blurry but delicious!another post on food in the hopes of redeeming vietnamese cuisine in the eyes of my readers (all five of you :). i've got a number of lunch and dinner shots, all of them a pinch out of focus (see disclaimer below), but i've decided to post them anyway to show off the range of vina-cuisine a bit more. because really, i don't want you to think that all i eat here is sausage and gloop.
this is a spread we had our second or third night here at a place called l'oiseau souffleur (it has a vietnamese name as well, but i've managed to retain only the french). let's start with the naan-like bread, shall we? it is actually a cracker that you load up with minced, sauteed clam and cucumber. i've never been too fond of clam, but served this way, it is delightful. heading clockwise, we have the banana flower salad, which is often served with strips of chicken and doused in fish sauce. then the clam dish. onto the cucumbers with chile, lime, and salt. then we come to the xu xu sauteed with beef. xu xu is the leaf that grows out of a gourd or squash or pumpkin of some kind (wait, aren't those all kind of the same thing?), and it's quite possibly the tastiest veggie i've ever eaten (though i won't lie, the beef helps!). finally, in the middle we have fried tofu. and this is the way it should be - golden brown on the outside, juicy on the inside, delicate but substantial, also doused in fish sauce. if we were playing the desert island game, and i could only take three things with me, i would take knox, my pillow (which i miss dearly over here) and fried tofu, ha noi style.
this is a spread we had our second or third night here at a place called l'oiseau souffleur (it has a vietnamese name as well, but i've managed to retain only the french). let's start with the naan-like bread, shall we? it is actually a cracker that you load up with minced, sauteed clam and cucumber. i've never been too fond of clam, but served this way, it is delightful. heading clockwise, we have the banana flower salad, which is often served with strips of chicken and doused in fish sauce. then the clam dish. onto the cucumbers with chile, lime, and salt. then we come to the xu xu sauteed with beef. xu xu is the leaf that grows out of a gourd or squash or pumpkin of some kind (wait, aren't those all kind of the same thing?), and it's quite possibly the tastiest veggie i've ever eaten (though i won't lie, the beef helps!). finally, in the middle we have fried tofu. and this is the way it should be - golden brown on the outside, juicy on the inside, delicate but substantial, also doused in fish sauce. if we were playing the desert island game, and i could only take three things with me, i would take knox, my pillow (which i miss dearly over here) and fried tofu, ha noi style.
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