A period of neglect. Dormancy. Slackness. Call it what you will. This miniscule corner of the web still has some life. I'd like to make it sputter again from time to time. There are still stories to tell, observations to make and, clearly, plenty of street food to devour in Hanoi. And, it's not that I haven't been eating all these months I haven't been writing. I have. Too much. In the company of many fine gluttons from all over the world. I just haven't had the chance to eat alone with my thoughts for a while. Eating with others will not write a food blog.
So I'm committing to going solo and anti-social to the pavements, gutters and carts of the city from time to time in order to get this space kick started again. Today, after returning from a five week holiday in the States and Japan, I went about recalibrating my palate in my realm. After some excess - all detailed in short form on Instagram and Twitter, and evidenced in an expanded gut that cuts off my vision to my toes - it was nice to be sitting down again to the small portions that, by and large, exemplify street food in Vietnam. And none of that fear of making the wrong choice presented by the menus of the places we were eating at on our trip.
Today, a street food dish that's created quite a stir in my absence from Hanoi (and one that I've written about a few too many times) reared up in the streetscape as I sought out my first meal upon returning. A photograph of Barack Obama and Anthony Bourdain sitting at a bun cha table got relayed all around the world a few weeks ago. I believe there has been quite a lot of discourse about it, none of which I've read in detail. Former Hanoi, now Saigon expat Connla Stokes told me that the bun cha eatery in question is doing a roaring trade, many customers wanting to sit at the same table, set their dishes in the presidential way and take photos of course. Presumably, they then eat. We may have to wait until Mr. Bourdain's television program is aired to find out if the President did.
I didn't eat today where he supposedly did. Strangely I went back to a vendor that I boycotted many years ago when, after many fine experiences, she started to blatantly overcharge me. I'm talking 13 or 14 years ago when such practices were all too common. I pulled up with slightly better street smarts all this time later and she knows now that she can't pull such stunts. So many foreigners know so much about street food. And, to be fair, that level of desperation to forge extra profits through dishonesty - a reputation that afflicted Hanoi for a long time - is pretty much gone.
Fortunately, and completely aside from the dubious aforementioned tricks, this bun cha vendor and many of her ilk, are still here. Doing their one specialty, for a few hours a day. Here, squats fanning the coals, turning the meat, smoking a cigarette. No doubt he could do it with one eye closed. Or both. The wife is boss of portioning the food, the money and the husband. That's how it works at street food level, day in and day out.
I eat well. I am satisfied but not full. My palate is again married to its environment.
Dark alleys at night are supposed to be avoided. There are bogeymen lurking up them. Our western culture has prejudiced us against walking these passageways. All those books we read, all those films we watched, the stories we were told, the warnings of our elders have conspired to create a fear of long narrow stretches of space that have no light. Characters get murdered there. Monsters suddenly emerge from them. Shady dealings occur.
In Hanoi, fear not. Such corridors are rife, both as interconnecting short cuts through to wider thoroughfares and as dead-ends to private spaces and homes. The Old Quarter, in particular, is a labyrinth of these mostly covered alleyways, black by night and black by day. I suspect that &don't go down dark alleys at night& is not a caution issued here. A great percentage of the population lives in them!
I amble along them to feed my face. There is sometimes light at the end of these tunnels. Bright culinary light.
Down beyond the southern end of Hoan Kiem Lake, one such alleyway widens at the end to a cramped community of households, one house being a noodle house. Outside, a little courtyard of grimy chipped walls contains a medieval 'infrastructure' for solid permanent charcoal cooking hubs, a collection of coal braziers, infant-sized earthenware jars, utensils for slicing and scooping hanging from mangled old coat-hanger wire. The modern world of primary colour plastic is in evidence, too. Torn towels stiff with cooking stains drape the walls along with motorbike helmets, conical hats and flimsy plastic raincoats. Pots and woks abound. This jumbled collection of stuff is emblematic of the Vietnamese woman's lot in life: daily or twice daily visits to market (rain, hail or shine), cooking and washing up, cooking and washing up, cooking and washing up...
