back to this buffet for New Years day dinner. The place is still a stunningly beautiful park like restaurant that is a great introduction to the food of all Vietnam. I have posted about this place before so i will just say it is still a place that I recommend to those that want to taste some of the regional food without having to travel all of Vietnam.

Binh Quoi 1 Tourist Resort 08 3556 5891 1147 Bình Quới, Phường 28, Bình Thạnh, Hồ Chí Minh