Stickyrice

Herbs and Tubes

I seem to be facing a few of my culinary demons lately. Chewy is the demon here. It's not often that I find myself attacking the garnish with gusto before that which lies beneath it. I'm making the same choices as a rabbit.

But it becomes rather obvious to my eating companions. They are chewing with relish as I continue to mow through the botany. I do eye the cuts of tube trying to identify a piece that is small, that I can get down with minimal chewing and a trap-door swallow. I don't want my mates to place a gnarly thick bit in my bowl for me. In these situations in the past, there has been an expectation that I demonstrate some kind of adverse reaction. I want to be brave. I don't want to offend. I want to communicate a 'water off a duck's back' kind of vibe.

It's hard, when I know that poo used to travel these tubes.

Pig intestines (trang) are commonly available across the city, along with other organs and offal. They are not a delicacy but something eaten on an everyday basis. They are clean, all traces of poo long flushed out. If I'd been born Vietnamese like my friends, I wouldn't be getting so worked up about this.

I do eventually bite the bullet...and it is kind of rubbery like a garden hose.

But it has had me thinking since. What has happened to me and my ilk? Why is it such a challenge to eat these parts of an animal? Surely they were part of the diet in generations past. In parts of Europe they probably still are. Where do these parts of the pig end up in my country? Perhaps I have regularly eaten them disguised in a sausage or spread on toast as liverwurst, in an altogether different form.

Can I acquire a taste for them in their original form, before any processing, when they were not that long ago clearly related to the vital functions of a living thing? Pulsing, beating, belching, farting living things!

I would have to practise long and hard.

Vina Drinks List: A Revelation

Under a bang tree canopy of green on a still grey summer day, I sit thirsty, a healthy sheen on the brow.

It's imperative to keep the fluids up in Hanoi as they disappear fast via the pores. Some days, simply standing up sets the perspiration oozing. It's definitely the season for 'Vina Drinks List' research.

At my current location, I sit facing a pyramid of coconuts cut back to their husks, precariously resting against the cafe wall. One abrupt move and the coconuts become rogue bowling balls, cracking the ankle bones of passers-by, skittling the traffic into a deeper state of chaos, if that's possible.

I order one.

Now, by West Lake or beachside down south, the coconut would be delivered just as it falls from the tree, with the top hacked off and a plastic straw inserted into the hole. The juice would be tepid and not very refreshing. In such circumstances, I don't think it's crazy to push a few chunks of ice through the hole. When I do, my coconut purveyor thinks I've escaped from the funny farm.

In a metaphorical sense I have, which gives me license to behave like it when the situation calls for it.

Today there is no call. The preparation of my coconut is a far more intricate, sophisticated process at this humble kerbside cafe in the Old Quarter. A coconut carpenter is on hand, chipping the green skin of the fruit away with a heavy cleaver. Once the juice is poured off, he pulls a vegetable peeler from his toolbag, which he expertly uses to scrape the luscious white flesh from the coconut's bowl. I admire his handyman skills, for one slip would surely result in a deep cut, a fountain of red and a bloodied pile of coconut meat.

I do not want gorey medical emergencies on my morning break. I want refreshing cold coconut juice with ice. And that is precisely what I receive, albeit with a twist. The juice (nuoc dua long nhan) is served in a large handled glass containing a longan or two, some lotus seeds and a divine tangle of shiny coconut ribbon on top.

I experience a revelation.

Cafe Hieu
Cnr. Hang Thiec & Bat Dan
Old Quarter

Pretty Food

It could be a delicate celebration dessert, the invention of some enfant terrible in a Michelin starred kitchen. The gastro-poetry might allude to raspberry coulis, hints of mint, crushed peanuts, lime. Creme fraiche could be dolloped on top. The restaurant critic might describe it as risky, triumphant or crazy.

But currently I am not of that world.

I am in the goat restaurant.

The crimson circle before me is drained from this hollow-horned mammal. Bottled in used la Vie plastic, it is poured into the bowl over a diced mix of other goat bits, mostly chewy ones, and clipped up coriander. Peanuts and lime juice finish out this delicacy, known as tiet canh de.

I have eaten blood of goat.

Let's not forget pho

An acquiantance of mine is leaving Hanoi after three years. Last week at a farewell lunch, we got to talking about food. It was me who guided the conversation there as I'm fairly shallow on other topics. I'm always intrigued by how little exposure some medium-to-long-term ex-pats have had to street food. I wanted to interrogate the acquaintance, see what her form was like.

