Every day is the best day ever

Alan, Joyce, and I arrived to Hanoi with little to no itinerary (save for a Halong Bay cruise hastily booked the midnight before we left) and even less set expectations. Given a different group of travellers this could have proved a disorganized, disappointing, and perhaps even disastrous trip. For us, however, every day was the best day ever.

I will begin by introducing the main character of this post as his name will be making frequent appearances: Johnny is a small but portly Vietnamese man in his thirties who provides various tourism-related services. No doubt he will be very familiar to any Sauderites who have ever set foot in Hanoi as word of mouth (for me, from Patricia) has proved an effective marketing tool. We made plans to join a walking food tour he was running the morning after we landed, and it kicked off one of the most incredible experiences of my life.

I think, because I ate so many wonderful things and because they all deserve to be documented, I will come back to the food tour in a bit and go through all the food we had the great fortune of consuming chronologically. Those of you who kept up with my Europe blogs know what is coming: gratuitous descriptions of food that maybe like three people actually care about only this time instead of having one paragraph about food you can skip over this is about to become the longest post I’ve ever written and it’s pretty much going to just entirely be run-on, grammatically incorrect sentences describing food and maybe some drinking because honestly that is what our trip revolved around. Hello to the three of you who are still with me. I see you. I appreciate you.

The first night we arrived, we wanted to find some pho except we hadn’t accounted for the fact that pho is actually supposed to be a breakfast food and it was no longer breakfast time. At around 8pm, therefore, we found ourselves seated on tiny plastic chairs around a tiny plastic table that might have made for a fantastic picnic setting if you were the size and shape of a seven-year-old inside what appeared to be the size and shape of an open-air garage. Like most locals, the staff at what I’m going to generously call a “restaurant” spoke little to no English. But he counted three of us and held up three fingers, we nodded, and within seconds, steaming plates of herby, beefy noodles and bowls of pickled carrot, radish, and green papaya still in their brine were placed before us. This first meal was rather reminisce of a chinese fried beef rice noodle (干炒牛河), only lighter – both in colour and in calories, probably, though I can’t be sure. While it wasn’t the noodle soup we had set out to find, we were by no means disappointed and devoured our (sizeable) dishes as if we hadn’t eaten in a week.

We’d arrived on the day of Mid-Autumn Festival, so parties, parades, street shows, and activities of all sorts were occurring all around the streets of the Old Quarter where we were staying. After our first dinner, we decided to walk around and take it all in when we stumbled across the site of our soon-to-be second dinner: a fantastic literal hole in the wall that made fresh rice rolls with chicken. Let me tell you about this rice roll real quick. The roll itself was made from a thin rice flour batter poured over a steaming rounded mould into a sort of crepe, which was then filled with the most magnificent blend of ground chicken, mushrooms, herbs, and spices, topped with fried onions, and served with copious quantities of herbs and a fish-sauce-based dipping sauce (with which we were about to become extremely familiar). I can’t begin to explain how tender and delicious this was, but I can tell you how disappointed I was that none of us had the foresight to record the name and address of the place to find it again later on during our trip.

Walking around that night we encountered another one of those ubiquitous open air “restaurants” (a term which I will apply once again very loosely) where we sampled our first salad rolls and more importantly, our first Hanoi (the brand not the city, though technically both apply here) beer, visited a very aesthetically pleasing balcony bar (with actual tables and benches) strung with decorative bamboo and colourful lanterns, and stumbled upon an open air bar in the middle of Beer Corner (which we lovingly and probably very obnoxiously dubbed LKF for the throngs of drunk white people) whose name I tragically still do not know despite visiting it every subsequent night we spent in Hanoi. We did ultimately become quite friendly with the staff, who, despite having run out of Hanoi beer (our favourite) one night, upon our insistence, sourced six more bottles from a neighbouring bar in order to serve us our drink of choice, and one of whom we convinced to join us for a drink after some eyelash fluttering at his boss, who looked exasperatedly on but also ended up letting me kiss her baby. Yeah um, I also don’t really know what just happened with that sentence but if you look past the running-on and awkward syntax it’s all true.

So back to the food tour I mentioned earlier. After a breakfast pho (why is this not a thing in Canada can we please make this a thing) and a quick lap around a rather large indoor market, we met up with Johnny at 11:30am (timestamping for reference), who had with him already a group of four retired Australian friends. I am going to describe everything we shoved unceremoniously into our faceholes in even more loving detail than I have used to describe food up until now, and there was a lot, so brace yourselves.

