Vietnamese food: Lively, lighthearted, lovely

Last fall, I was in Hong Kong, Vietnam and Cambodia, but my heart belonged to Vietnam, especially its food. (Hong Kong’s food is pretty well represented in Vancouver and as for Cambodia ... well, it’s not known for its gustatory delights.)

Inflated rice balls make a big impression.

A market in Hanoi.

Vietnam’s Can Tho market offers an amazing array of fruits and vegetables.

A woman in Hanoi hawks pho from gigantic cooking pots.

I’ve always yearned for more exciting Vietnamese food in Vancouver, but knew I’d have to follow it to its source for the thrills.

Vietnam confirmed my belief that Vietnamese food is a lot like its people — lively, light-hearted, lovely. And good-humoured. (How else would you describe a giant, golden, inflated rice balloon with a rice pattycake hiding inside?) Somehow, that buoyant nature has survived in the people and the food through the bloodiest of wars. A grandmother toothily laughs. A translator tells us she’s asking if we understand her babbling baby grandson in English because he’s sure not speaking Vietnamese.

I was smitten. Even the city traffic, which seems more like a national suicide pact (motorbikes, bicycles, cars, people, tuk-tuks darting in every conceivable direction without the logic of lanes, traffic lights, or rules of the road) won’t deter me from going back.

Going from Hanoi in the north to Central Vietnam and down to Ho Chi Minh City (still referred to as Saigon by most locals) and the Mekong Delta, the food changed with the geography and climate which morphs from temperate to tropical.

Vancouver’s Vietnamese restaurants only skim the surface of regional variations of food in that country. We don’t see the amazing produce or taste the intensity of herbs or variations of the nuoc nam , the fermented fish sauce, a signature taste in so many Vietnamese dishes.

In Hanoi, we had to try the one-dish restaurant, Cha Cha La Vong. The dish? It’s called cha cha — monkfish fried with dill, turmeric, rice noodles and peanuts. They bring a charcoal hibachi to the table and you cook the fish and a pile o’ greens yourself. The restaurant has been there for several generations and the staff is said to be gruff (unusual in Vietnam, but the matriarch took a shine to us and came and cooked ours for us in between counting out dongs (Vietnamese currency) at the next table, their evening’s take. It’s grungy (Molly Maids would have heart attacks), but it’s so famous that copycat restaurants have sprung up, messing with your mind. The cha cha was delicious.

It would be unforgivable to wimp out on trying street food for fear of gut-wrenching illness. We searched for ones that came recommended (my neighbour, who’d been to Vietnam a year earlier, recommended a pho seller, for instance).

One night, we went to a place that sold great pork patties and shrimp spring rolls. Gratefully, we sat at a table, not on the plastic toddler stools that Westerners look ridiculous on, at some of these places. The food was good and my stomach inflated like that rice balloon.

My husband, however, didn’t want to miss out one chance to try the street pho that our neighbour, Karen, had recommended. I watched in amazement as he went in search of it, sat down with the locals and slurped back a heaping bowl of pho. Mom and son threw enormous cuts of meat to each other, sliced off thin slices and threw slices into steaming bowls. Locals looked astonished when they thought a stranger reached out for my husband’s pho (it was me) and took a big, noisy slurp. It was, despite the optics, delicious.

Wild Lotus, in Hanoi, is in a gorgeous French colonial building. (The French left behind beautiful buildings and A something of their food culture, unlike the Americans, who left bomb craters.) We followed a marble staircase and passed by a fountain en route to the second-floor restaurant with a modern tropical feel. Slender female servers (they’re all small and pretty) wore ao dai (those silky, side-slit tops) and males wore suits. Astonishingly, main dishes were an average $6 Cdn. Deep-fried prawns bundled in vermicelli, served with plum sauce; grilled sea bass; morning glory leaves, sauteed in garlic; pork loin with cashews, mushrooms, dried chili, spring rolls in shredded rice noodles — and the bill came to about $60 with wine.

You should use a guidebook because you’ll run into horrid food just like anywhere. We ducked into a nice-looking place for breakfast one morning and “shirred eggs” turned out to be an eggy sauce with a lid of goopy cheese and bits of ham. Yech!

In Central Vietnam, at Hoi An (where my husband had the equivalent of a Zegna suit tailored for $350), we ate at a string of food stalls along the Thu Bon River, returning to “Mr. Dong’s” a few times for the “white rose,” a regional specialty of shrimp dumplings in clear rice dough. But the banana pancakes and noodles were just as good. (Dong is also the word for Vietnamese currency, a challenge to say for an inhibited North American.) Breakfast was included at the hotels we stayed in and at Hoi An, we could have had a sumptuous Vietnamese buffet every morning with dim sum-like dishes that changed daily.