Thousands of women across Hanoi attempt to generate extra household income from their cooking, welcoming patrons into their homes to eat. Our noodle vendor directs us up an awkward flight of steps to her second floor sitting room, telling me to mind my big foreign noggin on the way. We pass by her glass service cabinet where orders are placed, ingredients are prepped and ready for assembly. The space in which we eat is in direct contrast to that we walked along to find the vendor. My eyes are bleared momentarily by fluorescent light so bright I could be at the gates of heaven.
When this vendor's array of noodle dishes get set down on the table, there is a risk I will be going to that other place - for committing a gross act of gluttony. Four bowls await consumption: bánh ?a tr?n is a dry noodle dish comprised of H?i Phòng's brown rice noodles smeared with crab paste and other ingredients which can include fried tofu, sausage meat (gi?), beef, perhaps a bit of crispy deep fried perch and then bean sprouts and morning glory or Chinese celery (rau c?n); mi?n tr?n is essentially the same dish with a glass noodle made from tapioca or mung beans offering a slightly different mouthfeel - both are garnished with coriander and crunchy deep bún ?c is a noodle soup (mentioned
in just the last post) with snails, a stew of turmeric-stained plantain and tofu in and, bánh ?úc, an unusual soup containing a gloopy mass of cooked rice starch (b?t g?o) which cuts through with a spoon, minced pork, wood ear fungus, fried tofu pillows and coriander. , garlic-infused rice vinegar and chilli paste or flakes can be added to all at the table. This last dish in particular will be subject to further investigation.
This dark alley will be trodden again.
Bánh ?úcNg? 8 Lê Ng?c H?nHai Bà Tr?ng
Hanoi is baking in hot summer sun and there hasn't been much rain about this year to take the edge off the heat. A savage storm or two but long periods with not a drop. The city population seeks respite in the breeze coming off a lake or the down draught from wind hitting the taller buildings. The public swimming pools are seething aquariums in all neon swimsuits, pitchy kid-noise and chlorine vapour. There was deafening cicada clicking earlier in the summer. And coughing frogs now. Dry coughing frogs.
So as we all wait for rain, I might as well eat a hot bowl of noodle soup. It's not possible to feel any hotter. And then there's this theory that hot bowls of soup have cooling properties. For me, the jury's still out on that one. Let me take my hot noodle soup in the morning before my shirt is at one with my skin.
In one of the Old Quarter's narrower passageways, where a preposterous array of fake flowers is being sold at one end, there is a noodle vendor crouching in a grimy room about the size of a shipping container. Its lime green walls are blighted up high by Hanoi's damp climate and lined down low with a huddle of patient customers. This vendor is old-school, dealing her bowls of noodles from ingredients arranged in baskets, transported here by shoulder yoke. She no longer needs to ply her trade by arduous walking around the streets as she has permanent traction in this alley. In fact, a whole 'infrastructure' seems to have arisen around her, enabling her to serve more customers. The whole community in this alley seems to be profiting from her fame, in one way or another.
In many a previous attempt at getting this vendor's noodles to my mouth, I've been intimidated both by her crankiness and by what I interpreted as the other customers closing ranks on me, the foreigner, in that uncomfortable cupboard where she served. There never seemed to be a parking spot for my motorbike, either. I just wasn't able to time it right or crack the code on the situation. My usual bravado and attempts to ingratiate myself had fallen flat. I'd ride off muttering &fuck it& time and time again.
Today the situation is changed. When I pull up this time, as always, the first priority is to solve the parking puzzle. As convenient as eating street food in Vietnam may be, it has not reached a point where one can just dwell in the vicinity of the stall - on one's motorbike seat - and call for a bowl of soup. Parking protocol must be observed. An old lady from the cupboard opposite says with a smile, &park here&. Very shortly after, in a random set of manoeuvres performed by more people covertly in this vendor's service, I am seated in a line of blue and yellow communal tables that have materialised next to a sugarcane juice crank. I am suddenly drinking its outflow.
During a wait that would only be tolerated for Hanoi's best street food vendors, I don't even catch full sight of her. She is obscured by a throng of yet more customers, all subtly and not-so-subtly placing orders and reminding her of orders already placed. There is H girl children in hello kitty night dresses, perspiration on their brows and not fully recovered from an uncomfortable night's sleep, are staring at me from across the table. A roving vendor selling limes and sour plums is transacting with my new best friend, the elderly parking matron. A bloke with a knife and scissor cart trundles by. He makes a sale, too. Wailing CD music emanates from the cupboard directly behind me, which before long is accompanied by the discordant pipes of the elderly father of the sugar cane juice vendor. Yep, karaoke at 8am.
