Cho Benh Thanh Challenge II

I realize that I still have a lot of stalls to eat at if I’m going to finish this challenge! So here are the latest updates:

Bo la lot & banh hoi at Stall 1090, 20,000 dong. Bo la lot is grilled ground beef wrapped in la lot (betel leaves). They’re the little green cylindrical packages. I remember my mom using vine leaves when she could not find betel leaves at Asian markets. I asked to substitute the usual bun (vermicelli) for banh hoi - very thin rice noodles, usually steamed instead of boiled. I really enjoy these thin noodles. The beef seasoning was excellent, but I’m used to a better quality meat. I couldn’t resist ordering a chao tom (ground shrimp, grilled around a sugar cane) for an extra 15,000 dong.

Banh Canh Ga at Stall 1084, 25,000 dong. I had spotted a stall selling chao (rice porridge) and had the intention of eating there, but it was closed. Looking lost in the middle of food stalls in Cho Benh Thanh will quickly attract vendors asking you to come eat at their stall. The lady assured me her stall had chao ga (ga = chicken). Once I sat down, the lady at the counter offered mien ga (clear noodles) or banh canh ga. I ordered banh canh ga – banh canh is specifically the fat noodles above. The broth was excellent, sweet and flavourful. Banh canh is not my favourite though; I don’t hate it but I don’t love it.

Bun Rieu at Stall 1128, 20,000 dong. I do not usually feel like eating soups due to the hot weather here even though I am a total soup fanatic. After a morning shower, it actually felt cool so I thought I should take advantage of the weather and have some soup. Bun rieu is a vermicelli crab soup and is one of my favourites in the winter. It’s hard to explain what it is since my mom actually makes the rieu (the lumps at the bottom) from a can and simply adds eggs. Authentic rieu is made from a tiny crab mixture. The norm here is to serve fried tofu and huyet (blood). I had a nibble of the blood just to say I did, but it’s not really my thing. They served this with bean sprouts. I like my version better (even if it’s from a can) because I add a ridiculous amount of tomatoes and iceberg lettuce! It was still good though.

A condiment for bun rieu is mam (middle container), which is fermented shrimp paste. It’s stinky and salty, but it’s a must for this dish!

Banh beo at Stall 1170, 6,000 dong. I realize I've included banh beo in this eating challenge before. That’s because there is a lot of overlap between the food stalls. I’ve noticed this stall in the northwest corner of the market because it always seems very busy. Maybe because of its low prices! This is my cheapest lunch yet. At this stall, the banh beo were a miniature version. You could have cha or nem for an extra 3000 dong. I opted for nem since I haven’t had any since I got here. Nem is ground pork that is cured and is not cooked. This was good although the nuoc cham was a tad on the sweet side, even for my taste (and I like it sweet!).

Bun moc at Stall 1266, 25,000 dong. Bun moc is a pretty simple soup: broth, noodles and pork patties. The broth was very flavourful and the cha was very good too. It was good, but I was sweating buckets which made it a bit harder to enjoy. I find it hard to eat soup in the hot weather.

Bun cha gio & nem nuong at Stall 1044, 30,000 dong. I’ve been obsessing about cha gio (fried spring rolls). This is the fifth time I’ve had it in a week… These were good because the vendor heated them up on charcoal grills so they were crisp and hot. The filling had big chunks of pork, which I’m not used to because my mom usually uses ground pork. The nem nuong (grilled pork meatballs) were perfectly flavoured; they were just very fatty. Again, I’m used to my mom’s and she uses leaner meat. The little joint near my place definitely makes them better!

Rau ma, 6000 dong. I accompanied my cha gio with a rau ma juice. I’ve never had this green juice and my mother tells me it’s very cooling. Not just cool temperature wise. Vietnamese people believe that certain foods make you hot or cool internally. Well, rau ma may be cooling but it tastes the way it looks, like drinking grass. It was fine when I was drinking it, but the minute I swallowed, it was just grotesque.

Com chay thap cam at Stall 1014, 15,000 dong. Being the first (along with the 15th) of the lunar month, most com tam (rice) stalls offer a chay (vegetarian) option for practicing Buddhists. Thap cam is sort of the special (I can’t think of the correct English term!) which includes pretty much a little of everything offered. In this case, there was a lot of tofu, some okra, some faux chicken at the bottom and pickled vegetables over a bed of rice, accompanied by a sauce made out of chau (fermented tofu). It also came with a canh (soup) with big chunks of squash. This was pretty good; I liked certain things more than others. I wish I had a better idea what I was eating though!

