noodlepie

Gas Street

If you're like me, you too may have stumbled across this stall at 14 Truong Dinh Street in District 1 outside the mega-popular Thanh Mai Bun Moc restaurant, bent down for a closer look, scratched your head a bit and thought, "Hmmm...? What the hell's that? Wonder if I can eat it...? Hmmm...?? I think I can." Spying the jackfruit segments on the right and vaguely remembering the comments of reader Ha back in March I eventually deduce that these chalky looking specimens could well be jackfruit seeds. Somewhat worryingly Ha told us, "They taste good but also will make you fart all day!" With this in mind, I keep my purchase to a manageable 2,000VD sample bag.

With hindsight and - if I'm being honest - one or two window opening moments behind me, I'd say a 1,000VD bag may well be the more sociable way to go. This is called hot mit. Make you sure you peel the inedible shell to access the boiled and slightly dry kernel. It's not fruity, it's on the savoury side and it's not all that tasty. It brings to mind previous root finds, but on balance I think the flesh of the mighty jackfruit is a far more interesting nibble if it's snack mode you're in. There are a few more snaps from the stall here.

Guardian goes gutter

I wrote a brief column for the rather good G2 section of the not bad at all Guardian Newspaper based in the jolly nice, but, phew it ain't 'alf parky UK today. It's about streetfood in Saigon. It's short, it's sweet and it sums up a few things we often natter about here at noodlepie. Buy your copy today, slip a healthy haddock and chips inside, slap in a whacking great whollop of salt 'n' ningar and it could well be the wisest purchase you Brit readers make all day.

Doug digs Hue

Hue-based teacher and US war vet Virtual Doug is pounding the pavements of his central Vietnam home and learning about life in the gutter. He does one thing I don't, he takes a translator along with him - smart. Here's a wee snippet from his streetfood foray, but go read the rest. Doug's doing a series. Four-parts done and dusted thus far.

Her day began at 3 AM.  She arose in her little one room home with a dirt floor and thatched roof. She has no husband to feed – no children, and no other family. The broth had been simmering since the previous evening, and she prepared the noodles in the morning. Then she began the walk from her village of Nhât Dông into the city – a distance of 6 kilometers (about 3.7 miles). Chewing some betel nut helped the walk seem shorter. (The stains on her teeth are from betel nut.) She stayed in Hue until the food either sold out or the lunch hour arrived at 11 AM. She may have eaten her remaining food for lunch, then, as per Vietnamese custom, she took a nap during the heat of the day. She will then go by an open-air market to buy the ingredients for the next days batch of bun cha.

She does this every day, seven days a week, rain or shine.  She has to work every day – she charges 1,000 dong per bowl – about 7 cents. Her normal daily profit is approximately 15,000 Vietnamese – about $1.05 US. That gives her an annual income of about $384 dollars per year.

Part 1 - Ammo cans and bicycle repairmen
Part 2 - Street snacks
Part 3 - Streetfood. Bun cha, banh bao, bun hen and a 'soy soup'
Part 4 - Bread seller, shoe seller, travelling salesman and cyclo driver

Technorati Tags: Hue, Vietnam, Streetfood

Spot the broth

Five days ago I set what was only the second competition in this blog's lifetime. Spot the broth wasn't easy by any stretch of the most elastic of imaginations, but the response was tremendous. I spent the best part of the last two days wading through the emails, bribes and weeding out any suspected vote riggers. Finally we have a winner... well nearly. Lifegoeson got the dish right after first coming up with three possible culprits, but didn't get the price or the location.

Stroll the perimeter of Ben Thanh market in District 1 and you'll find a selection of street sellers and makeshift scoffshacks. I'm here to find a goi cuon seller I spotted a few weeks back, but it seems she's split Saigon and in her place I find this bun rieu merchant. She tells me her river crabmeat, tofu, tomato and blood noodle soup is really very ngon (delicious) and not a little dac biet (special). She's hardly likely to tell me it's a heap of shit, but I like the look of her stall, clean, nice display of condiments, rustic bamboo effect and tourist wet dream conehead hat.