Our first stop still sticks in my mind like it was yesterday. Granted, it was like six days ago which isn’t that long but when every day is as jam-packed as ours were, it feels like it was. Greeted by a bright red and yellow plastic sign and an old lady frying pork in a massive wok just off the sidewalk, we stepped into the joint and headed up three floors of tiny winding stairs until we were seated at a grimy table already laiden with plates of thin rice noodles and heaping mounds of fresh greens. Almost immediately, bowls of fried pork patties and grilled sliced pork swimming in a glorious broth of fish sauce, vinegar, garlic, and pickles (I’m just going to assume you know when I say pickles from here on out I mean carrot and green papaya and radish, not that sugary white people cucumber trash) were placed before us. This was the first of many bun cha we had over our six days in Vietnam, and I swear to god I teared up a little at the deliciousness I was blessed to experience. In each bite, the vinegar and lime juice’s acid cut just enough through the fat of the pork, rounded out with thin rice noodles, made earthy by various herbs and impossibly savoury by fish sauce, crisp pickles adding perfect textural contrast.

It took me almost as much willpower to not just spend the rest of this blog post waxing poetic about that bun cha as it did to stop myself from licking the bowl clean (I still had 9 stops to go – it’s a jog, not a sprint as Alan, who despite being a native speaker, still lacks a strong mastery of English idioms, would say) but alas, I must move on. Johnny took us down a narrow and for some reason extremely wet (though it had not been raining) alley where he gave us history lessons on the temples and stalls we passed. We stopped in front of an unassuming stall with a selection of exotic fruit arranged almost haphazardly in ratty cardboard boxes on the ground. Johnny passed around a longan branch heavy with sweet fruit bursting with juice and emitting a subtle perfume that was at once earthy and floral. While certainly delectable, I was familiar with this smooth lychee cousin. What I had actually never in my life seen before was what he held out to us next: a lumpy green glob of a fruit about the size of a large fist that would not have looked out of place as a prop for an alien egg on a sci-fi movie set. He broke it easily apart and handed us each a piece of the custard apple, as I learned it was called, which was white and creamy and indeed had the consistency of what you might imagine something called “custard apple” would. And it goes without saying, it was delicious.

Next, Johnny ushered us onto a street corner and motioned for us to wait there while he disappeared into a little stall across the street for a few moments before reappearing with plates of steaming yellow sticky rice topped with pork liver pâté and slices of pork and prawn sausages. The pâté melted beautifully into the sticky rice, and the sausage was an absolutely delightful cherry on top. I could have happily stayed there an eaten it indefinitely, but we had places to be. Places like another literal hole in the wall where a sizeable metal machine pressed the juice out of the stiff fibres of sugar cane balanced wonderfully with kumquat. My good god was it divine. Armed with iced cups of juice, we headed for our next stop.

This place was an actual restaurant with air conditioning, proper chairs, and glass-topped tables. We were first presented with a tray of beautiful salad rolls much better than the already fabulous ones we had found off the side of the street the night before. These had just the right ratio of rice paper to vermicelli to herb to prawn, and the dipping sauce composed of – you guessed it – fish sauce, vinegar, garlic, and chili paired perfectly with this light and refreshing palate cleanser. What followed I can only describe as a large crispy omelette filled with sliced pork belly and more herbs, which was cut into strips and which we used to fill rice paper alongside – you guessed it again – more fresh herbs and greens. I had never seen this type of treatment for either omelettes or rice paper but good god was it incredible, all crunch and crisp and fat and salt and acid and fresh vibrant veg.

At this point, I was slowing down. I was feeling my stomach start to protrude (nice imagery there, you’re welcome) and I was losing steam. Johnny led us happily on the road and slowed down at a small patisserie owned by a friend of his (Johnny knows everyone). “Do you want to try some caramel flan?” He asked. I nodded weakly in spite of my full belly as a whispered “yes” escaped my lips before I even realized I was talking. It was, all in all, the right decision. The flan was beautifully creamy, the caramel at the bottom adding the slightest bitter edge that balanced (yes I know I’ve used this word several times but what can I say the Vietnamese really have a hang on their ratios) the sweetness and richness of the cream and egg concoction.

Much to my stomach’s relief, our next stop was considerably lighter. We passed around frothy mugs of daily brewed draught, which was as light and refreshing as a tall glass of water, accompanied by pea shoots sautéed with garlic and fluffy tofu which released a mouthful of flavourful soup when you bit into it and that despite being deep fried did not feel the least bit greasy.

