Tuoi Tre eats noodlepie

Hard on the heels of The Guardian is Vietnam's second largest newspaper Tuoi Tre. With a circulation of 400,000 it just sits behind the scandal sheet Cong An (think The Sun sans tits) in the circulation wars. It's a Vietnamese language only newspaper. World News Reporter Nguyen Thi Thanh Truc wrote a column about noodlepie. She tells me the paper is a "more serious" read than it's competitors. So, it's for brainy folk then? Welcome to anyone who read the piece. I had no idea that I'd wake up to 22,000 extra hits on the blog. Or that any Vietnamese folk would be in the slightest bit interested in what I have to say about their/your/our food. Pleased, but embarrassed. If you've got tips, please place them gently in the comments box. And if you tried to email/IM me I will get back to you, if I haven't already. Meanwhile, Thanh Truc has promised me a tour of the Tuoi Tre Saigon bureau. I do like newsrooms. Will be fascinating to compare the Vietnamese version with the British. Hope to blog about it.

Comments

[msnguyen]

I was once featured on Tuổi Trẻ back in the day that they haven't had a fare of online spread (1998). Mann, the reporter truly distorted and omitted my verbatim and then added on with a few exaggerations on his own of what I quote. It was funny reading the things I didn't say but was printed as mine. I hope it didn't happen to you.

Nonetheless, it was cool to be on one of their features back then, I got a lot of fan mails afterward...if it were the popular era of internet and email, I could have received thousands of hits per day like you do.

Congrats on being a Viet celeb!!!

[pieman]

The thrust of the article is not quite where I'm coming from - I am not promoting Vietnam tourism. The food yes, but only by dint of it being my hobby, but that's not the design. Now, if one of those tourism agencies I'm supposed to be helping promote want's to pay handsomely for advertising in these parts... Bloody email me !

[pieman]

In fact - if you're interested here's the emailed Q&A. I met the reporter after this exchange,

About yourself:
- How long have you been in Vietnam?

On and off for 8 or 9 years.

- How many Asian countries have you visited?

About ten I think.

Why choosing Saigon as your base?

Predominantly because my wife's job is here, but also because Saigon is home to the best food in Vietnam, in my opinion, and some of the best food in SE Asia.

Why Vietnamese scoff & swill, not Thai or Korean?

Well, errr.... because I live in Vietnam... However, I do blog about the Korean, Japanese, Western and other restaurants in Saigon. I blog about anything to do with food in Vietnam, although I do focus specifically on Saigon.

- How many provinces in Vietnam have you visited?

I don't know for sure, but I have travelled very widely in Vietnam. From Phu Quoc to the border with China, by air, by car, by train and motorbike. I have journeyed the length of Vietnam several times.

Which is your favorite?

No specific favourite provinces. I do have a soft spot for Phu Quoc as it's so peaceful after the madness of Saigon. I love being in the mountains in northern Vietnam. Some of my happiest memories are of touring with my wife on a motorbike in northern Vietnam. The area around Sapa is stunning, but I also enjoy going to Ba Vi and Tam Dao which are both easily accessible from Hanoi. However, I think my favourite places are at street stalls in Saigon where all the good food is, and all the life.

- How about that book deal? You wrote you’d select something in the region of 40 or 50 class 'A' street vendors, learned more about their lives, their speciality dishes,...How’s the project going?

At the moment I'm keeping everything on the blog. To do a book you need a lot of time, passion and some money. If I do a book, it has to be exactly the way I want to do it and that's not easy to achieve as most publishers are very fixed about how books appear and how they are marketed. Saigon street food is an incredibly niche topic and not easy to attract the right publisher with enough money to do it properly. For now I am happy with the blog. I have talked to several literary agents in the UK, but nothing interesting has come of it so far.

- Can you speak Vietnamese?

Badly I'm embarrassed to say. I can get by with food, directions, numbers, a few swear words, just the basics really. I haven't studied the language. I just picked bits up here and there over the years.

Who did the translation of the food name for you?

Mostly by me as most street stalls and menus have the food in Vietnamese, so I just make a note of the names. Plus, I have been eating Vietnamese food almost every day for nearly ten years so I know what most of the dishes are pretty well by now. If I do see something new, something I've never tried before I make a point of trying it. Although, I must say it's getting harder and harder to find things I haven't already tried.

- Have you had any problem trying some “new” Vietnamese food?

Not sure what you mean by 'new'. A few dishes put me off, Tiet Canh, Trung Vit Lon, Thit Cho, Thit Ran but I never say never. I have eaten Tiet Canh in Hanoi, but it tasted metallic, it wasn't a taste sensation at all. I can't really see the appeal of that dish. As for snake, I've had that five or six times. It's more of an occasion than enjoyable food. I mean snake doesn't taste that good as a meat.

- In what district are you living? What is your routine?
- Your most favorite Vietnamese food and drink?

Ooh... Too many to choose from. Of the noodle soups, it would have to be Bun Mam - it's fabulous, deep and salty, packed with goodness, a real muddy flood of a soup. There's one woman in district 10 who has a small stall in a tiny wee market. She's been making and selling this one dish for 26 years in the same place. I visit her stall a lot. She makes the best I've found.