Money can't buy better entertainment when one is waiting for a bowl of snail noodle soup.
Two kinds of snails feature in this bowl, one small, one large, both chewy. A salty-sour tomato broth is given depth of flavour with a heavy daubing of Hanoi's most contentious condiment, m?m t?m, a pungent fermented shrimp sauce mentioned often in these pages. It needs to be swirled in to distribute it evenly, as does any chilli sauce added at the table. Large bowls of herbs, lettuce, banana stem and curly morning glory stem accompany each bowl. The herbs I pluck out especially for this dish are perilla (tía t?), Vietnamese mint (rau r?m) and lemon balm (kinh gi?i).
At this moment in this summer, getting these noodles down is hot work. Just as many napkins are being used to dab at beads of sweat as those being used for missing one's mouth. Once done, quickly getting wind on one's person is paramount. Cracking the code for payment prolongs matters, however. The karaoke singer breaks off mid-crescendo when he somehow hears me call for the bill. Money gets diverted to all who've had a hand in proceedings, including my kindly parking attendant. Before I mount my bike for getaway, I attempt to get a decent photograph of the vendor's cramped work space. Predictably, she roars at me and waves me away.
Hot and bothered, still waiting the relief of rain, another muttered &fuck it& escapes from my lips.
Bún ?c C? ThêmHàng Chai
The wet markets in South East Asia are shrines to food culture. Food is built up into displays, towers and installations to admire, catch the eye and tempt. It's colourful. , , dragon fruits, persimmons and hibiscus flowers project a prism of riches almost vulgar. It gives olfactory pleasure, too. Inhaling over Vietnam's herb basket gives a rush of zingy green crack. In this part of the world, we can feel food without being compelled to buy. Rub pearly grains of rice in your fingertips. Prod pork. There is a kind of worship or fanaticism going on. Ritual most definitely. Routine and going through the motions, too, like all religious practice. All with the aim of getting food in the eating hole and money in the pocket.
But there is stuff underneath that rudimentary function and showy veneer, too. These markets - almost regardless of country or location - are clad with clutter and grime. I get the feeling that this is often holding the market buildings together - like a powerful glue, porous with generations of food particles and dust. A thorough scouring of these joints, I suspect, would result in a catastrophic collapse, possibly having implications for the taste of the produce. That is, it wouldn't taste as good.
There may be in some cases a solid exterior to South East Asian a wall with a securable gate or door, like any other business enterprise. The interiors are, in contrast, a very rambunctious definition of make-shift. Every scavenged scrap of solid matter makes up the labyrinth of stalls inside. Wobbly odd timber shelves are held together with bits of twine, a rusted nail or a simple irritable wedging into putrid polystyrene or faded plastic. Not much money is being invested back into the fittings. Protection from the perishing mouldy flaps of awning, jammed up umbrellas jostled against one another, sheets of corrugated fibreglass weighted down with half a brick. And then there are the buckets and old tins carefully placed in the spaces to catch the rain when it comes. They're not called 'wet' markets for nothing.
Trading hours in these marketplaces are long. From morning dark to evening dark, a more than double shift of arduous endeavour is done by each proprietor, seven days a week. The vendors spend more time in these settings than they do at home with their families. Peopled predominately by women in Vietnam, a sisterhood akin to family is formed over the years. Decades, in some instances. Familiarity - and contempt - is palpable. It is a second home. And it certainly has a lived-in ambience. Lights are switched on and off. Relationships blow hot and cold. There is napping under blankets with newspapers A-framing the vendors' faces, blanking out light. A few steps of ladder may disappear up a manhole to a couple of square metres of hidden mezzanine. A child may pop out. In one Hanoi market, there is gyrating amidst the morning glory, with an aerobics session succeeding the morning rush.
As office workers have homely images on their desks, so too do the market vendors. Strung up to a post or sitting on an altar cloaked in the trunk of a banyan tree, kings, gods and deceased relatives look over the market transactions. Incense urns resemble beds of nails, with hundreds of expired sticks pointing heaven-ward. Flowers and fruit get offered up, too. The vendors pray that auspicious business fortune will be with them today, and every day.