Not that this is how I judge people, of course.

I try not to, anyway. But I got the sense that the acquaintance's excitement about Vietnamese cuisine and the local specialties was limited to her first year here. She claimed to have overdosed on pho, admitting to knocking off three bowls a day on occasion, one for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The acquaintance was fast becoming a friend, or at the very least an inspiration for a future post. Even I have not attempted this 'pho three-peat feat'.

While the acquaintance lost her pho mojo early on, citing some kind of MSG giddiness, I have soldiered on. I may not have written about it for a year or more but be assured that noodle soup is still slurped and sipped regularly at stickyrice HQ. I still revere the pho ritual. I feel excited when waiting for my bowl to arrive, chopsticks cursorily cleaned with paper and ready. Juice is extracted from a wedge of lime. Hot red sauce is passed over in favour of a few slices of fresh chili. A drop of garlic-infused vinegar, a shake of pepper. The ceremonial lifting and dropping of the noodles with the sticks and spoon to mix the condiments in signals that the preparation is done. Afterwards, I wipe my mouth with a square of flimsy napkin and insert the toothpick.

And I feel as if I should genuflect as I back out onto the street.

Is there a need to resurrect the Hanoi Pho Swoop, to revise it with a chapter or two, to suck up new noodles and spit out new words?

I wonder.

Mango Sheets

I don't know what was wrong with me when I was a child. I didn't like mangoes. I can't recollect the issue exactly but it was the flavour rather than texture that had me turning up my nose. Also, handling them was disconcerting for a Melbourne boy bought up on a mostly temperate climate fruit diet of apples, bananas, oranges and the odd pear or grape. What was exotic tropical fruit in those days rarely hit the green-grocer's display trays and when we got them home, things turned messy and sticky. Slippery bits of mushy mango flesh shot from our hands directly to the floor.

I gave up on mangoes for a long time.

Of course, in Vietnam and elsewhere in the region, mangoes dominate the fruitscape. I've learned how to handle them and I can appreciate them all ways, shredded fine and green in a salad with duck, dipped in salt and chili as an afternoon snack, in smoothies with ice and condensed milk and even over-ripe and dripping, just the way I didn't like them all those years ago.

At the Nha Trang market, I can pick them up in a sheet, a stunning orange pane of dried mango jam.

At the mango farm, a simple process sees ripe mangoes peeled, wet flesh roughly pared and stone thrown away. In a big pot on the heat, some sugar is added to the flesh and the mixture is brought to the boil. This hot molten mango lava is poured onto a flat surface where it is trowelled even. A day or two in the sun dries the sheets before they are cut into the desired shape and layered on top of one another for packaging.

Known as banh xoai (mango cake), this addictive chewy fruit sweet really pushes my buttons. In fact, I reckon I've eaten a decent square metre of the stuff in one sitting. 

Vina Drinks List: Bot San

A big glass of full cream milk would give me a belly-ache. In fact, I haven't downed one since I was a wee lad. It must be some kind of screwed up selective lactose intolerance 'cause I can devour whole rounds of cheese, large tubs of yoghurt, inches of whipped cream in Aunty Marge's sponge cakes. Even milk on my morning cereal was an issue, a stand-off of sorts, with me staring at my bowl, watching the milk being slowly absorbed and my breakfast morphing into sloppy ugly swill. I happily went hungry to school.

But it was nothing a cream bun at recess wouldn't rectify.

In Hanoi, when I was very green on the scene, I was slightly bemused when I noticed a number of cafe punters nursing bloody big glasses of cow juice. Adults do not order milk to drink in the cafes of my home town. Even kids drink babycinos there! What was going on in Hanoi?

Folks, looks can be deceiving.

The lime slice should have alerted me, I know. But when new in town, one has to allow for some regional variation. I was thinking if the Vietnamese want to sour up their milk with citrus, let them. As I've said before, cultural difference is a wonderful thing. Maybe, I thought, it was a weird climate thing, to fight off some dreaded lurgy brought on by humidity. Who was I to judge?

My theories were wrong and I've since been enlightened. It aint milk. It's bot san.

Whiter than milk, this drink is made by mixing water with what looks like pulverised chalk but is in fact cassava powder. A root vegetable with various other culinary uses, cassava is also being harvested to produce bio-fuel. That doesn't make me want to drink more of it, strangely. In fact, even mixed with loads of sugar, ice and the aforementioned slice of lime, I find it medicinal, sedimenty and basically yuck!