Bo bit tet at Stall 1054, 25,000 dong. I’ve had bo bit tet (beefsteak) a couple of times in Vietnam. The best I’ve had is still at my aunt’s; she used melt-in-your-mouth Australian beef. I headed for Cho Benh Thanh around 9:00 (that’s early! I’m usually lazing around at that time) for breakfast. The bit tet came out on a sizzling cow-shaped plate with one egg, topped with pate, onion and crispy slices of garlic. Vietnamese love their pate, another French influence. The piece of beef was pretty small. This was accompanied by a banh mi (Vietnamese baguette bread) to sop up all the sauce. Quite a heavy breakfast! I’ll have to hit the gym extra hard today!

Cho Ben Thanh Challenge

I was thinking about food (well, that happens often). More specifically, I was thinking of all the dishes I had NOT eaten here yet (it was in the same train of thought that I did not want to leave Vietnam, regretting anything). Then as usual, I started comparing food to my mom’s. I realized that since I’ve moved out of my mom’s (in 2001), I only eat a number of dishes when I go back home. Dishes I crave. My favourite dishes. This puts a lot of dishes that I don't feel as strongly about on the wayside. Dishes that wouldn’t make my top ten, because it’s already crowded as it is.

I was actually thinking of one specific dish: mi quang. So I checked out the food blogs and found entries on noodlepie. He mentioned that he ate some at the Ben Thanh market. Why, I happen to live right by Ben Thanh market! So I went searching for the specific stall and ordered mi quang. I then realized that while I’d eaten a couple of times in the market, I really hadn’t given it enough of a chance. There’s so many food stalls with so many dishes, only minutes away. I decided to give myself a challenge to eat my way through, stall by stall. I have three months left! Here is what I have eaten so far:

Mi Quang at Stall 1092, 25,000 dong. Mi quang is a yellow noodle dish, a specialty of Da Nang that has a soupy sauce, but isn’t quite a soup. Like my mom’s, this one had cha (ground pork patty) and shrimp. Unlike my mom, it also had delicious meatballs. When I asked, I was told it consisted of pork and crab. So good and sweet!! Unfortunately, the banh trang (the sesame crackers on top) were very stale so didn’t really add that required crunch. I think I remember my mom deep frying them, which added more decadence!

Banh Cuon at Stall 1006, 20,000 dong. Banh cuon, described on the sign as steamed rolled rice pancake, is stuffed with ground pork. It was good as expected, but nothing special.

Banh cam (mobile), 3000 dong. While I was eating my banh cuon, a lady came by selling banh cam, a deep fried dough rolled in sesame seeds and stuffed with green beans. Perfect meal ending!

Thach at Stall 1010, 15,000 dong. Stall 1010 sells all sorts of sweets, cakes and thach, the Vietnamese version of jello. Well, The Boyfriend would disagree it’s like jello; it’s a bit too crunchy for his taste. Aren’t the shapes and colours pretty though? Some of the flavours include coconut, coffee and la dua (pandan leaf). I'm not sure if the pink is maybe strawberry?

Banh cam at Stall 1128, 3000 dong. I was looking for more banh cam and was pointed to this stall. I’ve noticed these are more densely packed with beans than back home and the sesame seeds aren’t all over the outside, rather it’s part of the syrup that is poured on top. When I took the picture, the lady made me wait to rearrange them so it would look nicer!

Bun Cha Gio at Stall 1124, 25,000 dong. After reading a few food blog entries about cha gio (fried spring rolls), I had to find myself some. It was a bit disappointing, burnt and stale. But a bowl of bun (vermicelli) with nuoc mam (fish sauce) always makes me happy.

Banh cuon thit nuong at Stall 1018, 10,000 dong for two rolls. I’ve actually been to this stall but didn’t have my memory card in my camera. So I decided to come back and try these rolls with grilled meat, herbs and noodles. I’ve never actually eaten these. It was quite good and I especially liked the accompanying peanut sauce.

Banh beo at Stall 1018, 20,000 dong. I also had a banh beo dish, which is dough that is steamed served with minced shrimp, fish sauce and crackling pork skin. Here, they serve it with cha hue (ground pork) and cha ca (ground fish). This is one of my favourite Vietnamese dishes.

Train Ride & Quy Nhơn (Aug 1-3)

With only a month left in Vietnam, I figured I should go visit my family again in central Vietnam. I met them in Quy Nhơn where my uncle, aunt and cousin were visiting for a "festival" and my aunt's sister's housewarming. Quy Nhơn is a coastal city probably around halfway between Nha Trang and Quảng Ngãi. Interesting personal trivia: Quy Nhơn is the port my parents used to leave Vietnam in 1978.

