Up and out of the house, my first destination was a cafe to get my morning iced coffee and tea. At a small coffee stall, I leaned back in a little plastic chair and watched the traffic roll by, still many more motorbikes than cars. From coffee to breakfast, I walked into the first noodleshop I encountered, a small food stall selling Bun Bo Hue. The first sip of broth consisted of some of the most intense flavors I’ve tasted since I was last in Southeast Asia. Pungent and thick, with chunks of beef and pork, it was a delicious re-introduction to the food of Saigon. link
He is, but I'm not - unfortunately - but it felt like I was for thirty minutes or so last night. Mike, now in New York City, emailed me a week or two ago to say he'd seen the Vietnam episode in the new Anthony Bourdain TV series No Reservations. The TV chef wrote to me about his trip to Vietnam. A quick search on YouTube and there is the episode spliced into four segments - Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4. The guy is completely enamoured with the place, as he explains in the clip above. And I'll admit, noodlegirl and myself were pretty much silent for ten or fifteen minutes after watching the clips. Especially as the first place he eats in - Banh Xeo on Dinh Cong Trang - in the very first clip is a place we ate at roughly once a week for six years. And Bourdain's completely right - you need the noise, the fumes, the heat, the street chatter and the shouting for Vietnamese food.
It's interesting, but not too surprising, to hear how he has fallen so deeply for the place after relatively little time in the country. I've always had something of a love/hate relationship with Vietnam. Step away for a while and it's easy to forget the day long/night long powercuts, the traffic, the heat and humidity, the bloke down the street who used to get drunk and chase his wife with a meat cleaver, the pimps at the corner cafe, the rip off artists, the hassle and the tape. Far, far easier to focus on the good things that you miss i.e. the food. I can replicate power cuts and crap traffic in France without any difficulty. I cannot buy, nor make, a Banh xeo like the one you'll see in Part 1. But, be warned if you're viewing from outside Vietnam, you might find yourself shelling out for a ticket to Saigon immediately after watching it.
I got an email a couple of weeks back from a well-known Vietnamese food fan and Vietnamophile, Anthony Bourdain of Kitchen Confidential fame. I asked if I could share it with you and he agreed - the links are mine. Plenty of readers mentioned his writing to me over the years, but it was this podcast interview that really impressed me. I'm just happy folk that want good food in Saigon still find this blog interesting and useful :)
I'm currently back in Saigon after long absence, and shooting an episode of my show. Your amazing blog has quickly become the default resource for me and for my production crew.
"Bun oc? better check with noodlepie before we commit." (We wisely went with Than Hai Bun Oc) "Can we find the time to jam in a banh mi scene at xiu ma? It sounds fucking amazing!" (we'll probably just have crew meal there)
If any further evidence was needed that conventional print media food writing is doomed to irrelevance, then a quick comparison between your heroic good works and anything ever written for the New York Times or any major glossy will settle the matter in a heartbeat. If I had to support myself writing travel and food pieces for magazines, I'd be looking at the shower head in my hotel room and considering whether it would support my weight should choose to hang myself. Instead, I'm shamelessly taking full advantage of your pioneering footwork.
Should it matter to you, my admiration for your work and for your passion for Viet Nam and Vietnamese street food is boundless. I shall salute you over my very next Irn Bru and acknowledge your site--and my debt to it-- loudly, relentlessly and at every opportunity.
