noodlepie

Slurp Saigon

I've set myself what could well turn out to be an unenviable task. A vast Vietnamese canned softdrink review. If it's soft, as in the not fall over, talk crap, puke in the gutter hard variety of alcohol powered drink, I'm gonna buy it, try it and blog it. There's a whoppin' great assortment available. Noodlefridge is already chockfull with some of the unlikeliest sounding drinks I've ever come across. If you've got any soft slurp stories, drinks to try, drinks to avoid, serving suggestions etc. drop a comment.

Chemical soup

We've had bad and very good Hu tieu before and now we have a MSG overloaded version on the streets of District 1. I find a mobile seller of this pork noodle soup outside 15B-5 Le Thanh Ton Street in District 1. She says she sells from here mid-morning every day. She's quite the friendly seller who mistakes me for another Ong tay noodle muncher. Oh well we all look the same, ehh? I pull up a pew next to the orange seller who's busy gobbling back a 5,000VD mid-morning bite and watch as my take away order is put together.

The difference from previous Hu tieu and this one is that this flogger uses a pork sliver/pig's blood carnivorous combo. No liver, no prawns and thicker noodles. Oh and there's that MSG hit. I always know I've had way too much of that when I get a machine gun buzz down my spine and feel a bit off-kilter for the rest of the day. It's quite the chemical thrill, but not for everday consumption. More snaps from her stall at this tagged photostream. Here's a recipe for Hu tiu or Hu tieu whichever spelling takes your fancy.

Buy or bugger off

Rant, rant, rant... I'm sure it all stems from one very popular guidebook's advice about bargaining in Vietnam. I dunno, but it must come from somewhere. Yesterday I saw the same thing repeated three times within half an hour.

I was in the backpacker district of De Tham and Bui Vien Streets scoring a set of Fawlty Towers DVDs - a rare find in Vietnam - While searching through the alphabetized trays I heard three customers, one after the other, attempting to bargain over an amount of cash so small no-one's minted a coin for it yet.

In Saigon, and especially where 99.9% of backpackers hang out, the price is the price is the price. Period. Stop squabbling over pence, shilling, cents and dong and annoying the phuc out of the vendor. Just buy whatever third rate, illegal, counterfeit crap it is you're so eager to hustle endlessly over or just bugger off.

The seller, who puts up with conversations like yours 100 times a day, every day, isn't out to stiff you. As most of them sit on a plot of turf worth around $1,000,000, they really don't give an elephant-sized toss about the scraps you fervently fret over.

Dumb attempts at shaving an amount of cash, so miniscule a Belarussian beggar would choke with laughter seeing it tossed into his cloth cap, off a dodgy DVD annoy the hell out of me. I can't quite imagine how the retailer must feel. Rant, rant, rant... over.

Ly Club, 51 Ly Thai To Street, Hanoi

"The first thing you notice when you walk into Ly Club is not the sumptuous decor, with richly coloured divans, sofas, and armchairs snuggled around elegantly set tables, nor is it the piano player or her accompanying violinist. It’s the smell of fresh flowers. As the door to the villa opens, a fragrant, air-conditioned breeze consumes you and you fall into a deep relaxation. Luckily, you can immediately fling yourself onto one of the many, and might I say impressive, seating options, as no two tables look alike. For those who like a straight, formal chair, there are a few of those around, but Ly Club is all about lounging. Go with it," reports Alyssa Worsham in the Vietnam News. Snaps by Viet Thanh.

Off street excursion

The Mandarine is an upscale Vietnamese restaurant located down a small alley at 11A Ngo Van Nam Street in District 1. I had dinner there for the first time yesterday. Brett Martin was on his last night in Saigon for Bon Appetit Magazine and he wanted to compare the streetfood scene, which I think he's become quite a fan of, with the pricier end of the Vietnamese spectrum. He very kindly invited noodlegirl and myself along for a nibble. The Mandarine won the local Best Fine Dining Award in 2001 from The Guide (popular local English language adsheet). It describes itself as 'Fine Vietnamese dining in traditional style'. Actually I'm not sure if it's called Mandarin or Mandarine, but I'm going with the sign above, not the back of the business card or the local press.