But I prefer it over milk. 

Coffee then Tea

The coffee shops I frequent in Hanoi are mostly old-worldish. Stories have been told in these cafes, family skeletons unveiled, relationships rocked and broken, tears shed.

They have history.

And dust. Good dust. Dust which belongs. Dust which cannot be rubbed, even scoured away.

Stained teapots and little handle-less cups are proferred to the old-timers in a quaint custom following their morning coffee. The green tea cleanses the palate and legitimises a further half-hour of memoir and yarn. The Vietnamese love a chat.

And I really love watching them.

Big Old Plate of Noodles

Truc Bach village lays on the eastern shores of the lake of the same name, not far from the Old Quarter.

John McCain dropped from his shot-down plane into this lake during the Vietnam War, got a bit tangled in his parachute and was manhandled away to a cell in the infamous 'Hanoi Hilton'. I'm pretty sure he didn't go in for a dip for old time's sake on his recent visit.

I doubt whether he ventured into the village to sample the local fare for lunch either. The senator would not have ordered a starter dish of the village's specialty, pho cuon, a fresh spring roll of beef, lettuce and herbs. He would not have ordered a bottle of the local brew, it's cap snap-popped off by the upside of another bottle. He would not have smoothed the foil around the bottle's neck and drunk from it. He would not have ordered a big old plate of noodles wreathed in coriander, crushed nuts and dried shallots, surrounded by cucumber, doused with a sweet and sour sauce containing beef and pork.

I wonder if Obama would've. I'd like to think he would, even with the secret service detail talking into their shirtsleeves, warning off the motorbike parking boys and the poor little lasses flogging cheap chewie. I'd like to think he'd buy a packet, perhaps even have his shoes shined while swigging the last of his beer.

I'm enjoying the thought of it.

Bail out

One serve pho cuon, one serve pho tron chua ngot, two Hanoi beers - 85,000VND (USD$4.80, AUD$6.65)

Pho Cuon Vinh Phong,
40 Ngu Xa Street
Truc Bach Village

Number 22

Not long ago Stickyrice was included in a list of '50 of the World's Tastiest Food Blogs'.

This week in Nick Wyke's follow-up series of articles, Meet the Food Bloggers, I have been exposed, my thoughts laid bare. Nick is threatening to even put a pic of my ugly dial up for all and sundry to see. I hope he has the latest version of photoshop!

Food bloggers included so far in the series include Jaden Hair of Steamy Kitchen, Joy Wilson of Joy the Baker, David Lebovitz, Matt Armendariz of MattBites and Julie Parsons of A Slice of Cherry Pie. I'm in illustrious company and Nick has a big job ahead of him as, by my estimation, he has about forty-four more bloody food bloggers to interview. I reckon he might be over it by then! He deserves a medal!

Welcome one more time to readers of The Times.

Introducing the Hanoi Cooking Centre

Stickyrice readers, particularly those on the way to Vietnam, often make food related enquiries about Hanoi, many of them concerning cooking classes. Until now, I haven't been able - with any confidence or first-hand experience - to recommend a cook nor a kitchen.

Drum roll, people. Twenty-one gun salute, even.

Allow me to introduce the Hanoi Cooking Centre, the brainchild of long-time Vina food-phile, chef and cookbook author, Tracey Lister, and business partner Linh Phung Dinh, Hanoian born and bred expert eater and local hospitality insider. Launched softly a few weeks back, the centre is aiming to promote and teach Vietnamese cuisine from up and down the country, offering classes ranging from the dishes of Hanoi and the northern highlands to vegan tofu cookery to my personal fave, Vietnamese street food.

But, local expats and Vietnamese citizens sit up and take note. The centre is also catering for those who may have noodle and rice fatigue, those who may want to dip their cooking chopsticks into the cuisines of other regions, those who may have a new oven and don't know what to do with it. Graduate in bread, biscuits or elegant finger food if you like. This week just gone, Tracey has been earnestly bashing out dough for that old Easter favourite, hot cross buns.

So, I know that the Hanoi Cooking Centre is going to be a happening place where food will truly be celebrated. I'm also looking forward to collaborating with Tracey, Linh and the god on some unique street food tours, routed through markets and some of my compulsory eating haunts in Hanoi. But more on that later.

In the meantime, visit the centre's website...book a class. Have an espresso in their cafe.

Tell them Sticky sent you!