The Vietnamese government has a colourful history of coming up with slightly whack plans, projects and laws that leave many of us a little phased. But today's is a new one on me. The Guardian reports that the Vietnamese powers that be are considering "a ban on small-chested people driving motorbikes". Interesting... a quick rummage through my rusty memory cells coupled with a dash of guesswork and I reckon that puts about 70% of the population off the road. As one blogger put it,
"From now on, padded bras will be bestsellers," said Bo Cu Hung, a popular Ho Chi Minh City blogger... "I'm not heavy enough. What am I going to do?" Le Thu Huong asked in a
letter to the Tuoi Tre newspaper. "And what about people whose chests
are small? Most of them are too poor to afford breast implants!"link
Fortunately, it appears the brains at the Ministry - yes, I KNOW... there is one - has realised the error of their ways,
The new health standard comprises of 83 prerequisites for motorists who want to ride motorcycles that are above 50cc, including an allowable chest size of not less than 72 centimeters regardless of the disabled. Deputy Chief of the Medial Treament, Tran Quy Tuong said the Ministry might reduce the standard by 40 prerequisites instead of 83... Tran Quy Tuong, the Deputy Chief of the Medical
Treatment Agency under the Ministry of Health admitted to making
mistakes in building the new standard. The ministry is going to re-consider the standard, as it might reduce it by 40 prerequisites instead of 83.link
Was just listening to the radio when that bloody song came on. The one about Lemon trees and wondering why and wondering how... I'm not going to link to it such is my dislike for this song. Anyone who has lived in Hanoi or Saigon for any length of time knows this song - at least they will if they lived there around the turn of the century. All of which reminded me of THE TAPE. No wiser words were ever written about Vietnam,
Today my charitable impulses were re-ignited as my co-worker has decided to yet again play THE TAPE. Anyone living in Saigon knows what I'm talking about. Go to a pool hall, a coffee shop, ride a bus to Mui Ne, walk into a bookstore, anywhere you go, you hear it. It's the one tape with Western music that everyone has. Everyone. The Eagles. The Carpenters. Richard Marx. Unbreak My Heart. Come on, Saigon'ers, you know the rest. People here really love this tape. I've heard Hotel California more times in Saigon than on VH1. I didn't even really know who The Carpenters were until I moved to Saigon. I am not exaggerating saying I hear this tape at least 4 times a week. And it's not as if there is a lack of Western music in Saigon. Any CD shop in Pham Ngu Lao has a better selection of music than you could find in my hometown in the U.S. And, as for Vietnamese music, well, ok, the pop is a bit much, but they have a rich tradition and decent contemporary tunes, not to mention some nice jazz being played in Hanoi and on Le Loi. Thus, with the widespread overplaying of THE TAPE in mind, I have begun thinking of starting a charity, "(New) Music for Vietnam". The idea is to carry around tapes (CD) with your favorite Western mix. Anytime you hear THE TAPE, give whomever is playing it a copy of your mix. Or just remind them that Trinh Cong Son or The Bells are far preferrable to Richard Marx. link
The photosharing site Flickr has made some changes to the slideshow function. You can now embed a slideshow direct from Flickr and if there's a video in there the slideshow will play that too. So, I thought I'd test it here with a random slideshow of street food images from Vietnam. I've no idea what will come up in this slideshow or even if it will work. The search I ran said there were 2,087 images relating to street food in Vietnam. And no, they're not all mine and no, they're probably not all any good :)
This blog post title comes to you courtesy of some great subbing in the Vietnam News. The thing is, I never got to go to the places in Vietnam where everyone looks expensive. I did go to plenty of joints where everyone looks cheap, or even bargain basement. The expensive end of things always eluded me. I know it's childish and it might not last forever, but if you Google "Everyone around me looks expensive" it's like a little pocket of the internet forever sown together. I wonder what might happen if I throw in the phrase "Everyone around me looks cheap". Alors, ignore me... the review is of the posh-but-got-good-nosh Bun Ta and it paraphrases this blog. I know all the reviews are paid for, but it can be worth keeping an eye on the Vietnam News Resto review section for new openings. Likewise, Asia Life HCMC Magazine.
A gay man in Vietnam tells his story in diary form after 300 hours of interviews with local journalists. Nguyen Van Dung is 41 years old and came out three years ago. It's not a subject you hear discussed much in Vietnam. I can still remember going to a large party in Hanoi some ten years ago when the cops from the "social evils" department arrived. The few gay Vietnamese men who were in attendance were by far the quickest to scarper. I don't think Vietnamese cops take too kindly to homosexuals.
Very few gay people publicly come out in Vietnam. Homosexuality is
still a largely taboo subject in the communist-governed, traditionally
patriarchal society, long ruled by Confucian social mores and Buddhist
beliefs.
The book had a modest first print run of 2,000 copies.
But the fact that it was published at all is considered by many here a
sign of changing attitudes and greater tolerance in this fast-changing
country.
Many gay men, Dung says in the book, have struggled with
deep shame for not meeting societal expectations -- marrying, building
a family, taking over the house, caring for their ageing parents and
producing male offspring.
"If you were born gay," he writes, "no
matter whether you are a man or a woman, you were born at a bad time,
on a bad day, in a bad month, in a bad year, under a very bad star." link
I hope Vietnam never goes the route of other Southeast Asian countries
and put the street vendors in mall like hawker centers. I appreciate
hygiene just like the next person but I've never fallen ill from
Vietnamese street food (knock on the baby plastic chairs that you sit
on!). Hawker centers in Singapore are convenient but there's some soul
missing. link
Amen to that Angela. And no, this is not some soft, poncey white faced, western, rose tinted spectaled look back at Vietnam. You take the food off the street and you just have street. You do not have street food. Recent developments do not bode well. The crux of the problem, as far as I can see, has nothing to do with conehead aesthetics it has to do with food.
The best street food in Vietnam comes from family run, front of house stalls.
Take the food off the street and it stays behind doors, clear the streets and all that nosh steps back inside the porch and inaccesible to all us hungry dietary explorers.
More on all this from the excellent Gastronomy. Just to throw in my own two dong, it'd be a very sad day when great women like this take their soup indoors.
