Ha Noi Food Tales

It's the mopeds that are the surprise. Before we got to Hanoi in December I'd read a couple of bits on they net about how to cross the road and smirked. I can already do that! Then you're confronted with a seeming unstoppable river of thousands of mopeds and what you want is on the other side of the road. No lights or if there is no one pays them much heed. One way streets have bikes coming at you both ways as do the pavements. The essence of the instruction is walk out confidently and consistently into the road and you will get to the other side. I was jet lagged, hadn't slept for 30 hours or more so I wasn't entirely convinced.. But made it over had some bun with grilled pork made it back and had a little sleep. Out later that night we walked and crossed vastly busier roads and it struck me that we were all sharing the road - if you move at a considered pace and do nothing unexpected the moped riders factor that in and swerve around you as well as each other and everyone keeps moving.

After the flight there is the humidity and the scratchy eye tiredness. I booked a table at Cau Go so we could eat well without too much challenge. The room is lovely, five flights up above the lake and the manic river of traffic, gently lit and delightfully cool. Busy but not full with a fairly even split of locals and tourists. The proffered menu is long and broken into sections and it's so hard to make choices. In the end we start with deep fried tofu with ginger and lemongrass and fresh beef rolls topped with shrimp and a slightly too sweet dipping sauce.

We moved on to a slightly sour salad of morning glory and marinated beef, prawns sautéed with garlic and chilli, BBQ pork on sticks - meat on sticks is always a winner for me and a bowl of steamed rice with a separate bowl of ground toasted sesame seeds and peanut which is sensational, and will be emulated chez nous upon our return. Looking around it was clear that what the tables of tourists were ordering was different to the tables of locals who all had hotspots and soups, noodles and salads. But I have to say our inaugural dinner was very enjoyable, service was warm and helpful and the food was very good. Slept the sleep of the undead till dawn and woke to a cooler day.

Was excited for day 2 - we had a street food tour booked for a couple of hours in the middle of the day and I was hoping for great things - not just to eat well but also to understand how to eat here. Our fabulous guide Tu picked us up at the hotel around midday and we set off along a street of love hotels - inter generational families coexisting makes for little privacy, specially for couples wanting to be loved up. Rent by the hour, happiness all round. We jumped into a taxi and headed to 105 Quan Than for bun ca - fish noodle soup. I admit to being less than overjoyed at the idea, not a big fan of strong fish but I was nonetheless very curious to try. First we were taught how to sit on the tiny little red stools that are used everywhere at street places in Vietnam. You must crouch low then sit directly onto the stool to stop it collapsing. Don't wriggle about or the legs will break - this is not the furniture of my fat white western arse! The caff was busyish, just a concrete shell with the tiny table and chairs combo that I last sat on in infant school scattered about topped with plates of lime quarters, little bowls of fiery chilli paste and mugs of wooden chopsticks.

Tu grabbed a lime and rubbed the ends of the chopsticks hard, this is the way to be sure they're clean. He was trying to reassure us I think but Hanoi seems fairly clean generally and these little food stalls everywhere equally so. Mix everything everything everything says Tu, handing out bowls full of flat rice noodles, steamed fish and deep fried fish, lots of green herbs and sprouts, chilli and garlic and an astonishingly intense flavoured broth, then grabbing them back to demonstrate with chopsticks, mix mix mix like this. Knees up under our chin we slurped away till, two thirds of the way through Tu called enough! Onto the next or you'll never make it to the end.

We crossed a few roads, walking with conviction and no sudden movements, and up a few backstreets to a local market, quiet for lunch so most of the traders were stretched out behind their stalls having a little siesta while the fish swam in buckets and the great mountains of fresh greens sent out their gentle smell. Here you use herbs in great generous handfuls like the equivalent of spinach or cabbage not in the mimsy little snippets for garnish that we are much more used to in the west.

Tu explained what some of the unfamiliar ones were, breaking off sprigs and rubbing hard with his finger and thumb to release their different smells, all variations called mint, though some are redolent of fish or aniseed and not something I'd ever know as mint. We emerged out the other side of the market, past the fresh meat which you buy in just the quantity you need for the meal you are making, the stall holders prepping everything before you pay so you have only to cook when you are home.

Next stop was Pho Cuon Vinh Phong at 40 Ngu Xa Street for not cold beer to go with Pho Cuon - fresh rice wraps which I liked and Pho Chien Phong Xao Bo - puffed rice cakes with greens and marinated beef which was glorious - a brilliant mix of flavours and just fabulous textures of chewy crisp edged rice puffs, silky greens, juicy meat - highlight of the day for me.

We snaked along a few small streets, mopeds coming from all directions, beeping horns till we made it to Yen Phu Cafe,43a Pho Yen Phu, a coffee (Ca Phe) and yoghurt place. Fresh cows milk is not much in evidence in Vietnam but the family that own this place use it make some seriously great yoghurt - we tried both the passion fruit, best I've ever had, and one topped with fermented rice which I thought may well be disgusting but was in fact a great match of flavour with the sourness of the yoghurt and the moment before becoming alcohol intensity of the rice. We climbed a narrow staircase at the back then walked hunched over to the window under strings of party lights to sit again on tiny stools and had local coffee - thick and rich, topped with sweetened condensed milk over ice for a great pick me up. Recommend it for a coffee fix.

