FOOD

Tuesday 7^th Oct. 2008

I had a very lazy day today as I don’t have any classes to prepare. Mark and Judy came over and we took Michael out for a meal in our locality. However it was well into the afternoon and all restaurants seemed to have shut, so our choice was somewhat restricted and we’d all but given up when we came to a quiet, small establishment, unusually clean and offering the inevitable noodles with pork or seafood. It was actually very good and worth patronising in future.

As we turned into our back road we spotted a tiny beauty parlour on the ground floor of a family home, where a woman was having a pedicure and I stopped; ‘Oh yes, that’s just what I need’. After six weeks of sandals and no softening baths my feet were in a sorry state; my toenails so tough that no ordinary nail clippers could make any impression and I returned later with Co Mai who left me soaking my hands and feet in plastic bowls of water while the proprietor finished cutting a customer’s hair. Sitting on a hard wooden chair while my beautician perched on a small plastic stool, I finally surrendered my feet to her capable hands. Her miniature gleaming secateurs delicately cut and clipped, nibbling at the cuticles, shaving off dead skin; filing and buffing so gently that I began to wonder if my feet had lost all sensation. It was fantastic! When she’d finished, my fingernails got the same treatment and restraining her from applying a final glittering nail polish, it took all of one hour and cost 30,000 Dong or approximately £1.00.

Sunday 12^th October 2008

Mark and I were invited to the wedding of the sister of one of Mark’s students last night. A number of students and some staff from KTV had booked a taxi for 5.0’clock but we were both teaching up to 8.0’clock, so by the time we arrived at the Restaurant the wedding was over and the thousand or so guests (yes, you read that right) had already departed. However, Mark’s students were waiting patiently for us. The Restaurant owner just happened to be the father of the student Cara and her sister the bride so they’d laid on a meal especially for us in one of their sumptuous dining halls. Restaurants like this cater exclusively for weddings and may have up to four going at any one time on a busy Saturday. However, unlike most western wedding celebrations that can go on all day or a whole weekend, these last only two to three hours. I saw the remnants of the one we’d missed being cleared away; huge trolleys laden with dishes being wheeled into the kitchen and leftover food being disposed of as the floor was swept of an amazing amount of debris by a small army of workers.

We were seated at a table as large dishes of food appeared; huge prawns in a spicy sauce, seafood salad in a delicious dressing, some kind of pale green rice balls (I think), deep fried chicken and finally a huge pan of soup simmering on gas ring in the middle of the table. The soup contained cooked leg of pork, bones and all with mushrooms and all kinds of vegetables added. All Vietnamese food is fresh and of good quality, so their soups and broths are very nutritious. Not everything is spicy and usually food is served with small saucers of soy and chilli dips. At special meals like this there is a huge amount of food served and one takes small morsels with chopsticks or spoon to put into your own small bowl. I don’t know what they do with leftovers!

Because I’m unaccustomed to eating with chopsticks and small bowls, this has the benefit of stopping me eating too much. Added to this, I’m a natural vegetarian and don’t enjoy eating meat unless it’s roasted, dissected and free of fat and gristle so I’m not eating so much here. Every few yards it seems there are places serving the traditional breakfast of Pho Bo; a large bowl of noodles with beef in a thin broth, or Pho Ga; with chicken. Eating this is an art in itself. The broth is very hot and one adds cooked bean sprouts and whatever salad they have, which sometimes includes a kind of mint, with pieces of lime to squeeze over and fresh chilli if you like it hot! There are also the usual bottles of soy and chilli sauces. If I can manage to eat a whole bowl without splattering my clothes I’m doing well.

Sometimes I just long for roast chicken and roast potatoes or even cod and real chips! I really like some food and can tolerate most, but miss all the vegetables I would normally eat. They do have lots of fresh veg here, but too often in the cheaper restaurants any vegetables have obviously been diced and frozen for convenience. There is a fresh green vegetable that’s a kind of thick stalk cooked with garlic, that’s delicious and is served as a starter. Restaurants also serve salad with most meals; lettuce and an assortment of other greens, which I eat despite the warning not to in most travel guides. So far my digestion has been fine, apart from an occasional gripe in the gut, but I’m in favour of acclimatising to the local intestinal bacteria as far as possible.

Shopping for food is interesting to say the least. Sometimes packets are in both Vietnamese and English and I’m now beginning to recognise words that mean something to me. There is quite an assortment of packet teas, which I now recognise as Green tea, green tea flavoured with artichoke, which is quite nice, and Lipton’s iced tea, which being English we drink hot and is quite sweet. In fact a lot of foods are sweetened, including some bread.

It’s almost impossible to get good bread although occasionally we find a kind of malted brown loaf that isn’t sweet and a French type stick with sesame seeds that isn’t that airy-fairy white that dries up so quickly, if you know what I mean. I thought there were no real bakeries, as among all the smells that assail my nostrils as we speed along the roads, I hadn’t had so much as a tempting whiff of baking. However I was assured that there are plenty of bakeries but the one I was taken to was a disappointment. The bread was either white sliced or the usual French loaf, which I bought and discarded after one slice. I was tempted by a small pizza slice that looked good but failed the taste test. They offered to warm it, but I didn’t realise it was simply being microwaved. Microwaves do to bread what tanning does to rawhide; it turns it into leather. There was also no cheese, so as a pizza it was pretty useless. I have sampled their cakes, which are very strange; sometimes a jellied fruit kind of concoction or solid something or other. Judy brought a couple for us, but we ended up chucking them out. The only cake I have enjoyed is chocolate brownie, an American favourite, which again is better warmed up and can be done in a microwave.

I do miss having a kitchen but sometimes cook in Mark’s room on a small camping gas ring. Usually it’s bacon and eggs, sometimes with mushrooms and tomatoes. We even have real toast or fried bread. Wicked! In my room I keep packets of instant noodles with various meaty flavourings, which are a useful quick meal to hydrate with hot water from my electric kettle when I don’t have time to eat out. If I go to the local market I can buy pieces of fried tofu to add without having to cook anything. I usually start the day with fruit and yoghurt, which isn’t quite like the type I get at home but is ok with banana or apple. Pears are not a bit like the ones at home but very juicy. One of the fruits that are completely new to me is Dragon fruit and is absolutely delicious.

On this topic I’m feeling hungry so will pause for lunch. What can I have, I wonder?