Take a delve inside her pot and things only get better. Check out that whalloping great hunk of minced crabmeat top left and the acres of fried tofu cubes in among that thick red slurpworthy swamp. I can't afford the sniffablog add on tool here at noodlepie, but believe me when I say the fab stench emanating from this vat will blow your nose clean off As bun rieu goes this isn't cheap - a staggering 8,000VD to be exact. The cheapest I've scored in Saigon is 3,000VD. 3-4,000VD seems to be the regular price around town.

However, my limited Vietnamese vocabulary and less than ropey listening ability tells me (I think) that what ratchets up the price at this deluxe dual basket pavement level outfit is some wee dried shrimp she adds to the broth which others commonly do not. Location could also have something to do with it. Downtown prices are often double the deal in the 'burbs. But, this is killer bun rieu, not in the literal sense - it won't actually kill you, but in the, "Yummo, that really is a jolly fine broth" kinda way. Highly recommended, this is top soup. Oh...and well done to lifegoeson. I'll make the next competition a real toughie.

Competition time

Is my eyesight playing up? Too much MSG or sommit. Guess the dish, the location and the price, get all three bang on and you'll not only impress the crap out of me you'll have a great bedtime story to tell your partner. Talking of bedtime stories. Many, many thanks to noodlepie's most beautiful reader, Michelle. This Canadian lady is also blessed with an exceptionally high IQ. She made the very wise decision to buy me a book from my Amazon wishlist. Not just any book. A classic. It arrived a  few minutes after I visited the stall above. The toad is gonna love it.

Street cleaning

Street food poisoning kills 41

"A safety awareness  campaign was launched on April 3 in Hanoi on the need for clean street food by ministry of health and food safety and hygiene bureau. In 2004, the  country has 145 cases of food poisoning that involved 3,584 people  and claimed the lives of 41. Some 80% of food poisoning cases relates directly to street food." From the latest Intellasia newsletter.

Wonder if the south sees the same kinda numbers. Streefood isn't spotless in Saigon, but I've definitely suffered less repurcusions here than I endured in Hanoi. Will the kinky gloves start appearing in Hanoi? Our Man in Hanoi doesn't seem to think the locals would take kindly to them. Keep 'em peeled and let us know.

TIME goes street in Saigon

Amuse Bouche - Courses in Economics
Dec 6, 2004

You don't need to prime the credit card for a decent three-course lunch in Ho Chi Minh City: the streets of Vietnam's southern capital are lined with choice selections from the country's larder, available for marvelously small sums. Take a stroll from Ben Thanh market, along Le Thanh Ton street, and stop off at a street-side phó bo stall for your appetizer. Vietnam's signature dish of beef noodles—flavored with star anise, cilantro and fish sauce—is a soupy snip at $0.30 per bowl.

Ready for mains? Head to the shopping district near the Caravelle Hotel for another savory delight—on Nguyen Thiep street, you'll find hawkers selling banh goi. This spicy pastry pillow, also $0.30, is filled with minced pork, deep-fried while you wait, and is served in a newspaper wrapper.

Still peckish? Combine a trip to nearby Saigon Zoo and Botanical Gardens with a treat from the che stall at 25 Nguyen Binh Khiem street. Che are sweet desserts made from various combinations of fruit, beans, tapioca, sugar and sweetened coconut milk, and are hugely popular in the south of Vietnam. At this stall you'll find a refreshing che dau van (made with haricot beans) for a mere $0.05. Then drive it home with a digestif of rau ma (liquified pennywort), available from the Ben Thanh market food hall for just $0.25. That brings your three-course meal with drink to a whopping $0.90. What was that about never leaving your credit card at home? by Graham 'Pieman' Holliday - TIME

UPDATE: I just added the original noodlepie HTML. Hey - our version is better than TIME's now...

