A recent trip to Hanoi involved some excited recalibration of my culinary compass. Normally when a person looks at a map of the world, their eye is first drawn to their home country to find their bearings. My eye was usually drawn to San Sebastian in Northern Spain, to check that it was still there, ready for my return with a bigger budget, and an enormous appetite. It was my eating mecca. Now mecca has shifted further east, and my eye roams towards Vietnam.
Everyone said "You must try the Pho" (pronounced 'fur'), so I made sure this was the first thing to pass my lips. Procured cheaply from a corner cafe (or pretty much anywhere on the side of the street), Pho is easy: beef stock, beef, herbs, chilli, noodles. It's possibly the most complete meal you could ask for, which explains why Vietnamese folk enjoy it for breakfast. Its healthy, cheap, satisfying and requires a lot of interaction with chopsticks and spoons and slurping. There is no looking back now: I have to work this one out at home. Time to get extra friendly with the butcher and see if he can supply me with a few kilos of beef bones.
After a couple of bia hoi (local brew, about 5 pence a glass) our friends took us out to the upmarket restaurant Au Lac. Here, the grand premises occupy what appeared to be a former colonial mansion, and we were welcomed politely and without any stiffness. Being a group of four gave us opportunity to range widely over the menu, and the presence of a vegetarian meant trying a few dishes that I might normally skip over. The sommelier swiftly and politely corrected a corked sauvignon blanc, while I tucked into the local Hanoi beer.
It was here at Au Lac that I decided that my next home cookery project (after Pho) will be making fresh spring rolls. These were an absolute delight:
Surely there is room for some sort of fast food concept based around fresh spring rolls. Once the fillings are prepared they take seconds to make, and are filling and pretty healthy too. I'm imagining a row of half a dozen rolls lined up in a paper box with an assortment of fillings, dipping sauces already already integrated into the wrapping process. Has anybody ever seen anything like this?
I'm still not convinced of the merits of tofu. It was unusual to see groups of men gathering round plates of tofu while knocking back glass after glass of beer at the local bia hoi, but there is something about it that I'm not keen about. I suppose it's just cheese made from soy milk, but without the interesting texture, taste and smell of cheese. Anyhow, one vegetarian dish that did take my fancy was this baked aubergine, which I thought was a fish when it first arrived:
Soft shelled crab with a sweet chilli sauce was probably the best I've ever tasted. I could probably eat a bucketful of these, one after the other.
I got a bit carried away with the food if I'm honest, and had to be reminded to take a photograph of the proceedings. Sadly, we'd already demolished much of the meal. The duck at the bottom of the photograph was something very special - moist and cooked without pretensions. Note the lonely cube of deep fried tofu.
A lot of things make up a great meal - in this case we had the company of good friends, a lot of holiday spirit, and the excitement of being in a new an unfamiliar country. On top of that, the food at Restaurant Au Lac was genuinely outstanding, and the service - from the chilled towels to the most delightful sommelier was first class.
They did nifty cocktails too, with a funky chopstick/drinking straw ensemble which Mrs Jiffler rather liked.