Cafe des Amis came recommended in guide books and was a heck of a deal with seven courses for about $12, but it was most memorable for the owner, a Mr. Kim, decked out in black leather pants and jacket, a smoking bon vivant, strutting among guests, telling stories he must have told a thousand times.

A young couple we met from London led us through the dark alleys of Hoi An and to their discovery, a restaurant called Secret Garden, not in guide books. We ended up taking group photos with the friendly staff after a meal of star anise soup, pork and fish tamarind hotpot and pork skewers.

In Ho Chi Minh City, I’d stand, each morning, at the fourth-floor window of our hotel, looking down at a woman who made rounds on her bicycle, draped with bags and bags of produce, eggs, fish, meat. Women from shops would saunter out, leisurely check out the fare and buy a little bit of this and a little bit of that. (And no, it wasn’t refrigerated.) Then she’d move on, plastic bags rustling.

Vietnamese supermarkets don’t exist. Food is bought at markets or vendors on the street. The floating markets are very cool. We put-put-putted around the boats early one morning before taking off down the Mekong on a “Heart of Darkness” journey to an eco-lodge.

At Ho Chi Minh City, my all-time favourite spot was Quan An Ng, a brilliant idea. Cooking stations circle the perimeter of an elegant French colonial-style restaurant; each one is a stall with cooks making street foods from all over Vietnam. You can walk around, check out all the regional specialties at the stations and point and order or order off the menu. Can they please open one in Vancouver?

The most modern Vietnamese meal was at the sleekly modern Xu restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City. A four-course tasting menu was about $27; an eight-course went for $44. The menu features dishes like tuna spring roll and black sesame seared tuna; steamed rice flour roll with fish, bean shoots and roasted shallots; tamarind-braised beef cheeks with pumpkin mash and pumpkin flower; crab soup with boiled quail egg, peanut and chili; scallops with green mango noodle salad and lemongrass dressing. Desserts? Durian cream puff and chocolate caramel tart.

I had a dramatically memorable dish from along the Mekong Delta. On a bike trip, we had a lunch of elephant ear fish which was deep-fried whole and mounted like a trophy on a wooden stand, dramatic as heck.

What I won’t dwell on here is the part of Vietnamese cuisine I can’t bear. Even the thought of a snake farm at one of the towns we biked was enough to send me on a detour. At an outdoor coconut candy factory, I bought some of the taffy-like confections, trying not to look into the eyes of the coiled vipers, trapped in bottles of rice wine, said to invigourate libidos.

In the same shop, lots of alligator purses, perhaps siblings of the ones we saw in a muddy pond?

But getting back to the good stuff, another unforgettable Vietnamese culinary tradition is their insanely good coffee. It’s intense and delicious, dripped slowly into condensed milk if you don’t want it neat. We brought a few bags home, but I think you have to be Vietnamese to make it so good.

And dare I say, I think that to be true of the food, too.

Green fingers raise living standards

For centuries, Tra Que village has made a name for itself through its greenery. Lan Hieu finds out more.

A small lane leading to Tra Que

Chairs for visitors to relax with herb spa after a hard working time on the field

Farmers fertilize soil with algae taken from a nearby lagoon

Foreign tourists at Tra Que

The sweet aroma of Tra Que vegetables and herbs has spiced up the everyday meals of people in Hoi An since a very long time ago with Special dishes like Cao Lau, My Quang, Banh Xeo, and more.

Located near the banks of the De Vong River, the village is now home to nearly 200 households who engage in cultivating vegetables on a total area of 40 hectares.

According to old farmers, Tra Que has been famous for its vast vegetable plantations for about 400 years. The first villagers here were all fishermen but they soon discovered that the land here was very suitable for growing vegetable. With skills and experience, farmers here have been producing some of the country’s most celebrated greens, which have been become a trademark.

A walk around the village reveals small, green, edible plants spread out in all directions, giving off a natural aromatic fragrance.

Talking with the farmers here, we learn that it takes a lot of hard work to have such green fingers.

“We have to learn how to till the land, sow the seeds and then how to nurture the plants,” Manh Hung, an old farmer while wiping his sweaty face, “This work may be easy for farmers in other places but extremely difficult for us here because we do not use chemical boosters and fertilizers."

This is also one reason why Tra Que vegetables are being chosen by not only Hoi An’s locals, but also families and supermarkets from neighbouring areas like Danang City, Duy Xuyen and Hoa Vang Districts. They are healthier than those grown using chemicals and provide a distinctive flavor that has earned a loyal following.

“Our land here is enriched by the alluvium of the De Vong River,” said Tran Minh Nhu, a local guide who has a large onion plantation. “We fertilize it with algae from a nearby lagoon. That may be the reason why our herbs are so green and tasty.”