Of course, they also cook and eat. Electrical cords from rice cookers and induction cooktops run across the market surfaces. Steam rises. Chopsticks click. The afternoon rush begins. Seats are vacated, bowls and plates abandoned 
The range of foods I can process has widened after so long in Vietnam. As a child, I had fairly typical aversions to certain vegetables, none of which have continued into my adult life. For no apparent reason that I can recall, cauliflower, green beans and brussel sprouts engendered the strongest ill-feeling. I vividly remember once lining my gums with a few remaining beans I simply could not get down, excusing myself from the table and spitting them into the toilet. Yes, I grew up in one of those households where you sat at the table until every last morsel was in you. Animal, mineral or vegetable.
The vegetable dilemmas, however, were far outweighed by the animal. Here, I'm talking texture. Back then I had no concept of fat being where all the flavour is, that the meat closer to the bone was tastier, too. The slow cooking of meat in stews and the soft gelatinous fat that resulted was anathema to me. I had an aversion to what I called &wet meat&. If my teeth were jolted by a chip of bone in my preferred meat - well-done sausages - I would have to down cutlery and calm myself for a moment before I could continue. That long spindly spike of cartilage that ran parallel to a chicken drumstick, I found unnerving. Sucking marrow out of a chop bone? Eating my father's tripe in white onion sauce? A runny egg? All of these (and more) were deep dark places for me as a boy eater.
Vietnam has forced m a case in point being a bowl of noodles I ate earlier this year in . Served on the footpath by a mobile vendor carrying her business across her shoulders, this bowl of funk would've sent my nine year-old self running for the hills. The initial ingredients going bowl-ward I would have ha sticky handfuls of fresh bun (rice vermicelli) are flung atop some leaves. When knife gets run over the chopping board, however, the protein is in play.  is a Vietnamese pork brawn cut from a banana leaf casing, comprised of the textures chewy, crunchy, gelatinous, slimy and a little bouncy. Parts of it can ricochet in the mouth. A version of this is sliced into the bowl. Added next is another kind of 'sausage', nem chua, a fermented pink number of minced pork and shredded pig skin. Various cuts of fatty boiled pork round out protein proceedings. That nine year-old self would be in a catatonic state by now.
The vendor tosses on bean sprouts and cucumber in a last flourish before the flavour gets added. M?m nêm is a fermented anchovy sauce usually customised by the individual vendor or home cook with ingredients ranging from pineapple and lemongrass to lime, garlic, sugar and chilli. Playing around with sauces is a sport in Vietnam. A ladle of this vendor's version is spooned over and then I take possession of my blue floral bowl. A wicked hot crush of chilli and garlic is my condiment of choice. Then it's action stations.
And in the mouth, there is action aplenty. Lots for the teeth to do. Massive blows to the tastebuds. It's a war going on in there. But now I exit that war - with texture - the victor.
Bún M?m Nêmon the pavement at 15 Phan ??ng L?u(not far from the ??ng Ba Market)
I like . Whoever is in charge down there is making a nice city. Compared to Hanoi or Saigon it's a tad sterile, lacking that street-level frenzy and coating of old-world grime. But the traffic flows uncongested for the most part. Roads are wide, lines are clean, city planning seems to have foresight. Buildings gleam, the marble statues by the Han River are polished and the river water itself is actually almost blue. Good air quality is assured by Danang's breezy seaside location.
It makes a nice change.
As does what is on the table. Like the local holiday-makers from Hanoi and elsewhere in the country, I go all gah-gah about seafood when I'm on the coast. Along Danang's main seafront road - the part that hasn't been appropriated for resort development, the part that still seems to belong to the people - there are dozens of open-air shelters where seafood gourmandising and beer swilling occur. For the most part it is good-natured and family-friendly.
The most renowned of these seafood houses is 'Bé M?n' (a literal lyrical translation of which is 'Salty Baby') which has the capacity to accommodate a rollicking 300 people. Filled with mostly big family parties ready to devour after a late afternoon of beach frivolity, the stainless steel tables are turning over fast, their empty vessels and discarded crustacean bits being swept into big plastic tubs to make way for the next sitting. Crates of
and eskies of ice are shoved under table's end as new customers are escorted to the far end of the shelter to select their live sea creatures for treatment in the kitchen.