Next stop was a little place selling a local speciality - sounded unlikely when Tu suggested it, and one I won't be repeating at home. Called egg coffee and egg beer it's basically egg white whipped with sugar, and the used to top hot coffee - not a good idea - or poured into the bottom of a glass and topped with beer - a truly awful idea. Anyone makes you the offer - just say no.

We wandered through the enormous wholesale market - lots of pound shop style tat in bright colours in tiny shops tucked up under the railway line. Everything is packed away in the eaves every night using ladders then brought down and displayed again next morning. The alley ways are narrow and mostly the mopeds are slower, and every few metres someone is burning one of the solid blocks of fuel and cooking noodles or meat on sticks or simmering soup. Our final stop was for Pho Tiu - another bowl of noodles, thicker this time and topped with pork and chilli and more garlic. Tu explained that garlic too is used as a vegetable, and I know that for the first few days at least I woke every day feeling like my entire head was made from garlic so much did I eat.

Was a great tour, saw many streets I'd never have been down otherwise and got a list of recommendations for other places to try as an added bonus. We tried the first one that night, not really hungry it has to be said - we took a taxi to the Sofitel Plaza up to the summit bar for cocktails and the most stunning view. 

Even that high the traffic looks busy and the horns keep beeping but the mood is relaxed and the service charming. It's not far from Quan Kien Restaurant, 143 Nhgi Tam Street, which Tu said is his current favourite place in Hanoi. Take your shoes off and go up a couple of stairs to an expanse of polished wood dotted with low tables and a scatter of cushions. There's not much English spoken but there is a good translation of the menu so we sat on the ground, giggled a little at the Insect Menu but didn't order from it, choosing instead rice sticks deep fried with chicken skin, grilled pork on skewers and the lovely young waiter who was pushed forward by the others whenever we needed help - I'm guessing he was the only one with any English, checked we liked spicy before he added tofu to our order and then pointed at some greens when I asked which were best so we added them too.

Soon we got lots of great food, and a couple of beers, the greens were like a cross between bok choy and broccoli and came lightly steamed with shreds of ginger - perfect. The chewy bits of pork were smoky and moreish, the rice, surprisingly, came as big fat logs, hotter than hell to start with but crackly textured and a little bit dry to eat. Liked the tofu, it all seems to be made in house wherever you end up in Hanoi, but was less keen on the sauce, but together it made for a great meal and a really enjoyable evening. Just a wonderful day all together.

Next day the last of the jet lag caught up with a sleepless night and acclimatising to the  local conditions meant I felt a bit queasy but well enough later to see the water puppets.

What a delight! Puppeteers stand behind screens in water three feet deep and, with puppets manipulated on the end of long poles, tell all manner of magical tales across the water while a small group at the side of the stage above accompany the with music, singing and a brilliant collection of sound effects. 

A good nights' sleep heals many things so I started the day with pho bo, which I slurped down with gusto, much to the  consternation of the man. Seems he really does believe soup should never be eaten earlier than lunchtime - but he's wrong. Had an interesting morning at the Fine Arts Museum, fascinating collection and the building was entirely empty except for us and another man with his young son, bliss indeed. After a tour of one of the many temples we had a fairly abysmal lunch at Au Lac, set up by Imagine Asia, our equally abysmal tour organiser. Waste of a good food opportunity. Spent a total tourist afternoon, wandering by the lake and into occasional shops before cocktails at Madame Hien in their lovely garden. The menu looked interesting so we returned there later for dinner. We ordered far too much, the food came in very generous plates, but it was interesting collection of food from the different areas of the country. North, central and south Vietnam are quite distinct culturally and food wise - the north being most savoury and quite straightforward, the centre is more complex and spicy and the south has the strongest tendency to sweetness in all things.

We started with rolls but unlike the ones we'd had so far these were very thin, cooked rice crepes stuffed with greens and prawns, so an interesting mix of cooked and raw, with the crepe particularly making it a more substantial dish than the fresh rolls we had the first night. I thought it was an Indian influence but in fact turmeric is used in Central Viet cooking and it was this that made the juice that went with tofu wrapped in banana leaf and deep fried. We were presented with a small package to unwrap to release the great smell of turmeric and all of it atop a raft of steamed greens, a lovely and very substantial dish. We had another version of grilled pork - yes I am addicted and this is proving a delightful country to get my fix which too was a generous serving so the final dish of morning glory with garlic was simply too much, a shame as it tasted great.

And that's it, Hanoi done apart from eggs sunny side up for breakfast before the four hour drive to Ha Long Bay.

Hungary Pig

This little piggy weighs in at about 160 kilos and was raised on a small farm in north eastern Hungary to provide food, particularly lard, for the winter

A couple of months ago there was an email from Opentrips about an adventure to Hungary, specifically to a place called Mád. One pleasure of subscribing to this site is the momentary fantasy of going - trying new places, food, drink - cooking and eating in the company of  a bunch of others who also define this as pleasure.  