Bun Cha is my absolute favourite northern dish. The best version I've found is at 20 Ta Hien street in Hanoi. Although I used to regularly eat at an excellent small stall run by twin sisters next to a tree on Phung Hung street also in Hanoi. Thankfully, there are some excellent Bun cha restaurants in Saigon. Although, it's never 'quite' the same as in Hanoi.

But I think if I had to choose just one dish it would be Banh Trang Phoi Suong. It's so simple, yet impossible to replicate outside Vietnam, even outside the south of Vietnam. It's also very light and incredibly tasty. The herb selection with this dish is incredible.

To be honest I like so many Vietnamese dishes from Banh mi bi, banh xeo, canh chua ca, hu tieu, bo la lot, chao tom, bun oc, oc len xao dua... it's a very, very, very long list...

As for drink. In Hanoi I love a good bia hoi at the bottom of Phan Chu Trinh street. In Saigon it has to be Mia da or even a simple tra da.

- Describe yourself in less than 10 words.

About noodlepie.com:
- When did you create it?

April 2004
Who was the first visitor?

No idea. Probably a guy called FatMan Seoul who used to write a fantastic blog from Seoul in South Korea - http://fatman-seoul.blogspot.com/ He's become a friend over the past two years.

What was the first comment?

I honestly don't know. There have been over 4,000 of them.

- Noodlepie.com has gained you a lot of “finalist” titles. What criteria for entering those final rounds?

Blogs in blog competitions are nominated by readers and other bloggers. The Bloggies is the most well known, like the Blog Oscars. I've been a finalist in that two years running. Never won though :)

- How many people have visited your blog so far?

I don't know for sure, but well over a million, nearer 2 million. I get 70,000 hits per month.

Do you know who are the major visitors? (from Vietnam, or from other countries)

Apparently the blog is quite popular in California :) I think Vietnamese immigrants miss the food from Vietnam and the blog helps. There are a lot of readers from the US. Strangely enough, I don't think the blog is so well known in Vietnam, although it seems to be getting more popular. Some people tell me they prefer to read the blog and visit places I recommend rather than places the local magazines suggest. You never see a bad restaurant review in the local press. If I go somewhere and it's bad I'll say so. One of the strongest reactions I had on the blog was for a very expensive Vietnamese restaurant in district 1. I thought it was terrible and incredibly overpriced and so I blogged about it. I got a lot of people adding comments in agreement.

- How many people have emailed you to ask for help before coming to Vietnam?

No idea. A lot. Hundreds.

What are the most common questions?

About the weather, recommended hotels and my favourite places to eat on the street.

Do you get them all answered?

I try, but sometimes I can't answer to everyone. Now, I only make a point of answering if someone has a very, very specific question.

How are the feedbacks?

Don't know what you mean. Positive? negative? The feeback in that sense is overwhelmingly positive. Do you mean Comments? Like I said earlier, I've had over 4,000 comments.

- What do you suggest visitors do and eat in Vietnam when they ask for your advice?

Now I just refer them to this page with some personal highlights:
http://www.noodlepie.com/blog/2005/11/top_saigon.html
I don't have time to reply to individual questions like this.

Others:
- We are running a campaign to promote Vietnam’s image. In your POV, what makes Vietnam win the hearts of tourists? Koreans have their Korean movies, Japanese have their manga campaign. What do you think Vietnamese have and should promote?

Personally, and this just my subjective opinion, Vietnam's greatest asset, especially in Saigon is the street food scene. Good food is everywhere in Saigon and everybody has an opinion on what is and is not good and why it is or is not good. Vietnam can't compete with Thailand for beaches. It can't compete with Cambodia for ancient monuments and it can't compete with Laos for peace and quiet. It absolutely can compete with all regional neighbours on food, IMO. Although, I would say, much as I like Saigon's food scene, Bangkok has probably the best scene in SE Asia for street food, if not the world. Saigon is a close second :)

- You keep eyes on many Vietnam slogan contests (seems more than I do). Any comment about the latest one (Vietnam – The Hidden charm)?

Well, it's a damned sight better than most of the garbage that was suggested. About 98% of suggestions in the competitions I've followed were utterly abysmal. Really, really embarrassingly bad.

Do you have your own slogan?

No, but I know a bad slogan when I see one.

- Tell me a bit about the We Media global forum. How were you selected to the forum? What was it about?

It was about how mainstream media outlets (newspapers, TV, radio) are changing with the influence, and massive growth, of blogs, podcasts, videocasts and so called 'citizen journalism'. People are no longer just consumers of media, they are creating their own media. The internet makes that easy for everyone. The entry costs are so low, anyone can blog or podcast now regardless of whether you live in San Diego or Saigon. Blogs also allow a two way 'conversation' to take place, via the comments box. This is something newspapers are only just getting to grips with. Free blogging tools like Blogger - www.blogger.com - mean that anyone reading your article in Tuoi Tre can go away and start their own blog within a few minutes of putting the newspaper down. I have no idea why blogs have not taken off in Vietnam when they are so popular in China and elsewhere in Asia.

- Is it possible to meet you once?

Sure, let me know when's good.

[matt]

Vietnamese newsrooms are strangely littered by empty white envelopes...

[pieman]

Shocking. They might think about using what was inside the envelopes to pay for the cleaners.

[Adam]

Congrats, Pieman. You either mentioned in a post at some point (or maybe I just assumed) that you weren't widely read within Vietnam. Good to see you getting some attention from within the country. Well deserved and long overdue.