Aerated tubs and tanks containing prawns, crabs, different kinds of clams and other shellfish and, of course, fish are subject to close scrutiny. Wrangling over weight, price and preferred cooking technique take place before beer drinking and anticipation begin. To soak up the rush of beer on an empty stomach, freelance local snack purveyors roam the aisles between tables with plate sized rice crackers, fermented pork rolls wrapped in banana leaves, cut fruit and peanuts - all of which we go easy on. Filling up on this fodder is not the reason we're here.
In gentle over-lapping succession, our choices come to table. As does an accumulating puzzle of dipping sauces. For charcoal-edged grilled squid, we mix a rich paste of chili sauce and mayonnaise. With steamed crabs and grilled prawns, there is salt, pepper, lime and chili to dab at. An elaborate piquant version of Vietnam's sour fish both () is set over a paraffin-fueled flame, grouper swimming in a hot-pot with under-ripe pineapple, tomato and okra. On a side plate, we have sloshed a shallow puddle of fish sauce and scattered chili and, once the fish is cooked through, we lay it there, turning it over to souse it in salt and heat. The broth is ladled over rice. This kind of end to a meal is a comfort to the Vietnamese, a perfect climax.
And a further comfort to those staying more than one night is that there is no doubting a repeat episode the very next night.
Bé M?n Hoàng Sa, M?n Thái, S?n Trà, ?à N?ng
On our travels, we can meekly sit down at an uncrowded table and eat mediocre food. In fact, to us it might register as good food. How would we know? One principle that we espouse on our street food tours of Hanoi - when navigating unfamiliar food terrain on one's own, seek out places where the locals are shoulder to shoulder - served us well during our week in Seoul earlier this year. We've become quite adept at observing the prevailing culture around a busy eatery, mimicking local behaviour and confidently smiling our way into a queue or onto a bench.
The &I'll have what she's having& modus operandi works particularly well when it's multitudes of folk all eating the same dish. At Seoul's
on our last day in the city,
was followed by a meander through the food corridors to chastise ourselves about what we might have missed. It's a form of torture we often practise, as in many cases we're not sure when or if we'll be in a neighbourhood or city again. To indulge on top of an already sated appetite would be judged frivolous, even gluttonous by some.
So what. We know we're gluttons. And drunks. Sometimes. But we're not stupid.
When an insanely busy market stall vendor sees our effort to 'fit in', to understand what it is she's doing and then insists that we sit at her table with her regulars, we obey. We feel the privilege and automatically our stomachs acquiesce. The little dumpling nuggets on exhibit have persuasive pull, too. But the fact that the vendor, in between customer transactions, is
as well as keeping a control-freakish eye on her two assistants and her husband...well, we're attracted to the whole scenario, her fastidiousness included. That's a good quality in a street food vendor.
Kalguksu is a knife-cut wheat flour noodle eaten in a broth typically prepared over a long period from dried anchovies and shrimp heads. Rich in the process, at serving straws of zucchini, carrot and bits of potato are added, the finishing touch being a scattered handful of dried seaweed (gim) strands. So excited by this time, and with the encouragement of our host, we include the added dimension of the above-mentioned dumplings, called mandu. They are like ravioli, filled with mashed-up tofu and kimchi, and can be eaten separately after momentary blanching.
We go the 'whole hog',
and dumplings together in a marriage known at this vendor's as kal-mandukuk. The table is made more colourful with the addition of further Korean staples on the side, two styles of kimchi and chili paste. And without wanting to start any kind of spicy one-up-man-ship, I must say that I was not challenged at all by the amount of chili used here or at any other table in Seoul. On my tongue, the fieriness of the chili in Korea and Vietnam are not comparable because of the different overall flavour profiles each cuisine is trying to achieve.
Here, at stall number 13 at the Kwang Jang Market, our vendor is concerned more about the flavour and consistency of what we eat before it's customised at the table. The freshness of the noodles, the form of the dumpling, the richness of the broth.
Not that she needs to prove it to us.