Full of things I didn't know - local wines to try - Aszu and  Furmint, fishing for perch pike and carp, cooking Hungarian food using local ingredients. At its centre was the killing and processing of a pig. I eat meat, am careful about where it comes from but I'd never been there at the death of  anything larger than a few fish and a lot of yabbies in the year we lived in Bourke. I wanted to know how the pig changes from animal to meat

The day started early - we all met up before 7am for a shot of Palinka - the local brandy, the traditional way to start.

There were about 15 of us all together, a ragtag assortment of people - curious foodies, bloggers, wine merchants, a journalist commissioned to write about the day, and a raw food chef who wanted to know if he would still eat meat occasionally  after seeing a pig killed for consumption.

The day was a bit drizzly, the only rain we saw all week.

The pig was to be slaughtered outside and then the carcass is broken down inside where everything is laid out ready.

Opentrips organiser Florian kept the whole trip running smoothly all week,

it all seemed deceptively simple with the invaluable skills and local knowledge of Gergely.

Once we were set to go, the pig, which was never frightened at any point, was taken from the cage with a squeal of incredible outrage. That sound will stay with me forever.

Rapidly stunned then the pig's throat was cut while half a dozen strong men held it down, the whole thing took less than a minute.

The fresh blood is collected into bowls and started to coagulate almost immediately. It was soon cooked up into a blood stew for breakfast - nothing goes to waste.

Once the pig has been bled out, it is moved from the concrete onto grass - the half dozen strong men were back in action.

High flame is used to burn off all the hair, a surprising amount.

Then the blackened carcass is scraped and scrubbed clean with a stiff brush in a bucket of water.

This is the end of the pig being a complete animal.

The head is cut off to be used in a couple of dishes later in the morning

The work of breaking the carcass down begins once the intestines have been carefully removed

to be cooked up to make fresh offal sausage later

The caul fat is also kept for cooking, just like everything else.

The big red pan is water boiling with garlic to which the chef adds the lumps of coagulated blood, then stirs gently to make sure it doesn't all break up. Once the blood is cooked with some onions and the brains too, a generous dollop of  lard is added to finish.

Breakfast is served - it was incredibly good to eat and very rich. One of the world's most amazing breakfasts

The butcher and his assistant brought the carcass inside to break it down with impressive skill into the various cuts of meat.

Outside over a sort of kettle drum fire chef had lots of pans bubbling away, including one with all the bits from the head

Drained,

it was chopped and mixed with lots of paprika it was stuffed into the pig's stomach

Then sewn up with needle and thread to safely encase all the meat.

It was boiled again for an hour or more and then, once cooled, it was pressed to make a sort of Hungarian brawn

The butchery was noticably different to the way pigs are broken down in England. All the meat is very lean - all fat is stripped off, including from the hams. Its kept to get the family through the winter - there is no other source of oil or fat available for cooking, so the primary purpose of raising pigs is for their fabulous lard.

There was plenty of it, though normally this pig would have been fattened further and then killed later in the year once winter was underway,

All the meat we didn't eat on the day was given to the local old people's home for the winter.

The hams were put to soak in water, salt and masses of garlic. They will be turned daily for three or four weeks till they are cured. Then - the vagaries of  Customs allowing - they will be shipped to Peckham to be served in some style at Peckham Bazaar.

Some of the fat was diced into sort of uber fatty lardon and then heated in a huge pan to be stirred with an enormous stick for a couple of hours.

The locals assured us this was the best thing about the day (the doctors call it cardiac soup) and it was amazing to catch a waft of that lovely pig fat melting and melting

till it reached a point of sort of hot confit - with about two thirds of the fat rendered and the rest hot fat salty crispy delights to go with beer.

The intestines were drained after boiling for a couple of hours, then minced

and added to rice and herbs and spices and turned  into liver sausage

that were then poached before being barbecued for dinne

All the bits and bobs of flesh - and there was a remarkable amount - were mushed together with shed loads of garlic and lots of paprika and dried herbs before mincing

and becoming big fat vibrant spicy sausage, also barbecued for our dinner.

Lunch was a surprisingly delicate soup made with some meat, bones and vegetables made amazing with a sprinkle of chopped pepper at the end

Then there was stew - all the gelatinous bits were boiled up together with quinces and peppers and things then finished with cabbage - both choucroute and finely shredded fresh - to make a gloriously hearty bowl of lunch accompanied by generous quantities of both dry and sweet furmint.

We all drifted off at that point for an hour before coming back for the final meal.

Had to be barbecue!!

We had lots of local pickles that were a great accompaniment to most of our meals, and the ones we had on the last night were made by a few from the group using veg we'd picked on the first day.

Perfect foil to the jerk spice ribs and the fab paprika sausages.

All that lard had one final use - hot lardy cakes fresh from the wood oven and served with raspberry coulis that had been cooked up earlier in the day. Lovely hot crunchy mouthfuls.

And this is what it is all about - look at this lovely pile of pig fat - it will keep the food rich and nourishing all through the cold winter.

Overall it was a most extraordinary day, I learnt a lot, ate some amazing food and will appreciate the meat I eat all the more.