$200 bought us the biggest load of bollocks I've yet to see on a table in Vietnam. Let me rephrase that - The good people at Bon Appetit Magazine spent $200 on a crock of shit that masqueraded itself as 'fine dining' last night. It was bad. It was very bad. The tamarind crab was the only vaguely acceptable dish, but there's better, much better of that ilk elsewhere in this town. I'm not gonna go into the details of every dish and wotnot, but in over a year of blogging at noodlepie I've yet to totally slam a restaurant, a dish or a street hawker. This is the first time. Please take your wallet elsewhere. Any one of the places listed below is a far, far better choice.

• Banh xeo
• Ngu Vien
• Cha Ca la Vong
• Bun Cha
• Crab shack
• KFC

Have you tried the Mandarine? What did you think? Comments please. I really am shocked that they can get away with such amateur food and slapdash service at the prices they charge. And the restaurant was full. On a positive note, it's potentially great for Brett's story. If not for the Mandarine. This blog gets the odd few thousand readers, but Bon Appetit gets around 2 million plus.

Food aside, we had a good time. I told Brett to swing by Pieman Towers at 8:30am the following morning to make up for the shoddy dinner. I took him down the street to the stall you can see above for a little bowl of Saigon magic. As a result, Brett's last food experience in Vietnam was also one of his best. Here's the Mandarine business card and directions. Avoid.

Top shelf Saigon

I'm no photographer, but there's maybe four photos at noodlepie that I really like and this is the latest. I took it yesterday at the Banh cuon stall (no. 1006) on Ben Thanh market. It's just one of the many spots I dropped by on a zappy tour around town with Brooklyn based hack Brett Martin this week. Brett writes for some seriously fancy titles; Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, GQ, Esquire, Food & Wine etc. He's in town for Bon Appetit Magazine to put together a feature about the Saigon scoffscene. We've been having alotta fun eating alotta food. Respect to Brett - he got stuck straight into the streetscene, no messin', and has ducked out on nothing thus far with three days left to go. Whenever his feature hits the newsagents, I'm sure it'll be a riproaring yarn. If you want a very small preview of a very small part of what's been digested, take a peek at this photostream. I'll add more as and when.

Tassili Restaurant, 78 Ma May, Ha Noi

"A young Vietnamese chef and an elderly French baker serve nothing but quality at Ha Noi’s Algerian restaurant Tassili. John Loizou discovers the secrets to their success." From the Vietnam News. Snaps by Truong Vi. Lamb couscous and Lentil soup are unusual scores in Hanoi and I've never heard of a Pizza Atomica. Could be worth a sniff.

Guardian goes gutter

I wrote a brief column for the rather good G2 section of the not bad at all Guardian Newspaper based in the jolly nice, but, phew it ain't 'alf parky UK today. It's about streetfood in Saigon. It's short, it's sweet and it sums up a few things we often natter about here at noodlepie. Buy your copy today, slip a healthy haddock and chips inside, slap in a whacking great whollop of salt 'n' ningar and it could well be the wisest purchase you Brit readers make all day.

What's chic on the street?

In need of someone to dissect the dazzling world of fashion in Saigon, I called upon the only person I know fit for this Special Correspondent assignment, Chanel Skidmark. Chanel is based in Nuuk, the capital of Greenland. She works as a PR for Greenland Tourism and as Fashion Editor/Adviser here at noodlepie. So, what's hot with the hip and hip with the hot on the Saigon streets this summer?

If I had to use one word to describe the Saigon streetscene it'd be 'streetchic pyjama casual' That's actually three words, but this is the fashionosphere and I can express myself in an annoying manner if I please. And I do. Moreover, in Greenland we speak Eskimo, Danish and Greenlandic and have three words for every one of yours.

This season's Silver Classics collection is informed, hardy and replete with rough hewn fabrics that breathe a subdued yet authoritative air much like the clean, crisp, cfc free air of Greenland. Pensioners Kylie and Latoya, seen pictured right, stride the streets with a confidence that only age, experience and a robust pair of pyjamas can give. It's a look that says, "Greenland is the world's largest island. It's three times the size of Texas, but with a population of less than 60,000." It's the kind of tough street image you need to survive in a dangerous city like Saigon. Nuuk is crime free, Greenlanders are very friendly and enjoy folksong and weaving. Dunno about you, but I think Kylie and Latoya look as snug as a Sisimiut shepherd grunting behind the clenched rear end of an accomodating West Greenland Musk Ox.

