Lunch at Nahm in Bangkok: blue swimmer crab, peanuts, and pickled garlic on rice cakes prawn and coconut wafers with pickled ginger salted beef jungle curry with chilli and ginger stir-fried pork with dried shrimp and apple eggplant oyster mushrooms stir fried with blue swimmer crab and oyster sauce dessert duo of rambutan sorbet and mango and coconut cream crisp The whole meal was delightful, and the dessert was hands-down the best we had in Asia.
We had only two days in Bangkok, but still squeezed in some tasty simple local eats, including pad Thai, of course, but also some excellent Thai and Indian curries.
A Laos cooking class. Given my unfamiliarity with the cuisine, everything was remarkably easy to prepare, which I’d guess is down to the excellent instruction and inherent simplicity of the dishes. First up was a trip to the market, which was the usual South East Asian chaos, colour, and piles of meat kept in 25 degree heat. All the really weird bits of meat too - apparently, Laotians are big on their offal and blood. Very much a waste-not, want-not culinary society. Indeed, the heart is the most expensive cut of meat here, because (rather logically) it’s small and there’s only
Laotian food can be a touch gribbly (see grubs et al below), but in general is very tasty, simple stuff - a super-flavourful herb and spice paste, sticky rice, maybe some simple grilled meat. Lots of fresh herbs and lettuce for making wraps. Dip a ball of rice into the paste, and away you go. There are some rather surprising flavours for a South East Asian cuisine: bitterness is a looked-for taste, dill is a prominent herb. We also went out for some Swiss-Lao fusion food — lemongrass cream ravioli, and rolled stuffed water buffalo steaks.
Try the adventurous menu, they said. A more in-depth look at Laotian cuisine, they promised, with hard-to-find dishes. We possibly should have read between the lines more, because what we ended up with was a platter of dung beetles, rice grubs, and super fiery chili pastes. Still, there was also a rather good smoked aubergine dip, an interesting barbecued stuffed frog, and great sweet pickled tamarind. And the cocktail was excellent.
Because what is the point of going on holiday if you can’t eat a banana split at 11 am while you watch the world go by?
Food wise, our stay in Hanoi was all about street food: we didn’t eat anywhere fancy, but that didn’t mean we ate badly. Barbecued beef with noodles, herbs and papaya, deep fried dumplings and pasties stuffed with beef, pork or crab and veggies, fried cuttlefish, stir-fried beef and chips in gravy*. All accompanied by lashings of “fresh beer” at 25 cents a glass. Ambiance consisted of tiny plastic stools and tables in shop fronts and on the pavement, mopeds whipping on by. No meal for more than $4 a head, with a slight additional cost in worrying whether we may
There was no special exploration required to find this café, because it’s, uh, listed in Lonely Planet. But it is through a clothing shop, across a courtyard, up two flights of stairs, and has fabulous views out over Hanoi. They also put egg whites in their coffee, which is delicious, and good for moustache-making.
Well it’s Vietnam, so naturally it’s phở. The ubiquitous foodstuff, we had it for breakfast lunch and dinner, (not on the same day). Noodles, broth flavoured with spices like star anise, cloves and cardamom, fresh herbs and some meat (normally beef). Maybe some chili, maybe beansprouts. Simple, cheap and tasty. We had good phở and average, but never bad. Now looking forward to comparing against the stuff in Toronto once we get back.
One of the really wonderful things about Hoi An was the food. Amongst the various clothes fittings, we wandered between restaurants and cafés, noshing on the finest Vietnamese food of the trip*, and quaffed plenty of ca phe, cocktails, wine and beer. * The banh mi we had at one restaurant, Mai Fish, were so good, we finished them and decided to have another two. The staff was literally incredulous. Difficult to convince them it was not a joke.