I did make it but it took more than 1 hour for 7 km ride. I've seen crazy traffic with tremendous numbers of motorbikes on TV before, but now I see that, in Ho Chi Minh City at least, that it does actually exist - that's no exaggeration! It seems that no regular traffic rules apply and it's unbelievable I don't see any accidents...
A little bit after I checked into the hotel, the street tour guides arrived at the hotel to pick me up. I booked this tour from Vietnamstreetfoods.com. They offer both motorbike and walking options. Although I wouldn't have to drive the motorbike myself, I felt uncomfortable to even sit on the back in such crazy traffic, so I chose the walking option. The two guides arranged a taxi and took us to district 4 (my hotel is in the district 1). It's only a few km but it took more than 30 min....
The food market/stands area in this district is huge We started from the fruit section. The guides told me that I can choose any fruits I'm interested in. Two fruits grabbed my attention.
The first is a custard apple. It looks like a young pine cone. It does taste like cherimoya that I tasted in Peru. In fact this has more flavor than cherimoya and it was really good. The only problem is the custard apple is much smaller than cherimoya (slightly smaller than tennis balls). There are many seeds and the skin tastes bitter. It needs some experience to eat this.
The second fruit is milk fruit. It's called this way because the juice resembles to milk. The guide told me a story about this fruit but I didn't quite understand it completely. They are the third guides since I arrived in Vietnam. Unfortunately, the English level of the Vietnamese guides (also hotel staff) is not as high as other countries I've visited. They all have great personalities to make it up for, though.
This is the milk fruit after cutting into half, seeds stayed on the other half (like an avocado)
This is fresh sugar cane juice with kumquat. It's still pretty sweet but not syrupy. The added kumquat juice makes it refreshing.
This is the kumquat used in the sugar cane juice
After the fruit section, we moved to "cooked" foods vendors area. The first snack was fried dough with minced meat inside. This is the Vietnamese version of piroshki. The guide told me the name but unfortunately I don't remember it....
Suddenly, one of the guides asked "do you like snake wine?" Not really... But I said "why not," instead. So, it's the snake infused (?) wine. I don't know what exactly the liquor is. It tasted neutral, like vodka. In fact it was as strong as vodka in terms of alcohol. I don't know what snake is supposed to taste like. But I didn't taste anything unusual. Just a strong liquor flavor.
The next stop is bahn mi. This is the second bahn mi after the one I tasted in Hoi An (the one Anthony Bourdain visited). This one is made with various meat products. Very flavorful with spiciness and sweetness. But I liked the other bahn mi better.
Next, a short break with fresh coconut juice. I chose the chilled coconut since it's very hot and humid. When ordered, they cut the top off and stick a straw. It tasted very fresh. The guide told me that it takes a day to chill the juice completely because of the thick coconut flesh,
This is something I've never had. Minced meat is mixed with seasoning and wrapped in betel leaves. They are grilled at the front. Smells wonderful!
They are served with rice paper, rice noodles and a veggie/herb plate. The two unique veggies on the plate are starfruit and and young banana. Both are sliced thinly and give a hint of bitterness. The rice paper is very thin and I didn't have to soak it in water. After wrapping everything with the rice paper, the whole roll is dipped into the fish sauce based dipping sauce. Very good.
This is Pho!! It's a hot and humid day (although it was after 7:00pm by then) and inside the restaurant it was like a sauna because of the boiling pho broth. The girl in the photo below was drenched in sweat. Vietnam is a very hot country. I wonder how so many soup noodles dishes became popular in such an environment...
The beef was lightly cooked in the boiling broth, so it's not as rare as what I'm used to
The guide showed me how to make dipping sauce for the beef. You can directly add the condiments to the broth or dip the meat. But it seems more Vietnamese to eat Pho the second way (at least among the Vietnamese around me). It's hoisin sauce (the guide called it sweet soy), hot sauce, citrus juice (kumquat) and house made chili sauce (dried chili flakes in oil). These are mixed before dipping. So far, I haven't seen "World wide famous Sriracha" in Vietnam!! I saw something similar, though. Sriracha is manufactured in the US. So, I guess Sriracha is the US version of the Vietnamese hot sauce made by Vietnamese immigrants in the US.
The last stop of the tour is seafood! The scallop below is grilled with shallot, scallion and peanuts. Served with sauce. Don't know what the ingredients for the sauce but I guess shrimp paste is included. Very savory sauce.
Grilled shrimp with chili. When I taste the shell, it's very spicy. But after being peeled, there's only a hint of spiciness. Very fresh shrimp. Also, it comes with a similar dipping sauce.
This seafood eatery had many different varieties of seafood. I saw some giant clams that I've never seen. If I was going to stay longer, I would like to come back here.
During the tour, we had quite a few things that came with ice, such as sugarcane juice, teas and even beer. I didn't feel completely comfortable with this (because of the unknown water source) but I gave up eventually because it was so hot and I needed something cool. Many of the ice "cubes" were big cylinders with a whole on one side. After I came back to the hotel, I Googled the ice in Vietnam in general. It seems this big cylindrical ice is safe to consume. Even other types of ice are usually ok in big cities. I should have checked this before I came to Vietnam....
Tomorrow is a full day cooking class!
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