Hanoi Delights: BBQ Chicken Street and More.

In keeping with the Hanoi tradition of themed streets, when you want BBQ chicken you go to BBQ Chicken Street.

The street is lined with restaurants serving nothing but.

And a couple that are even more specialized.

Our favorite spot features sidewalk dining with plenty of
chicken bones under foot, so you know it's good.

The chicken parts (note that they are big pieces, not the usual
hacked up bits) are impaled on sugarcane skewers and perfectly grilled.
Also good: skewers of roasted potato chunks, sweet-and-sour cucumber slices,
and a sort of lightly fermented sweet-and-sour cole slaw.

Meat popsicles!

After lunch, we stroll toward the lake, pausing to take in the latest in cutting-edge fashion.

And visit our favorite coffee shop.

An eatery we're sorry we missed. (We'll definitely be back.)

And the lovely lakefront dining at this al fresco cantina specializing in frog hot pot.
(Those are the tables, not the seats.)

P.

Hanoi Delights: Fried Chicken with a View, Fermented Shrimp Sauce, Too.

In our perambulations around Swan Lake, we discovered a new restaurant and a new Hanoi Delight: chicken fried with salt and pepper. Very crispy and flavorful, not at all greasy. The best part is the crispy bits of garlic, ginger, lemongrass, chile, and scallion that come with it. Like all meat dishes here, the chicken is cut into seemingly random chunks, making every bite a potential hazard, with jagged bits of bone lurking to puncture the unwary palate.

The restaurant is built out over the very lake where John McCain was shot down, which adds a bit of piquancy to the meal. There are always fishermen out on the lake and lining its banks, though the water is pretty nasty looking and the surface sparkles with the silver carcasses of dead fish. We remarked that eating freshwater fish here is a rather unappealing idea.

And then the next night, I had lake fish for dinner. I'm teaching a small private class at a local tool import business, and the three women in the class wanted to take me out afterward to sample one of the local delicacies. We went to a little hole in the wall in the Old Quarter that was packed with tourists. Apparently, the restaurant serves only one dish and is mentioned in all the guidebooks. They set up a charcoal burner in the middle of the table, on it they put a skillet packed with chunks of white lake fish lightly coated with tumeric. As these sizzle fragrantly, the women add chopped dill and greens and green onions. Once this is cooked, it's ladled over bun (rice vermicelli) and topped with fresh chopped chiles, green onions, roasted peanuts, cilantro and other herbs, and capped with a dash of fish sauce or a grayish, lumpy, very pungent fermented shrimp sauce. My students told me that most foreigners can't eat mam tom (said shrimp sauce), so, of course, in spite of my trepidations, I had to try it. It was delicious, adding a tangy savor to the medley of flavors. This is what I like most about Vietnamese food--every bite has a multiplicity of flavors and textures, that may seem incongruous in the abstract, but blend marvelously in reality.

P.

Any excuse for flowers

A week or so ago on International Women's Day, my students brought me beautiful bouquets of flowers. Apparently Vietnamese students love any excuse to give flowers to their teachers; this is the fourth time I have been showered with flowers.

In my morning class, I received a bouquet from the boys and all the girls were given one long-stemmed red rose. Then each of the boys stood up and said one nice comment about each of the girls. Very sweet. I should add that there was no prompting - the boys did this all on their own.

In one of my other classes, the boys asked me if they could have a hour or so of class time...they also gave us flowers, then they played a game where the girls had to guess various animals based on clues. At the end of the game the boys gave each of the girls a stuffed animal to correspond to the animal they had correctly guessed. Again, no prompting, all on their own.

I was awarded a squirrel and a monkey.

O.

Swan Lake.

Last weekend, we walked to Tay Ho (West Lake), the largest lake in Hanoi. It's about a 25-minute walk from our house. We had a nice lunch by the lake, then walked about for a while.

Many of the lakes in Hanoi have swan paddle boats, but Tay Ho
has by far the largest fleet.

The day was gray and slightly cool. The far shore only partially visible in the mist.

On a small peninsula attached to the causeway across the lake stands
the oldest pagoda in Hanoi. It was built almost a thousand years ago.

The rules are a bit more recent. Luckily it was cool enough
that neither of us no wear the short.