Having only booked my train ticket two days in advance, I was only able to get a hard sleeper. The compartment fits six beds, as opposed to the soft sleeper, which fits four. My "bed" was the top one (also the cheapest) and it felt rather claustrophic; there was not even enough room to sit up. At least, I didn't have a hard seat for the 14 hour overnight train ride. I couldn't bear lying for 14 hours straight so I asked the young woman with the bed at the bottom if I could sit on her bed. Hers had more clearance! I think this is a common practice.

Trains in Vietnam are very slow. In addition, they have to make stops at pre-determined spots to pass each other. So if one train is late, it delays the other train waiting too. Add to that three boys under the age of seven in our compartment. Let's just say I was glad when the ride was over...!


You can see my backpack on my very tight "bed".

After leaving HCMC at 7:40 pm, I arrived in Quy Nhơn at about 10 am. My uncle picked me up at the train station. After dropping off my things at his mother-in-law's, he gave me a tour of the town and we went out for lunch. A mere two hours later (once my uncle had his nap), he went to buy banh beo and I had to eat again. This was a sign of what was to come...

I didn't know that Vietnam had festivals!

I think the flags were pulled out for the occasion.

There was always a person standing at intersections directing traffic. What is funny is that you can see behind the person that there is a traffic light. The person is literally looking at the traffic light and moving the flag accordingly. Rather pointless, non?


Lunch with my uncle was cơm thô. Thô refers to the container that holds the rice.

My uncle ordered a variety of vegetables to dip in mam. Mam is all sorts of fermented fish, shrimp and squid. A big too strong for my taste but I know my mother would have loved this! The vegetables included cucumbers, green tomatoes, cà pháo (type of eggplant), lettuce and bean sprouts.

Tôm thịt kho. Braised shrimp and pork. The portion was tiny but I guess we were only two people eating...

I ordered this soup thinking it was canh chua (Vietnamese sour soup). Rather, the "chua" referred to the type of fish. I was rather disappointed.

Rau muống xào toi - morning glory with garlic - has to be one of my favourite green dish. However, The Boyfriend does not like it - the translation in Hue was rather unfavourable, something like swamp weed. So I have to have it when I get the chance and it was well worth it!

Banh beo. I only had a taste because as I explained to my uncle I was too full from lunch to eat. He insisted I at least try it because these are renown in Quy Nhơn.

My uncle's funny. He's not the best at communicating. After lunch, he said we would "đi chơi", which literally means "go play". It was a big surprise where we were going. As we were driving around on a motorbike, being pelleted by rain, I was very curious about our destination!

Are we going to check out the beach?


...or the siêu thị (supermarket)? I overheard that suggestion; I think it's a novelty in certain parts of Vietnam.


...or check out festival activities?

Finally, after driving up a mountain and paying a fee to get in, I found out where we were going: Qui Hoa Leper Colony. I had read about it in the Lonely Planet so I knew a little bit about it. It is a "model village near the seafront, where treated patients live together with their families, the patients work in the rice fields, in fishing...". You can also find a nice beach within the property. It was started by Catholic nuns and priests. According to my uncle, it has been rather neglected since the government took over.

Queen's Beach.

Cottages where familes live; bust of a nun.

My uncle made me take this picture. Supposedly, it's a well known poem. I will have to ask my Vietnamese teacher to translate it.

View of Quy Nhơn on the ride back down the mountain.

My uncle then drove us to his sister-in-law who was having a housewarming (there's a Vietnamese term I can't remember), which was a very big shindig. I was so tired by then, I didn't take any pictures of the food, but it was an impressive spread: giant cooked shrimps, whole chickens, gỏi bắp chuối (banana flower salad), squid, etc. There must have been close to a hundred people, and most of the food was homemade. I think it's the Vietnameses' way of showing off their wealth to their friends.

The front of the house all decked out.

The hyper kids who loved posing for the camera and would not stop bugging me.

It rained again and pretty much every day while I was in central Vietnam since it is getting close to rainy season there.

The next morning, my cousin V took over. We had a quick breakfast of bun cha ca (before 8 am I might add. I usually have yogurt for breakfast!). Then we went out for coffee. As you’ll see on my next post of Quảng Ngãi, my cousin V goes for coffee religiously. Finally, we went to see Quy Nhơn beach before heading out to Quảng Ngãi.

Bún Chả Cá. Soup with vermicelli and fish.

Quy Nhơn beach. Not as nice as Sabang...

