SE Asia 2020 – Day 05 – Just More Food
Caffeine Free
Mm, morning coffee – it sounds like a normal morning routine for most, but usually a deadly one for me. Caffeine doesn’t do anything for me besides making me feel completely awful and unproductive, but I’m willing to go through all that for a cup of iced Vietnamese black coffee with condensed milk. I usually take a few sips from a friend’s order to satisfy my love for it, but this morning was different… I finished the whole drink by myself! And man, oh man, did I (kind of) regret an hour later but still felt it was worth it… happens every time.
Aside from the coffee, I also had some banh cuon! One of my favourite dishes! It’s a steamed rice roll with mainly minced pork and wood ear mushroom, garnished with garlic chips, basil, beansprouts and sometimes other things as well and you top it off with some fish sauce. I can eat this for days! I noticed that my family always orders one plate each and then an extra one for anyone who wants more. I think I can stay here for a while.
* Some caffeine-filled dying me-time commencing… *
I had to pull it together quickly because today is when I visited my dad’s parents for the first time at the temple, I’m glad I finally came all this way to see them. We have made an appointment with others for lunch so I didn’t stay at the temple for long. I hopped on a scooter and went to our next food destination of the day!
Quan Ngon 138
A lot of places aren’t open during the week of Lunar new year, Quan Ngon 138 was open around the 5th day but it still wasn’t… all open. What I mean by that is within this traditionally styled wooden house is a “food stall” set up. All the food is made in different stalls to give it that Old Vietnam street food vibe. Unfortunately, the time I came was when most of the stalls weren’t open and it wasn’t as busy so there wasn’t much of a vibe to feel. As much as I love that aesthetic and the idea, the food was only okay.
The salad rolls were a bit hard… like they didn’t leave the wrapper in the water long enough or left it out for too long afterwards and the banh xeo just… really lacked filling. One thing you should try though, not specifically here but most places should have it too, is Lemonade Soda. They give you a cup with sugar, some lime, soda, and you can mix in however much you want ~ It’s tasty but I really wanted more lime!
