noodlepie

Gold-plated grub

There's an intriguing phrase I've heard in Vietnam on more than one occasion, "Foreigners shit gold". For those of us who've tried - and I know I have - but have never managed to conjure up so much as a single carat, the phrase is belittling. However, help is now at hand or was until a few weeks back...

A restaurant in Hanoi has been ordered to temporarily close, reports the Vietnam News, for lacing its grub with gold. The advertising spiel stated that, "food laced with gold would be good for people's health" Huh... what the... ?? The Health Ministry's Food Safety Department disagreed:

Gold is not on the Viet Nam Food Standardisation Commission’s list of nutrients and micro-nutrients needed to enrich the body, nor is it on the list of food spices under the standards issued by the commission and the Health Ministry.

Surprising.

According to restaurant owner Nguyen Phuong Anh, the practice of adding gold to food has been pursued for some time in other countries, including Japan, South Korea and China.

Ahhhh, the aphrodisiacally inclined nations... Is this another one of those 'I've got a bigger knob than you things'? A la snake penis whisky, bear bile, raw rabbit foetus etc.?? At least Phuong Anh puts his customer's health first,

"The human body can absorb a volume of 3mg of gold a day. We always advise customers to ingest only a moderate volume of gold."

Very sensible. However, just out of interest, is that true? Are you a metallurgist/biologist/blog reader? Can the human body absorb gold as in digest it as opposed to collecting it in a crevice somewhere for the sole purpose of screwing with the minds of the world's radiographers?

Second chance slogan

OK. Here's your big chance to make ammends for the last slogan contest that Vietnam held oooh... not 4 months ago. This time Vietnam Tourism are running the show and you've got until September 27th to come up with something that sticks.

“Logo and Slogan Design Contest for The National Tourism Action Programme for 2006 - 2010” is to draw attention of all Vietnamese and foreigners with the aim at selecting a unique slogan and logo for the new promotion and marketing campaign of Vietnam Tourism in the next phase.

The use of the adjective 'unique' is slightly misleading. They don't just want one slogan they want 20+

There will be 2 first prizes, 2 second prizes, 2 third prizes and 14 consolation prizes. Apart from the prizes for the finalists, the organizing board will also present “Logo/slogan of the week/month” awards for online entries received by Tourism Information Technology Center and for newspaper-based entries received by Vietnam Tourism Weekly.

Yup. Everyone's a winner baby. Before you rustle up your entry, you might like to scan through some of the many superb entries already submitted. I quickly zapped through of few of the nearly 400 up there so far and came up with a draft shortlist and suggested target markets. See below verbatim submissions:

Conservationists, botanists and geography teachers get a decent look in:

• Vietnam – A Lovely S Destination !
• Vietnam - attractive ecosystem
• Vietnam _ The marvellous bamboo.

Need cosmetic surgery? Alight here?

• Viet Nam-enlarging your eyes

The casual and familiar

• Been Here yet?
• Funny go and cheery comeback !

Sex tourism:

• Coming to feel
• Vietnam, deep inside
• Viet Nam , not only once you come .

Crime fiction market:

• Vietnam – More mysterious than what been told
• VietNam- Push your invetigation

Hippies, new age travellers and dogs on bits of string:

• Vietnam, a destination of all the trips
• Vietnam with millions speaking flowers!

For the charitable sector:

• Tourism of Viet Nam - has waited so long...!
• viet nam beauty from simples!

And finally for food fans:

• Vietnam - Sunk in Feast
• Vietnam - Feast in Feast

I think you'll agree it would be quite a challenge to improve on the excellent entries above, but if you think you can do better, drop your suggestion in the comment box and of course go enter the contest.

Bun Ta Noodle Restaurant

Spotted this the other day at 136 Nam Ky Khoi Nghia Street, District 1. It's located next door to uber-popular Quan An Ngon. Talk about setting yourself up for a stiff competition... Still, maybe they can grab those who can't find a seat at Quan An Ngon. They have a snazzy logo and what looks likely to be an attractive single storey restaurant. However, the website links go nowhere. Does anyone know anything more about this joint?

Vietnam blogs update

I just updated the Vietnam Blogs list. A few more folk contacted me over the past month and I've added them. Among those are a number of Vietnamese bloggers, mostly students.

If young Vietnamese take to blogging the way they have with chat, I have a feeling there'll be thousands of Vietnamese blogs by the end of 2006. Just not sure if the subject's getting any coverage in the youth rags and mags and importantly I dunno whether or not Vietnamese blogging software is free and/or widely available. For what it's worth, here's a thought I emailed to several other bloggers earlier this year:

I'm waiting for the day when some enterprising Vietnamese kid rips off my idea, does the same thing but in Vietnamese, hauls in a few advertisers to pay his way and blogs for a living. I reckon if they could write, take passable snaps and create a buzz in the local media they'd easily start to earn a minimum of $200 per month within 6 months {of blogging}. I'm sure it'll happen. The turf is ripe for the taking.

Vietnamese love food, love talking about food. $200 is a living wage here, hell a $100 is, especially if you're a streetfood blogger. Maybe there's a bunch of paranoid legal crap that could put a stop to it. However, if you're Vietnamese and you can write, take photos, and know a wee bit about marketing and can build up a decent sized readership, I reckon you'd be quids in. Nice job too.

4. Nuoc Mang Cau

Beverage: Nuoc Mang Cau/Guanabana Juice (Soursop Juice)

Ingredients: Water, 35% guanabana (soursop juice), sugar, citric acid

Appearance: Ooh... this chap looks like a ready to go Ricard only with a more viscous body. I like.