It's still an active place of worship. Very tranquil, a lovely
respite from the honking, exhaust-fouled chaos of the surrounding city.

P.

Hanoi Delights: Claypot Basa Fish.

Ete Cafe is one of our favorites. It's within easy walking distance, has great food, funky/artsy atmosphere, and fairly reasonable pricing. It offers a combination of French and Vietnamese food, plus one of the better burgers in town (though it's made Aussie style with a fried egg on top. Actually very good once you get over the fact that it's not the good old Amurrican burger you've been craving.). Recently, they have also acquired a young tom cat who likes to sit on my lap while I eat. A definite plus in my book. It is often crowded at lunch with French expats, so you know they make great freedom fries. And they have a bottle of one of my favorite scotches--Caol Ila--which I am forced to sample from time to time.

But the main draw for us is the basa fish slow-cooked in a clay pot. Very simple in concept, very complex in flavor. Basa fish is a medium-sized freshwater white fish with a mild flavor somewhere between trout and catfish. They cut off a three-quarter inch steak and put it in the pot with lots of chopped lemongrass and ginger, slices of a root vegetable we have yet to identify, and most importantly, a big chunk of fatty pork belly. The dish is cooked for a long time over a slow fire, until the ingredients caramelize and the flavors deepen and meld into a rich, complex deliciousness.

The ginger and lemongrass are cooked so long that they are soft enough to chew,
yielding concentrated essenses of caramel and pork fat, as well as of course
ginger and lemongrass.

It comes with rice, a tasty vegetable broth, and our beloved
buttery greens stir-fried with lots of garlic. $3.50 each, and well worth it.

P.

And You May Ask Yourself...Well, How Did I Get Here?

It was one of those moments that life brings you sometimes. I'm sitting in a German beer hall in Hanoi with a group of visiting Japanese CEOs, eating fried chicken, potato salad, and fried corn kernels with chopsticks, washing it all down with lots of good Munich beer.

Well, how did I get there?

I was at VietSoftware, in the CEO's office, waiting for a conference call with our banking systems partner in Singapore, and the call got postponed for a couple hours. The CEO said that he had to have lunch with a delegation of CEOs from Japan, customers of VSII. He asked me to join them. There's a great beer hall (a branch of an actual Munich brewery) practically next door to VSII, and the Japanese, having sampled the delicious beer previously, wanted to go back. Needless to say, so did I.

Some of the Japanese spoke a little English, so we were able to communicate a bit. Mostly gulping beer and saying: "Good!" with exaggerated grins. They were impressed that I could pick up the corn kernels with the ohashi. None of us spoke Vietnamese, but our hosts spoke both Japanese and English. Several of the VSII people had been educated in various Russian technical institutes, so at the end of the meal, they ordered a plate of what looked like shoestring potatoes, but turned out to be a very smoky, salty Russian cheese. Very tasty.

On days like this I can only marvel at how my life has led to this, and I remember how glad I am that we're having this excellent, difficult, surreal adventure.

P.

Got Milk?

It hasn't always been easy buying milk and milk products in Hanoi. We have to go halfway across town to buy cheese. Half-and-half is unavailable. I make my own by mixing light cream (also very hard to find, but at least possible) with regular milk.

If only we'd known of this wonderful product.

P.

Back To Hanoi, And A New Hanoi Delight.

So the snacks here are a little different here that in the US. But they do like their chips. Usually the chips involve dried squid, but potato is also popular. I saw this new flavor yesterday and, as a huge fan of Peking Duck, I just had to try it.

It actually does taste like Peking Duck.

With potato thrown in.

P.

We've Seen Avatar In A Way None Of You Have.

All I can say is that until you've seen Avatar on a pirate DVD with Cambodian subtitles on a small TV monitor at the front of a bus from the back of said bus as it speeds from Phnom Penh to HCMC, you haven't experienced the true magnificence of this immersive, uh, experience.

Little did we know when we chose our seat that we would be in for such a treat.
On other legs of our bus trips, we've endured blaring Vietnamese and Cambodian
sit-coms, sappy pop music videos and murky transfers of old Jean Claude Van Damme
movies. Since I'd missed the first 20 minutes of the film when we saw it in Hanoi
(an omission since rectified), I didn't recognize what we were watching at first.
I just thought, "Pretty good FX for a cheesy old movie." After a couple minutes,
though, I recognized the landscape.