The tour was meant to end at a hidden little room accessible only after a small stretch of alley where we were served traditional Vietnamese egg coffee by a family who had set up shop almost three quarters of a century ago. I had had Vietnamese style coffee with condensed milk in Vancouver before but never had I ever imagined that coffee could be such a life-changing experience. This was no average cup of joe. This was fragrant, steaming coffee topped with what I can only describe as a thick layer of a sort of zabaglioni. It was light and thick and rich and custardy and sweet all at once, and after taste testing an initial spoonful, could not have made for a more flawless cup than when mixed into the dark, brooding coffee. Here, the Australian family bid their farewells, alongside profuse gratitude to Johnny for opening their eyes to the world of the life-changing magic of food. Johnny, however, was not done with us yet, and nor we with him. We trudged on to our final destination before a short, food-less intermission until our next meal (which, spoiler, was not too long thereafter): a peking duck joint run by his friend. Here, Johnny abandoned some of his formal professionalism and let loose a little – pouring us each beer into bowls when he could not find cups, and dishing out great hunks of roast duck with gusto. For the sake of transparency and so you know I’m not exaggerating about everything else, I’ve definitely had better duck. It didn’t help that I was stuffed to the point of breaking from our last five straight hours spent continuously eating. But we coated it in herbs and dunked it in the sweet sweet nectar of the gods that is fish sauce and vinegar, and I enjoyed it enormously all the same.

Deep breaths, everyone, this concludes my painfully specific description of the food tour. All downhill from here.

Following the food tour, we needed to lie the hell down, and decided that the best setting for a relaxing rest would be on a massage bed at SF Spa in the heart of Old Town. What a good fucking call that was. We were greeted with cups of herbal tea and a moist towel rolled onto a single rose petal before we were whisked away to change into linen robes and then into a chamber where our feet were soaked and gently washed by the most attentive staff. We opted for the traditional hour-long Vietnamese massage with essential oil, and it was nothing short of divine and extremely welcome after the day we had just spent walking around and eating. Should you ever stop by Hanoi, first, ask me to introduce me to Johnny, but second, definitely splurge (by that I mean a whopping $20CAD) on SF Spa in favour of some cheaper still but shadier operations. We enjoyed it so much that we made another appointment there on our last day before our flight, a deliciously soothing hot stone massage that honestly lifted me up to cloud nine and a was perfect cap on our perfect trip.

A short four hours after we swallowed the last of the duck, we decided that it was time to eat again. Johnny’s brother is apparently a celebrity chef in Vietnam with competitive success on the local Masterchef and Iron Chef TV series. When we raved about the bun cha he took us to that morning, he insisted we try the bun cha at Duong’s, his brother’s restaurant. We were far from disappointed. As friends of Johnny’s, we were treated to an appetizer trio of tangy, vibrant mango salad, refreshing salad roll bites, and freshly pressed pineapple carrot juice as well as a post-dinner cup of lemongrass ginger tea. The real star, however, was the bun cha. The presentation was elegant (as was the restaurant – a proper fancy place complete with linen napkins and hardwood floors instead of sticky plastic furniture), and Soda, our server, took extra care to ensure we thoroughly enjoyed the entire experience, explaining each component and answering all of our questions. Spiced pork patties were grilled onto long stalks of lemongrass, which Soda painstakingly removed before us, mingling with slices of grilled pork that – you know what? I’ve already described bun cha. It was like that, but a completely different experience once removed from the hazy greasy air of the dingy grimy room where we first tasted it. I can’t in good conscience say it was better at Duong’s because I can’t in good conscience compare two polar opposite presentations even of what was technically the same dish, but it certainly wasn’t worse.

Johnny, delighted that we had so enjoyed our meal at Duong’s, took us to his cousin’s (who happened to have spent two years in East Van) bar where we shared some drinks, laughs, and lemongrass. Thoroughly happy and matching obnoxiously in loud banana-print shirts, we returned to Beer Corner where the party continued, drinking and dancing happily away before calling the night.

The next two days we spent on a boat in Halong Bay. I’ll describe the trip itself further on but I’ll spare you too much detail on our nine course lunch, eleven course dinner, and partly DIY lunch on day 2. Suffice to say that what the dishes lacked in authenticity (due to some substitutions of more pungent and ~exotic~ ingredients for fear of alienating white people) was made up in volume and we were well-fed and still quite happy with most everything we tasted – especially the live prawn flash steamed over a bed of red hot stones.