At one convergence of halls at Seoul's , there is jostling over mung beans. Not the raw ingredient but an enormous crisp pancake made of them. Called 'bindaetteok' or 'nokdujeon', it is reminiscent of Japan's ' in terms of size and capacity to satisfy, though is less rich and heavy. This market, on a busy intersection in Seoul's Jongno district, houses a dozen or so stalls specialising in this snack and that's what all the jostling is about - deciding on one's vendor, identifying seated customers about to take their last bite and hovering strategically behind them. And because this is a crunchy golden brown thing, there is an added sense of urgency, even desperation about getting into position at the counter.
From that counter, as the anticipation reaches climax, I occupy myself with the mechanics of the tiny work space these pancakes are being cranked out of. Split mung beans exactly like those found in dry goods stalls all around Hanoi are soaked and then ground through a motorised stone mill, out the bottom of which an ooze of pale batter is caught in plastic basins. Bean sprouts, spring onions and thinly sliced kimchi is added to the batter. Large discs almost the size of dinner plates, half an inch thick, are formed on a necessarily oily grill and not quite deep fried.
By the time they reach my section of the counter, cut into quarters on aluminium foil covered trays, they look as good as deep fried, however. A vinegary soy sauce with white onion wedges makes up the liquid component of the dish.
I dip. I bite. It crunches. It gratifies.
Twenty-two years ago, while living in Sapporo, Japan, I nearly made it to Seoul. There was a week where it looked as if a visa run was necessary but in the end the trip never eventuated. In the ensuing years, I've barely given the place a thought. That' I thought about it twice - once, just before I started blogging here, my
mentioned another blog, the now defunct . The other time, more recently, was when I was reading Barbara Demick's depressing re-telling of the lives of North Koreans in '', many of whom escaped to Seoul. Then, in a random moment of 'let's go somewhere',
and I found ourselves with air tickets and accommodation booked.
We landed in Seoul at the end of March and at the airport in Hanoi before we departed, I was working out how we'd get from Incheon (Seoul airport, the name of which I'd just learned) to our accommodation in Jongno. That's how we roll with those kind of details. What we're going to put into our mouths, however, is of paramount importance and much less likely left to chance! With little knowledge of Korean cuisine, we had a big city food landscape to get across in six days.
I want to write about some of the dining experiences we had in Seoul in a series of short posts, starting with perhaps my only point of familiarity, Korean barbeque. Cliched as it may be from the outside, there are charcoal grill plates all over town giving colour and flavour to pork and beef, from modest street eateries in clandestine alleyways to sizeable indoor halls equipped with space-age silver or copper siphons that are lowered over each grill to hoover up the meaty smoke. It's a communal style of dining where grog is sipped or skolled during cooking and eating, a factor that panders to my tendencies.
At times, we were sampling from draught beer taps, soju and makgeolli bottles all at the same time. Makgeolli is a very quaffable liquor fusing rice and wheat, milky and pleasantly sweet and a couple of percentage points above beer in alcohol content. Normally drunk from dented tin bowls and originally the drink of choice amongst Korean farmers, it's rustic appeal is apparently gaining favour with Korea's youth. Though clearly not part of that demographic, at every barbeque joint I continued to drink it. One night, we were persuaded to neck a cocktail the locals call 'Sweet after Bitter', the make up of which is two shot glasses (one filled with soju, one with coca-cola) submerged in a large glass of beer.
These days I'm much more fond of boozy ambience if there is also commensurate amounts of food on the table. While it's mostly about meat (at any barbeque), around the Seoul griddle there is also an abundance of side plates containing vegetables, leaves and condiments. Button mushrooms and garlic cloves join the protein over the fire.
is present in many guises. Rich red pastes of fermented soy bean, glutinous rice powder and chili can be dabbed at and lettuce and perilla leaves are used to wrap. It's a busy table.
Beef rib meat and skirt steak, along with pork belly - sometimes marinated, sometimes not - are what we gravitated towards when selecting from the menu but there are many other cuts on offer. And at Seoul barbeque tables, the serving staff help with the lighting of fires, the replenishing of fuel, the changing of grill plates as well as setting the meat over the flame and its occasional turning - all of the tasks with the potential of mishap.
I'm grateful for that because someone has to pour the drinks.
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