Aroma: I'm getting a 1970's punk-era cornershop sweetshop in Macclesfield, shelves behind the counter stacked with sweet jars. One kid in red bondage trousers is ordering a quarter of rhubarb & custards while his accomplice, decked out in a Siouxsie and the Banshees Happy House t-shirt, is stealthily nicking a bag of fizzbombs, a sherbert fountain and a pack of Chocolate flavoured HubbaBubba bubblegum.

Taste: Sits squarely in sweet territory, but fruity, syrupy sweet, not over sacharine yukko, barf, barf, sweet. The sheer thickness of the liquid is slightly off-putting. This might work better diluted with water, but it's the fruitiest quaff I've sampled thus far.

If this drink were a politician it would be... Kenneth Baker. A bit slimey.

Our survey said... 7 out of 10 points. That's 6 points for the promised-on-the-label 35% fruit goodness in a can and 0.5 bonus points because the name guanabana sounds like birdshit banana. I'll award a further 0.5 points as, by rights, soursop should be dictionary defined as:

Soursop - noun, derogative 1. That filthy soursop from Accounts stank the whole bleedin' place out. Someone who has just farted long and loud and without apology mid-way through an important meeting to discuss the relocation plans of a medium sized, Norwich-based, IT Consultancy. Non-farters present are commonly observed shuffling photocopied agendas, fondling cufflinks and checking PDAs. The soursop remains placid with a stoney expression that belies an inner feeling of immense relief.

Cost: 3,600VD or sod all.

3. Cola

Beverage: Cola

Ingredients: Co2 not less than 2g/l, sugar not less than 100g/l, color (caramel), acidity regulators (338), natural flavor, caffiene.

Appearance: Flat coke, tar black. Softdrink fizz factor is low. After a few minutes it's flatter than a witches tit.

Aroma: I put my Jilly Goolden head on for this and I'm sensing Northamptonshire industrial estate warehouse packaging materials circa 1988, plastic tubing probably guttering from a tacky mock tudor housing estate in Rochdale. I'm also getting strong overtones of that pinky, antiseptic, dentist mouthwash you have to swirl and spit as stylishly as you can manage in front of a demure, yet clothes shreddingly ravishing, dental assistant as she holds out a spitoon for you to cough up plaque, enamel, soggy toast and orange pips.

Taste: It's not the real thing, no sir. However, the taste is better than the industrial smell emanating from it. At the same time it does leave something resembling cleaning fluid coating your tongue and mouth walls. Nasty, dangerous cleaning fluid that is.

If this drink were a man-made structure it would be... Valley Plaza in Bakersfield, California. It's just a hunch, I could be wrong on that.

Our survey said... 1.82 industrial solvent manufacturers out of 10 mistook this drink for their own product.

Cost: 3,000VD is roughly 1.165 Faroe Islands Krone, 1.165 Greenland Krone or 1.165 Danish Krone.

2. Nuoc Yen Sao Khanh Hoa

Beverage: Nuoc Yen Sao Khanh Hoa/Khanh Hoa Salangine's Nest

Ingredients: Salangine's nest, pure sugar

Appearance: A cross between the milky way and frog spawn. Virtually clear, but with pockets of suspended 'fog'. Using my vast knowledge of the softdrink world, I suspect the fog suspension gang are the remnants of a part dissolved salangine's nest. After hours of extensive research I discover a salangine is a swift.

Aroma: Almost imperceptible, but there's a faint sweetness released upon swirling. I'm not getting so much as a whiff of any shit encrusted, stinking Salangine's nest.

Taste: Oooh gercha... that's sacharine sweet again. The fog droppings are surprisingly solid, like they shouldn't really be there at all. There's probably a few salangines in Khanh Hoa province who would chirp in agreement with that observation. Let's give it another shot... Slurp... No, nothing, just sweetness and part solids. In a word. Bollocks.

If this drink were a 1980's pop musician it would be... Howard Jones. Looks awful, sounds awful, just fuckin' awful.

Our survey said... 2.03 out of 10 feathery points. That's 1.02 points for the bonkers wierd bird's nest factor and 1.01 for fog solids appeal.

Cost: 8,500VD roughly 0.2938 Great British Pounds, 238 Armenia Dram or to put it simply 4.29 Macau Pataca.

My questions. Part 1 of a small series

Does anyone know where in Saigon I can buy an implement specifically designed to mash potato and/or other members of the root vegetable family?

Reader's questions. Part 1 of a small series

Top online chef Fraser of Blogjam fame asked me if this sedate footage of the ever peaceful, organised and well-mannered Saigon people commuting around town is normal. I told him it is. It's not really for me to say this, but what with that and this I reckon blogging the streetscene of Saigon is about as hardcore as it gets. Rock on me. If you're one of the few people who have not yet delved into Fraser's marvellous larder. May I suggest you start with this incredible creation.

1. Nuoc cu nang

Beverage: Nuoc cu nang/Chesnut drink

Ingredients: Water, chesnut, sugar

Appearance: One part particle physics laboratory, two parts peasouper fog a la London in the time of ace crime buster Sherlock Holmes. The motionless chesnut particles bring to mind images of an agitated, yet spookily calm millpond.

Aroma: Naked, of earth, yet tropical, clean and spiritual. Yes, this drink's got religion.

Taste: Sacharine sweet tree roots interwoven with those crunchy nut mid-beverage hanging particles. Drop the harsh artificial tasting sugar mouthmine and this tipple is well on the way to a health farm endorsement deal, sourcing a local yogi and teaching learned foragers a thing or two about nature's bounty.

If this drink were a TV show it would be... The Good Life. The sorta thing Tom and Barbara would rustle up after a hard day's composting.

Our survey said... 6.82 out of 10 organically grown, sustainably farmed, fibre providing points.

Cost: 3,600VD roughly 0.23 US dollars, 362 Vatican City Lira or 0.65 Lithuanian Litas.