noodlepie

Binh Quoi pig out

Binh Quoi 1 Tourist Village is a big time outdoor riverside hangout for weekend scoffers. It's a wee bit of a trek out from the centre of town to Binh Thanh District - about 20-30 minutes depending on traffic - and you're not gonna find gourmet grub at the numerous stalls, stands and serving areas dotted around this green acres site. But after paying your 89,000VD entrance fee and receiving a 'fee paid' sticker on your lapel you're free to roam, chew and slurp on whatever takes your fancy.

The seating has that rustic lo-rise bamboo theme goin' on. There are two central huts, one with the grilled grub, rice, soups, porridges and rice paper wrap numbers. The other hut has the plates and bowls. It's a serve yourself buffet deal. Dotted around the central stand are ten or twelve individual stalls all concentrating on just one or two dishes. There are also a couple of stalls right on the waterfront. You do have to pay extra for drinks. There's the usual beer and coke and a sniffta of buzzmungusly rough ruou is sure to take the enamel off your teeth and put a tiger in your tank.

This is one of the first dishes you'll come across as you enter from the car park. It's a hollow puffed up rice ball skillfully made by deep frying and manipulating a wodge of rice paste in a very hot wok. it's chopped up and served as snack scoff on a plate and tastes not unlike the rice section of a Banh Tet. Very greasy. If you're interested I filmed the rice sphere chef massaging one of his balls in hot oil. It takes a little over a minute of gentle tossing to swell his ball to the size you see above. Quite a handful, no?

Here's one of the snail sellers. Apologies for less than clear images, nightime and my digital camera are still having issues with each other.

The soup selection is meagre considering the range on offer on the streets. However Binh Quoi does say it offers only "40 pure and primitive dishes of the south". Here's a Bun mam vat and behind here there's a woman doling out Bun rieu.

You'll also find Banh xeo, Banh khot, Banh beo and Banh cuon on some of the smaller stalls. Above we have one chef about to reveal her rice flour pancake, steamy hot and ready to fill with minced pork and dip in nuoc mam (fish sauce).

There you go. Not easy this business, not easy at all. Take a look at the mini-video I shot on Ben Thanh market a while back to see how tricky it is getting this beast out of the steamer.

The grill section has unexciting pork, beef and chicken kebabs. You can also snag a grilled rat or two. Above is the grilled rat. It's rather bony and tasteless. All a bit fiddly really. While you might impress the crap out of your mates by eating this, you won't enjoy it. In fact you probably won't enjoy an awful lot at Binh Quoi. I first came here a few years ago and I remember it being quite good, although not great. The location is certainly fun and family friendly, there's plenty of clean green grass space for the kids to run around, but the food is patchy at best. That said, I'd still recommend it, just not sure why...

The cake lady

Our next pew down the local market finds us with the Cake lady. Here we're talking Banh khot (sometimes called Banh can). They're small, sweet, savoury pancakes made from ground rice mixed with water to make a batter and in this case some corn is added. They're normally dipped in nuoc mam (fish sauce) and gob-popped within a few minutes of exiting the pan. Leave them too long, or take an extra bag home as we did, and you've got nothing but soggy, no-fun scraps. Speed is of the essence with Banh khot. She's a seven days a week stallholder and, much like the banana griller we got stuck into recently, you'll need to book your cake ahead of scofftime. Alternatively, if you're shopped out, like us, sit stallside, listen to your battered snacks sizzling from the two burners on the go, have a natter and wait your turn.

She sets up stall in front of her house, next to a Bun Bo Hue seller, at the very far end of the market. It's popular with the youth. We're here for a good ten minutes and there's not a codger in sight. Each burner cooks eight Banh khot, but one portion consists of five cakes. You can also ask for a mini-plate of greens and herbs to perform a cake-wrap, if that's your thing. We opt for straight cakes, chilled via the fish sauce bowl. I was a little too eager to get stuck into these fellas and can report roof-of-mouth-burn is a factor with this dish. A plate is around 5000VD.

Cooked to a crisp, moist inside, slightly sweet. We've had better, prawn dusted Banh khot at Co Hai and far worse on Ben Thanh night market, but for al fresco, post-shopping scoff, these hot fluffy fancies and their salty dip will do very nicely thank you very much.

Banh Khot vs. Bun Ca

UPDATE: This restaurant has moved to 5 Ham Nghi street. I've had good results from restaurants that limit the number of dishes they serve. So much so, that I'd almost call it a rule here in Saigon. Co Hai at 119 Vo Thi Sau Street in District 3 doles out just four dishes from within its clean, sparse, airy restaurant lined with fluorescent tubes, broken fans and hidden behind the anonymous front pictured above. Banh khot tom cha are miniature fried pancakes with a sole shrimp dolloped atop. One 15,000VD serving comes with eight cakes, accompanied by two baskets of shrubbery, a plate of sliced pickled carrot and raddish. On each table there's a bumper jug of nuoc mam (fish sauce) - Be careful - you REALLY wouldn't wanna knock 2 litres of kipperjuice over yourself - and each scoffer gets an empty dipping bowl.

Take a leaf (lettuce or mustard) and sling in a couple of herbs and pickles along with the banh khot itself. Make a small parcel and dip into the plain nuoc mam. Depending on the size of your gob and/or how much of a fat bastard you are, each green parcel should take around three bites to fully consume. It's green 'n' lean and airyfairy enough that one diner could stuff in all eight cakes with ease. The mustard leaf is my wrapper of choice for its extra moorish points. It's blindin', topscoff. I've only ever had this dish once before, on Ben Thanh night market, where it is called Banh can. I found my previous encounter enjoyable, but Co Hai cranks the whole experience up several gears leaving the night market chefs stalled on the starting line.

This restaurant used to be the home of a half arsed French diner, that disappeared some months ago when Co Hai stepped in. It's become a popular spot with plenty of Saigonese scoffers filling the joint between 7am and 10pm each day. After sharing a plate of Banh khot I'm ready to order a second round. However, I'll have to hold off on this visit as the main reason I'm hauled up here is the Bun ca (Fish with tamarind noodle soup) 13,000VD. Bun (vermicelli noodles) are sunk below a tamarind broth, tomato, peanuts, red chillis and a single fish steak. Bun ca comes with a plate (not a dipping bowl) of red chilli spiked nuoc mam. You plonk your fish onto the plate and dissect it from there.

I've never had a Vietnamese soup like this before where the tamarind sourness is so in your face. It's a belly bustin' hit. You might wanna make sure your first stop after lunch has clean conveniences - Tamarind is a very strong diuretic... I'd rank Bun ca right up there with Bun rieu, Bun mam and Canh chua ca. Co Hai also serves Lau cua mang chua (Crab hotpot) (Ask for the daily price) and Cha ca (A kind of fried fishmince burger snack type thing for 15,000VD, not the other kind of Cha ca). The menu is all in Vietnamese and includes a vast number of drinks. The Mia lau is worth a sniff. It's made of very young cooked sugarcane. Warm 'n' sweet and 2,000VD. There's more on Banh khot in this snippet from Annabel Jackson's bastardised Vietnamese streetfood cookbook, Cafe Vietnam. View the business card and directions.