Sherry, pictured left, is from Bristol. Her cream eating pet tarantula's called Harvey hence her name. Sherry's straddling a scooter powered by pure walrus gas piped direct from Greenland. Shades of seaside deckchair are set off by 1970's curtain fabric influences resulting in something that aspires to world famous handwoven Greenlandic polar knitwear but ends up screaming "off-gherkins". The addition of a sunshine beach hat, while an inspired choice of city wear, gives Sherry something of a two fuel rods short of a nuclear power station industrial feel. Greenland uses a combination of gannet guana and methane produced from sustainable elk herds to heat our beautiful towns and villages. The Sherry look is a brave one that yearns to say, "I'm in command of my scooter" but ends up saying "Greenland's Inuit miorities traverse the perilous, yet captivating glacial tundra of this beguiling land on horseback to sell waxed oxen hair door to door."

The buzz on the swanky streets of Qaanaaq is crackling with one word this season; moose, muuse, moushe. Greenlanders have a love affair with moose hide and with tourists too. Book your holiday before the end of June and get 25% off all hotels and a complimentary moosemeat steak diane thrown in. Moose-hide has yet to trickle on to the Saigon streets. Ferrari red, floral motifs and go-faster stripes seem to be the standard street pattern. But I don't think it's working for Krystal, who we can see sashaying through the market looking for raddish, a bag of spuds and premium quality dried squid imported from Greenland. The whizzbang stripes that cut across her red 80% polyester, 20% cottton combo accentuate her inquiring look while simultaneously begging the question, "Can I see inside your ingenious geodesic igloo-esque living quarters?"

Finally we have Floramarina. She's modelling a black two-piece consisting of Stanley Matthews style panties combined with a sheer satin top. This get-up would be a guaranteed nipple sharpener for Greenland's all-female Olympic medal winning dog sleigh team... brrr... No way you'll find this slutty slip on bustling Nuuk fish market. Greenlandic women are renowned for going at it like a pneumatic drill between the reindeer skins. However, they prefer a more conservative outward appearance when shopping for the week's supply of delicious locally produced dried halibut and roast puffin. Floramarina boasts a vigorous look that says, "What with the excitement of a 3 nights/4 days all inclusive deal at the Hotel Sisimiut I completely forgot to put my clothes on. Ooh... and I think I just wet myself."

Many thanks to Chanel Skidmark for her analysis of Saigon fashionistas. I certainly learned a lot and I hope you did too. Is Vietnam the only country that boasts a streetchic pyjama casual look? Quite possibly. Chanel has promised to look into the unbelievable yet true story behind the gravity defying male Vietnamese side parting for a future edition of Special Correspondent.

Blue shirt broth

This streetcart peddlar doles out a steamy lunchtime Canh bun on the junction of Thi Sach and Cao Ba Quat streets in District 1. We've covered this dish before on Nguyen Binh Khiem street and the only major difference I can spot is the price. Boxed up and ready to ship back to Pieman Towers this broth costs 4,000 big ones. My previous encounter was one whole thousand dong more. What I like about this cart is her location.

She's clearly got the government worker trade sown up. She plonks her cart between a large telecommunications office and the Southern Hydropower Joint Stock Company. Both are packed with hungry blue shirts looking for a cheap, nutritious score not too far from their desk.

The youth are in on the action too on the kerbside nursery school set up. If it's good enough for grandma, it's good enough for them. Freakin' right. The main vat pictured below is filled with tofu, crabmeat and conjealed pig's blood, the smaller pan is the noodle cooker. I defy you to walk past this vat and not stump up for a taste. It's not the greatest soup in Saigon, but it's a rather good one.

I reckon if some enterprising Vietnamese immigrant to the UK decked herself out in ethnic conehead gear and served this from an authentic streetcart in Birmingham city centre she'd make a bundle. What with this gem and my banh mi pate streetcart collective idea, I reckon noodlepie is becoming quite the business consulting blog. Within less than one minute's walk from this cart you can also score banh mi, banh mi thit heo nuong, goat curry and KFC.

UPDATE: On some days she sells Bun bo. See this photostream.

NB: Googling around for a suitable Birmingham city centre picture link I discovered that there is an 'International Council of Shopping Centres' and they have been giving awards since 1977. Amazing. So tell me, is you're shopping centre on the list of finalists for 2005? Should it be? Why? Give reasons, examine and discuss.