We skipped HaLong Bay in favour of Bai Tu Long Bay, which we were assured by our guide and our newfound local friends was just as magnificent only with less tourists. After several hours in a van from Hanoi, we finally boarded our boat with a handful of other parties (families, mostly) that amounted to around 20 total passengers including ourselves. Our guide, Mia, was an incredibly sweet and funny and considerate guide, going to all lengths to provide us with the best possible time. We kayaked among breathtaking limestone karsts (and by that I definitely mean I sat in the front and made Alan paddle my fat ass through the water) until we reached a secluded beach where we spent some time floating leisurely in an exceedingly comfortable 27 degree sea before returning to the boat. Before we returned to shore the next day, we explored some limestone caves with the company of Orion and Stella, two kids and fellow passengers who decided to befriend us. Despite them being children (you know how I hate children) and despite the dumping rain (which at least didn’t start until after we had finished kayaking), it was a mystical and thoroughly enjoyable experience.

That night, when we had made it safely back into Hanoi, Johnny insisted we come over for dinner. After a quick bowl of pho bo (pre-gaming dinner with more dinner seemed to become a theme for us) which was nothing short of heavenly with its beautiful clear broth and deep rich flavour and perfectly soft noodles, we headed over to his place out of which he runs a homestay, tour companies, and various other tourist operations. We were greeted by a man Johnny introduced as his uncle (though he didn’t look more than five years older than him) sprawled across a couch. Johnny rushed to set the coffee table upon our arrival that proceeded to groan with the weight of the feast he had whipped up for us. Our mouths watered at the sight of turmeric pork trotter stew, garlicky morning glory, tomato and herb stir fried pork, liver in the most savoury of black pepper sauce, and broth braised potatoes with still more pork, which tasted as fantastic as you might imagine such a home cooked meal would. As Johnny, his uncle, and his sister in law who was helping him in the kitchen when he arrived settled into their seats across from us, he produced a 26 of gin which he proceeded to portion generously into teacups that I had wrongly assumed were supposed to be for tea. Johnny’s hospitality that night made for one of my fondest memories in Vietnam – being welcomed into someone’s home, someone’s family so soon after meeting and sharing something as intimate as a home cooked meal left an impression I won’t easily forget.

We headed back out to Beer Corner (of course) and after a drink at our favourite joint (and honestly probably a few more elsewhere but I don’t remember it so I’m not gonna count it), we sampled a mind-blowing late night banh mi generously stuffed with pâté, grilled beef, and for some reason that I won’t question, a fried egg, then called it an early night in preparation for our eventful next day.

After our obligatory pho breakfast, Johnny, his cousin Tom, and a kindly gentleman name Hung who spoke the least English of the three, pulled up in front of our hostel, engines ablaze, on a trio of motorcycles. Alan and I had driven scooters before on the deserted country roads of Yangshuo, but I was apprehensive about riding in Hanoi.

A brief aside – one of the first things that struck me about Hanoi was the traffic. The streets are overrun by scooters and motorcycles often toting massive loads five times the size of the bikes themselves or entire families of up to four (or even five or six, if the children are small) balanced precariously on the backs of the seats. There is little to no order to any form of transportation. Pedestrians freely roam the middle of streets directly against the flow of traffic; motorbikes out of patience to wait their turn cut frequently to the sidewalks; a constant honking fills the air at every hour yet no one pays it any attention. Waiting for a light to cross the road is an impossibility; I quickly learned (grasping nonetheless tightly at Alan’s arm every time we approached an intersection) that you kind of just need to commit to crossing, step confidently out onto the street, and trust that the onslaught of vehicles hammering towards you will miraculously find their way around you like river water split by a stone, allowing you to emerge unscathed on the other end. While my weak stomach would never dare attempt it, I am reasonably confident that it would be quite safe to cross the streets of Hanoi blindfolded.

And yet, there we found ourselves, clutching tightly to the shoulders and waists of our drivers, weaving in and out of that order-less traffic like we were flying. Johnny pulled us over to several tourist attractions that while interesting, paled in comparison to our final destination: Snake Village. CW: Read on with caution as the following will contain graphic descriptions of animal slaughter and gross fluids. Stop here or skip the next paragraph if you’re not down.

