Sidney gave us a great recommendation for massages nearby and they were fantastic! Aside from the part when the lady ran a scratchy towel down my sunburn - ouch!! As a result of being so sunburnt, I was wearing all of the long clothes I had with me - cotton pants and a hoodie, which in the heat of a Vietnamese summer, was too much! So for the rest of the afternoon I opted to relax in our hostel room, hoping my body would heal out of the sun. Sara and Mel spent the afternoon at some museums. When the sun went down and it was safer for me to be outside (ha! How have I not learned by now!!) we went on a food tour, also organized by FTV. We all expected it to be a big group of people with one guide, but to our surprise it was more intimate, only the three of us with our guide Elly. This was a perfect evening. She told us that they set up the food tours this way so that it feels more like friends going and discovering food together, we loved it and we loved her!
The food!! Hands down, some of the best food I've had in my life. I'd go back to Hanoi just to eat the food again and again.
1. Bahn Xeo, similar to a fried rice pancake filled with veggies. The best.
2. Banh Cuon Thit and Bahn Cuon Trung - rice paper mixed with egg/pork. The texture of these are soft and a bit slippery, they were good but for me the texture was a bit off putting.
3. Che Do Den - a red bean dessert with tapioca, jelly, coconut and rice. Given that in Korea many desserts incorporate red bean, I was very accustomed to this and loved it. Not the prettiest but so delicious and so refreshing on a hot day/night! We enjoyed it on little red stools in the street just like the locals.
4. Spring rolls!!! Another one of my favourites! We had a selection:
Nem Cua Be - sea crab springroll
Banh Goi - pillow cake?
Banh Tom - shrimp cake
Nem Chua Ran - fried sour springroll
After this Elly took us for a little walk to this pretty church!
5. Kem Chanh Bac Ha - mint lemon ice cream!! Amazing. We went back the next night for more! What a great combination of flavours. Here we are with Elly!
6. Cafe Trung - the famous egg coffee. Sounds awful but delicious and sweet. Yes, it really does have egg yolk in it! It had a warm eggnog/coffee taste!
7. Hoa Qua Dam - fresh fruit with coconut milk. Really how could you go wrong with this dessert? This was my first time eating jackfruit too! We were sat outside in the dark for this one, so sorry for the poor picture!
Then we ran into a lady creating a fire in the street...
8. Bo Bai - rice paper mixed with coconut, sugar cane and black sesame. This was far too sweet for me, but I'm sure kids go crazy for it!
With that, the food tour was over! We never expected to eat as much as we did or to eat as many great dishes as we did. We were all very pleased with the experience. The downside for me was that the entire evening I was not feeling well at all because of my sunburn. I probably had some sort of sun poisoning as the next morning I still felt awful so I made the decision to forgo the day trip we planned and spend another day resting indoors.
Sunburn four days later
The view from the hostel restaurant
I met up with Mel and Sara once they returned from the day trip and we had dinner and went on a search for coconut coffee, another specialty in the area that Elly told us about. So good! I preferred this coconut coffee to the egg coffee, but it's a must to try both!
Next stop: Nha Trang!
<3