Among the more than 20 kinds of vegetables and herbs grown here are cabbage, colza or rape, celery, kohlrabi, and perhaps the most famous, savoury. Similar to basil and mint, Tra Que savoury is very popular in many restaurants and hotels in Hoi An for its special fragrance.

In recognition of the local farmers skills, people here all refer to them as “artistes”. Thanks to their special products, the village has become an attractive destination for tourists. It has been a highlight for visitors to Hoi An since the first tour to the village was opened in 2004.

From Hoi An’s centre, Hoi An Travel Company takes visitors on one-day or half-day tours to Tra Que, which gives them a chance to discover the daily life of farmers and try their hands out at actual farming. Visitors can participate in such activities like tilling the land, sowing the seeds, watering, fertilizing, harvesting and so on.

This tour is attracting a lot of people, especially foreign tourists. In recent years, Hoi An Travel has been taking more than 1,000 tourists to visit Tra Que Village annually, gaining hundreds of million of Dong.

Visitors to the village will be welcomed at two guest-houses before being taken to the plantation by a local farmer to see and join his work. If they stay for a whole day, lunch will be served at the guest house with Hoi An’s special dishes. After that, visitors can relax with a foot massage using medical herbs before saying goodbye to the farmers.

"I really enjoy the work as I never have worked on a farm before," shared on Irish visitor joining in a full-day tour with us. “Besides learning the work of farmers in Vietnam, I can relax and do exercise at the same time.”

With a steady income from both farming and tourism, living standards for residents has improved significantly, all thanks to the humble herb.

A verdant rooftop

Beyond the well-known and colourful markets of Sapa, Bac Ha and Can Cau, the northwest mountainous area of Vietnam is bewitched with the wild town and market of Sin Ho, the roof of Lai Chau province.

My friend said that it would be a pity if you travelled to the northwest mountains of Vietnam without stopping off at Sin Ho market. I didn’t give his claim much credence at first, until I stepped foot into the market—known as Cho huyen Sin Ho, and open every Sunday.

Situated imposingly on the Sin Ho plateau of Lai Chau province, Sin Ho town is located on the highest peak, over 2,000 metres above sea level and surrounded by verdant mountain ranges and clouds.

Locals call it: The Roof of Lai Chau province. The small town is also well-known as the second Sapa of the northwest area. But the climate in Sin Ho is even more sour and scornful than that of Sapa. Suddenly, you can be standing in a sea of white clouds, then, just several minutes later, the rain will rumble down like a waterfall. But right after the last rain drop falls, the sun will rise brilliantly and a cool wind will blow over the small town.

It takes me four hours to drive up the zigzagging road from Phong Tho town, at the junction between National Road No. 4D from Sapa and National Road No.12 towards Muong Lay town. The mountain road has been smoothly paved over, but it’s still a slow and winding drive. Therefore, I decide to spend a night at Sin Ho town and wait for the market until the next morning.

In the late afternoon, Sin Ho town looks small, deserted and gloomy, with simple and sparse wooden houses roofed with dark grey cement tiles and only a few shops and restaurants. It’s lucky that there are several modern guesthouses and mini hotels with reasonable prices. For only VND250, 000 per twin room, I check into the Thanh Binh guesthouse. It’s not an overstatement to say that at such a cost, this is the best hotel outside of Sapa in the northwestern area. It has spacious rooms, good facilities and a friendly staff.

On Sunday morning, the sleepy town comes alive. From all paths up and down leading to the town centre, waves of tribes people walk or ride horses and motorbikes, all loaded with many kinds of farm products, toward the market. These tribes come from many distant villages up and down the mountains. They are Flower Hmong, Blue Hmong, Black Hmong, Lu, Black Dao and Red Dao, among others.

After a morning at the market, I take a trekking tour to Pha Xo Lin II village, just three kilometres from the town centre. The village is home to the Dao Khau tribe, also known as the Sewing Dao, or the Black Dao, who wear black trousers richly embroidered with signature flower, tree and star patterns seen on many Dao costumes. They also wear a front hanging black apron with a wide, plain blue band around its outside, together with a plain black turban.

The village is very beautiful and poetic, with dark wooden houses roofed with black stone tiles and fenced in with stone hedges. This season, the peach and mango orchards are ripening in a riot of red and yellow. It’s mouthwatering to walk in the village, where you can take a seat under the fruit trees to enjoy lovely lanterns swinging in the cool winds and their fresh and sweet tastes. Pha Xo Lin village is very famous for its special golden red mangoes, with their sweet taste and jackfruit-like flavour.

Besides its delicious fruits, Pha Xo Lin village is a shopping paradise of brocades and embroidery products. It’s common to see Dao women sitting at their thresholds in their front yards or under the fruit trees sewing passionately. While you’re there, don’t miss out on buying some clothes, scarves or other decorous things from the tribes people. Their products are very sophisticated and beautiful, as befitting of their name—the Sewing Dao tribe.