Fresh Street Food- new friends in Hanoi
I know this is my
second post of the day but I have some time to kill and am leaving dear
Hanoi behind tomorrow so thought it appropriate that I should complete
my Hanoi blogs before departing.
After
a disappointing walking city tour provided by the hostel I started
doing a little research on paid tours. I really wanted a local to tell
me about the city and how the locals do life. I stumbled upon Vietnam
Awesome Travel and their Food on Foot tour.
It
had great reviews on Trip Advisor and I actually knew where to locate
their office…bonus points!! So as mentioned in my previous blog I
cautiously made my way down this little alley past an evidently
extremely hungry cat to lock it in! I went back at 11.20 to be met by
the owner who immediately shuffled me in for a quick English lesson.
Turns out he wants to open a new tourist office with a little French
twist. “Voyage in English is ahh cruise, sea, travel, yes? Voyage in
French same word yes, maybe different meaning,
I
use next name Vietnam Awesome Voyage?” By the end of the conversation
we had said the word voyage so many times I had absolutely no idea what
was going on but I had learnt all about his cooking classes,
accomodation, got shown a picture of his daughter and then he had to
disappear “my wife cooking lunch she tell me to come home for lunch, I
leave you here and wait for others”. It was all a bit of a whirlwind
until little Lily turned up, my guide to Hanoi cuisine. There was just
me and a couple from Singapore to begin with until we were joined by
another couple from the Philippines. It was a nice little group and we
ate ALOT.
Ok,I
ate alot. We tasted so many different dishes from spring rolls to
noodles, noodles and more noodles. I tried so hard to remember all the
names and the hardest part is the pronunciation. You can have one word
mean about three different things depending on how you pronounce it! We
ate pork with noodles, beef with noodles, crab spring rolls, made cold
rolls with fish, fried pancake, banana leaf salad and last but not least
frog. I can’t believe I ate frog. Especially since on my first day here
I saw the locals chopping them up and there was blood and guts
everywhere! Lily called it chicken for me, trying to make me feel better
and it did really taste a lot like chicken. I wanted to come here and
try something exotic, if you can call frog exotic so I feel like I can
tick that one off! Sorry Kermit, no hard feelings, you probably never
even met that cousin.
There
was also a traditional way of eating a boiled egg but with the embryo
of the chicken partly formed. I took some photos of it but I can’t even
talk about it without feeling slightly ill. We then finished off the
tour at a very hidden, very hip cafe. The traditional way to have coffee
is with egg and condensed milk whisked together but you can have this
so many different ways. I had the egg with chocolate and rum and it was
delicious. Strong but delicious. You can even have it with beer!
All
of this took about 3.5hours and cost only $25. I’m sitting here writing
this and feeling hungry all over again. The food is so light and fresh
you can literally eat all day like they do. My perfect place on earth
and the perfect way to end my time in Hanoi.
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