The big hotel on the beach.

Do An – That's right, FOOD!!

The purpose of this blog was not to be a food blog. There are very good ones out there already (noodlepie and gastronomy are my personal favourites regarding Vietnamese food). However, as anyone who knows me may tell you, I do LOVE food and have been known to only discuss food, in detail, when I come back from trips (New Orleans comes to mind). Let’s just say I’m a live-to-eat kind of person, rather than eat-to-live…

So as a homage to food and food bloggers, I was planning to showcase specialties from Trung (Central Vietnam), where my mother comes from (more specifically Quang Ngai). However, it seems it’s just a mishmash of food images from the past few weeks. As well, my sister e-mailed me, whining "you haven’t talked about food yet!", so here are some food pics with commentary!

Like most countries, food is quite localized here in Vietnam. So you may find one version of a dish in a very specific region, never to find it again anywhere else. Quang Ngai’s banh beo is served with a sauce that consists of ground pork and shrimp, rather than the usual minced shrimp with fish sauce (which I actually prefer). Note the special wooden stick used just to eat this dish!

Ok, so I’ll have to work on my picture taking skills. I was so focused on getting the picture focused, that it’s not quite centered. In the big plate, are nem nuong - grilled ground pork balls (ball shape and not the pig’s anatomy as someone I met once thought), bo la lot (grilled ground beef wrapped in a green called la lot) and ram tom - spring roll with whole shrimps. Top right is a plate of grilled beef.

Sometimes it’s combining existing things that is the novelty. Nem nuong is quite common across Vietnam. Then you have ram tom, which is simply a spring roll with whole shrimps. But roll them together in rice paper with some fresh herbs and vegetables, that’s a Quang Ngai specialty. You can’t beat that! [Two notes: 1) we're actually using "special" rice paper that does not require dipping in water and 2) The Boyfriend was served a vegetarian dish of spring rolls with... peanuts inside?!]

In the usual plate of fresh veggies, were these innocent looking vegetables. Looking more closely now, it’s clear that they’re NOT cucumber; however, when you’re in a rush to eat, you just make WRONG assumptions. These are actually unriped bananas, cut in a cross-section. The only way to describe it (there’s a specific word in Vietnamese for it) is that it takes all liquid out of your mouth and dries it out. Acquired taste? I don’t know…

My aunt (in Quang Ngai) grilled fresh squid and shrimp outside, to worship our ancestors. Hmmm... Some of the shrimp sizes here are HUGE! (My friend T: do these beat the shrimps you buy at Costco?)

Baguette et Chocolat (in Sapa) is a bakery with a cause. A French NGO started these bakeries as a means to train disadvantaged youths as bakers and pastry makers. According to Le Routard, there are also locations in Hue and Hanoi; however, we had no luck finding them (we tried!). We did find the one in Sapa and it was SO worth it! The pastries were excellent and that’s also when we ran into the two Hmong girls mentioned in the Sapa post. And by my snooty Montreal standards (which is less than the Parisian standards), these pastries were awesome!

Again, I wouldn’t make a very good food blogger because I can’t record details very well. This classic combination - bun thit nuong & cha gio – was eaten at Bunta in Hanoi near the water puppet theatre. You get a beautiful view of Hoan Kiem Lake. It’s next to the Calvin Klein store, on the second floor. Bun are rice vermicelli, thit nuong is grilled meat and cha gio, fried spring rolls. Bunta is one of those restaurants that target tourists. It’s trying a bit too hard: note the the tri-coloured (white, yellow, and subtle green – top left) bun. Unlike tri-coloured pasta, which is infused with flavour, this looks just like food colouring. But it was pretty yummy! Especially considering this was after the Perfume Pagoda day… No mystery meat here!

The Boyfriend LOVES café sua da, iced coffee. He even knows how to order it in Vietnamese! It’s quite the process: first coffee filters through a percolator, in a cup where there is condensed milk. Then you take this sweet mixture and pour it in a glass full of ice. Miam! The only thing is that this drink is NOT fast food; filtering takes time and sometimes you’re impatient, especially when it’s hot!

I love exotic fruits and there is an abundance here. I just couldn’t resist fresh jackfruit from a street vendor in Saigon. Sticky and sweet!

I got a call from my uncle calling us to join them for my second cousin’s birthday party. Family seem never ending here! It was at a hot pot restaurant (Lau Chen – 152 Nguyen in Saigon). Hot pot is always fun and they were some great seafood AND mushrooms, like oyster, enoki and shitake. The boys also enjoyed some sake.