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After hopping off the bikes, Johnny produced – seemingly out of nowhere, a long, thin, writhing brown snake, handling it as deftly as a seasoned wrangler. We each took our turns touching and holding it, at once fascinated and terrified. But the real show was the king cobra. Johnny convinced us to take advantage of this once in a lifetime experience and taste the beast and we, having never before been let down by Johnny’s recommendation, hesitated only briefly before obliging. So the wrangler at the farm selected a particularly juicy specimen, trapped it carefully in a cloth bag before knocking it out. Once safe, he removed the venomous fangs with a knife before slicing just below the neck, digging out the heart, still beating in rigor mortis, and dropping it straight into a shot of rice wine before draining the rest of the blood into a tall glass full of the same liquor. He expertly gutted the rest of the creature before handing the shotglass, now bright red with snake blood and still pumping, to Alan, the “man” of the group (I will excuse this manifestation of patriarchy for culture), who swallowed the goddamned thing whole like a fucking champion. The tall glass now also bloodied was divvied up between six shotglasses – one for each of us and our drivers – and downed as well. I gagged as the fresh blood and strong rice liquor hit the back of my throat but thankfully Johnny handed me a beer to wash it down soon thereafter, which helped a lot.

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Emboldened by the fact that we just fucking drank snake blood and also probably the typical effects of alcohol (Johnny insisted we finish an entire 26 of bison grass vodka), we sat down at the table a little more emotionally prepared to consume a seven course meal using the entire snake we had just drained of blood. One by one, servers brought us thick snake soup, which tasted vaguely like a fish or seafood soup only the shredded snake meat and skin was a little too chewy for my liking (though the flavour was quite nice), snake spring rolls fried to crispy golden perfection and with succulent snake flesh inside, snake wrapped into little cigars with pepper leaves (these two were probably my favourite preparations), snake bones ground to a coarse powder and mixed with crushed peanuts eaten atop rice crackers which I didn’t love, grilled snake ribs that were difficult to chew but honestly delicious, snake fat infused sticky rice which was very lovely, and snake intestines and skin stir fried with onions and peppers that I did quite enjoy. As we got over the initial shock of eating snake, we began to identify the earthy flavour of the snake meat itself. A textural lovechild of chicken and squid with the flavour profile of a similar combination, while I likely wouldn’t do it again, snake was an experience I’m glad we took a leap of faith and tried.

Every single day of this trip, we woke up with no idea of how amazing our day was about to be. Joyce, Alan, and I came into this city minds open to new experiences, stomachs ready to be filled with the world’s greatest food. We pushed each other and laughed constantly and ate constantly until my cheeks and my stomach ached from both. We fell instantly in love with the warmth and kindness of the locals and the quaint if dingy food establishments and the beauty of this city we were privileged to visit. Every night I fell asleep with a grin still plastered on my face from the wonderful day I just had. It was, however, my first time in the thick of a developing area and it struck me how far my currency could get me and I considered all the rich western tourists (myself absolutely included) who passed through the city and fell in love with what it had to offer provided they carried enough cash (and by our standards, “enough” is really not much). And I thought about how privileged I am to be in a position to enjoy that kind of luxury when statistically I could just have easily been the one hustling to sell whatever goods we were constantly plied with during our time there.

I don’t pretend by any means to represent any kind of pillar of morality but following this trip I’ve resolved to myself to do better and practice more gratitude and show more appreciation and take less for granted. I hate that this sounds like the clichéd white girl refrain of how travelling to a third world country like, totally, changed my life forever, like omg, there are like, starving children and stuff? But I do need to learn to be more conscious of my every day privilege especially when I start to feel the pressures of adulthood catching up to me and especially when I feel crushed by the still real and valid oppression I face as a North American woman of colour. Intersectionality is recognizing that I can have valid complaints about how I am treated and simultaneously recognize that I am far luckier than many through no merit of my own.

So at the risk of being that white girl cliché, thank you, Hanoi. Thank you for welcoming me so warmly into your family, for being so understanding of my lack of cultural understanding, for forgiving my obnoxiousness, for letting me have the most fun I have had in a long while, and most of all for reminding me of the importance of gratitude. There are places that I’ve visited that have absolutely delighted me and that still I have no intention of returning to any time soon, and Hanoi is not one of them. In six short days I have made a home for myself in Hanoi – in the food, in the streets, in the people, thanks to the metaphorical open arms of all three. In that home, I’ve left a slice of my heart (yeah yeah, I’m barfing too. Get over it).

So Hanoi, I’ll be back for you soon.