Com Trua

What a great name for a restaurant – ‘Lunch’ – Com Trua means lunch. You see stalls, street-carts and dingey diners with the same name all over this town. Bargain basement street tucker that makes many a posh & prim eatery in Saigon look embarrassingly lame. For a start, these joints lack refrigeration. What’s on offer is fresh that day, not zipped out of the Zanussi at a moments notice.

I found this stall, next to the French Consulate, at 25bis Nguyen Thi Minh Khai in District 1. It specializes in ‘Com Hop’ – pull up on your bike, point at what you want and takeaway in a polystyrene box - Simple. I chose to sit down on one of the tiny plastic chair and table set-ups, off the street, behind the stall. Vietnamese folk eat by the clock - 6am, 11am & 7pm - You can set your watch by the communal digestive tract of this nation and this is a super snippet of info to know. If you are peckish - say around 10.30am as I was - it is well worth hunting down a nearby Com Trua. By that time the grub is fresh out of the pan and already on the plate awaiting the 11am influx. You’ll have first and best choice of what’s on offer and you’ll eat before the hordes arrive. That’s a win-win-win situation.

This street chef serves up eleven different main dishes, including squid, tofu, fish and pork numbers. All looked excellent, but I plumped for the Ca Tre - a sweet and spicy fish steak number made with Ca Lop a slightly fatty fish – and some Tofu stuffed with spiced minced pork. All orders come with rice, sautéed beansprouts, a Nuoc Tram dipping sauce - darker and sweeter than a straight nuoc mam (fish sauce) - and Canh Cua Rau Dai – a simple warm bitter veggie soup.

If you eat ‘in’ they’ll also give you a jug of Tra Da – iced Vietnamese tea, normally jasmine or lotus – to help yourself to. The fish is totally fresh and comes drenched in a sweet nuoc mam based sauce with a smattering of sliced tomato, chili, onion and spring onion. The stuffed tofu is a little spongey and tricky to cut, but very tasty all the same. The minced pork in the middle tarts up the tofu, making it a bit of a tender, spicy bite. I enjoy the little soups – Canh - you always get in these places and this bitter little chap was a real charmer. Water spinach, little bit of minced pork, crab, garlic, stock and you’re done. I normally devour the veggies mid-meal and sup the soup last.

That little lot set me back a bank manager worrying 10,000VD, was devoured at 10:30am and filled me up until dinnertime.

5 - Pho with no name

Curb crawlin' for eats in District 1, I wound up at this makeshift stall on the crossroads of Hai Ba Trung & Le Thanh Ton streets. It's a one woman show, located in among a throng of Xe Om (motorbike taxi drivers) touting for trade. The stall is nothing more than a bubbling vat of stock propped up against a wall, a bag of fresh herbs and one of noodles, some raw chopped beef and a couple of nursery school tables and chairs. There isn't even a sign indicating what it is she's selling or how much it might set you back. I had a good look around the 'kitchen' and the lack of cooked beef suggests she's a one dish operation - Pho Bo Tai (Raw beef noodle soup). Hmmm... raw beef... out on the streets, sun beating down, no refrigeration... ??? a little risque - maybe? Oh well, you gotta live a little and this was 9am and well before the mid-day hothouse. Everything looked fresh and inviting and it wasn't as if there were flies buzzin' around a rotting carcass or anything.

Every bit of vegetation on the herb plate and in the Pho must have been hacked out of the ground that morning, this Pho was startlingly fresh. I was a tad concerned the beef may have been of the buffalo variety, but No. Tender certainly, if not up to Pho 2000. I liked just looking at this Pho. Sometimes Pho looks scrummy and the little spots of beef fat in among the chopped spring onions and noodles with a light dusting of pepper had me spellbound for ohhh... 30 seconds before I had to dive in. It's a good Pho, a fresh Pho, but not a great Pho. Slightly sweet. However, I felt the stock wasn't old enough to be out on the streets unaccompanied and so I tarted it up with a splash of Oyster sauce. I would return to this place if I was passing, but I wouldn't go out of my way. 5,000VD a bowl. I'm pretty sure it's this same spot that is heavin' with Lau (Hotpot) slurpers from 6pm. So this Pho could be a daytime only connection.