Waiting for the ferry across the Mekong, every vehicle is swarmed by
vendors selling snacks and drinks.

We'd hoped for a crunchy lunch of fried beetles, but they were
nowhere to be found. Instead we had to settle for more standard
fare. I visited the toilet after lunch and the bus almost left
without me. Apparently they don't count heads before pulling out.
O. was able to slow them long enough for me to leap aboard.

What sweet P. (get it? Sweet Pea.) fails to mention is that, I not only ran to the front of the bus asking the driver to stop as it was pulling out without P., but the driver repeatedly honked the horn at P. who was meandering around taking pictures and not realizing that we were leaving without him. True to his easy nonplussed manner, P. casually looked up, took one more picture and hopped on the bus!

P.

Monks, Monkeys, and Spiders. Oh, My!

On our last afternoon in Phnom Penh, we visited the royal palace.

There were monks.

And monkeys.

And topiary.

Objects of worship.

Including this shrine to, uh, Emmett Kelly, I guess.

And amazing murals depicting scenes from the Ramayana.

A lovely end to our week in Cambodia.

We had one last dinner with Justin and Jyoti before they left for the beach at Sihanoukville and we headed for Saigon.

And what would a celebratory dinner be without a plate of crispy tarantulas to start?

P.

Bugs! They're What's For Lunch!

Our Angkor adventure over, we left Siem Reap and took the express bus back to Phnom Penh. Three hours into the trip, we stopped for lunch to be confronted by all manner of roadside deliciousness. All manner, as long as you're hungry for insects:

Deep-fried cicadas.

We've had these in Mexico. They're crunchy and nutty, but better
rolled in a tortilla with guacamole and chiles.

Who could resist a snack bag of mixed beetles?

Especially with plenty of chile and green onion.

Unfortunately, we'd already gorged on this lovely box lunch.
Next time we'll know better.

P.

Wat's It All About? Day Two at Angkor Wat.

On our second and last day in the Angkor Wat area, we visited the two major temple complexes--Angkor Thom and Angkor Wat.

The setting is very serene and beautiful.

Bayon temple in the Angkor Thom complex features multiple
towers carved on all four sides with huge faces. (Click for detail.)

They really reminded us of the giant Olmec heads we saw in the jungles in the Yucatan.

The bas-reliefs decorating every inch of the walls also looked
very much like the Mayan carvings in Tikal and Copan.

But the apsara dancers are distinctively Khmer.

So were Glyphs of Forbidden Actions.

Many of the ancient shrines are still used for worship
by the locals and by pilgrims from Thailand and India.

The Elephant Terrace was a reviewing stand from which
the king inspected his corps of war elephants.

The kings are gone, but the elephants are still here.

The elephants inspect P. and O.

A monstrous lion attacks an elephant.

At last, Angkor Wat.

Angkor Wat was originally built as a Buddhist temple, but when
the king who built it died, his relatives beheaded the thousands
of statues of Buddha that decorated the walls and rededicated
the temple to Vishnu, whose statue is still a place of active worship.

During the Vietnam war, Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge holed up in Angkor Wat,
using the temple as a hospital. There was some bomb damage, and these
bullet holes still remain. The Khmer Rouge also destroyed all the documentation
on the on-going reconstruction work, leaving archeologists with
a gigantic jigsaw puzzle of thousands of numbered stones and
no key to where they once stood. It took years of painstaking
computer work to reconstruct the reconstruction. Land mines and
continued guerrilla activity kept Angkor closed to tourism until the mid 1980s.

The walls of the main temple feature huge, intricately designed reliefs

depicting scenes from the Ramayana and the Mahabarata.

We were especially taken with the carvings of Hanuman and his monkey
army fighting to rescue Sita.

All the other apsara carvings show them with closed mouths and
inscrutable smiles. These two are actually grinning. (Click for detail.)

This scene of an ancient BBQ shows the pig being slaughtered and
brochettes being roasted over an open fire. Yum.

That reminds me, I'm hungry.

For more shots of our adventures at Angkor, click below.

Day One.
Day Two.

P. & O.