There’s only so much you can stuff into your belly in a short trip. My list consisted of rudimentary cuisine standards such as bún chả, bánh mì, phở, bún bò huế, bánh xèo, gỏi cuốn and bò lá lốt. Over and above that, anything else would be a bonus. I wished I had a Vietnamese friend to show me all the unsung and quietly wonderful dishes that haven’t seen the light of day in Melbourne. Isn’t a food safari all about encountering new tastes? But I consider myself lucky enough to have a Map of Saigon Faves given to me by Billy. Dad would look into the interactive map every morning and plot our culinary itinerary.
Let’s start with the shellfish stall in Chợ Bến Thành. Both dad and mum ate here in their last visit and really enjoyed it. I personally find eating squiggly things out of a shell potentially frightful. But over the years, I have started appreciating cockles, abalone and mussels with some reluctance. And I’ve grown to enjoy scallops, oysters, escargots and pipis. The good thing about Bến Thành Market is that every food stall has a menu with English translation for tourists. The shellfish sold here is mostly grilled over charcoal. You pry the mollusc out of its shell with a little fork and have it with a very light but salty chilli sauce.
Ốc hương nướng (grilled Areola babylon) 200,000đồng AUD$10
We call this “gong gong” in Singapore, they’re a kind of sea snail. The flesh is tougher and more rubbery than other molluscs, and it’s flavour is bland. Pretty as the shell looked, I couldn’t help feeling slightly squeamish. It’s very fresh here, but I didn’t like the stout, chewy-crunchy texture. My folks liked it very much.
Sò huyết nướng (grilled blood cockles) 40,000đồng AUD$2
We call cockles “see hum” in Singapore, it is often used in char kway teow and laksa dishes – to me thats the winning ingredient. The grilled cockles here were quite good. Soft, metallic, yet charred. Great with the chilli sauce. Seafood stalls in Singapore hawker centres would briefly blanch cockles in boiling water before serving. You pick out the practically undercooked cockles with toothpicks and dip it into chilli sauce. Because they’re quite raw, it tastes almost like a gush of blood as you chew into it. Definitely an acquired taste. Dad mentioned they also had a much larger cockle that’s served sliced into pieces after grilling.
Sò điệp nướng mỡ hành (grilled scallop with onion pork fat) 40,000đồng AUD$2
My folks didn’t really like this. The scallop was a little overcooked from grilling so it had a tougher texture. I personally didn’t mind it because the seasoning was great, plus I already like scallops to begin with. There was still some sweetness and succulence inside its grilled exterior. And there were hints of fish sauce and sesame oil. Very fragrant.
Ốc len xào dừa (fried mangrove periwinkle with coconut sauce) 36,000đồng AUD$1.80
Called “choot choot” in Singapore, we didn’t eat this because dad doesn’t like coconut based sauces. Select Singapore hawker centres sell this fried in a special chilli marinade. That flesh can’t be extricated with a toothpick, you have to pop it out by sucking at the entrance. Dad therefore jokingly calls this “suck backside”. The tips of the shells are routinely chopped off to facilitate air passage. The best technique would be to first blow into the entrance so that it pushes the flesh against the tip of the shell, and then with sudden suction pop it into your mouth. Because this shellfish is small and quite tender, it can taste really good with the right marinade.
Hột vịt lộn (fetal duck egg) 7,000đồng AUD$0.35
Dad ordered this to make my blog interesting. Duck eggs normally hatch at 26-28 days, these are cooked at 16-20 days. Poor things! Half-hatched duck eggs are called balut in the Philippines and they’re a hugely popular street food there. After our egg was cracked open, I had a glimpse of the tortuous vasculature over the yolk, and the hint of feathers and a wing. I only managed one bite. Everything was very hard and dense. Not sure how the texture is supposed to be, but I’m convinced it was overcooked. I once had this on the streets of Vientiane, Laos. It was a lot more edible because the duck was only just fertilised, the egg was half boiled, liquidy, delightfully marinated and the embryo, only 2 centimetres big, was almost imperceptible. I ate two.
Mum had coconut juice with this meal while I had a really refreshing ice blended passionfruit juice. The coconut fruit was young, so the flesh was tender and easily scooped out from the insides of the husk.
Gỏi cuốn (rice paper rolls) and bò lá lốt (beef wrapped in betel leaves)
The stall just next to where we sat sold stuff that looked like rice paper rolls and bò lá lốt. I just had to try it as a point of comparison with Melbourne’s version, so I gesticulated for an English menu. The bò lá lốt was pretty good, the betel leaves were very crisp and tasted somehow different from what I had in Melbourne. The beef was marinated differently, think there was less fish sauce in it. We ate it by wrapping the beef with a leaf of lettuce, adding all the other herbs in before dipping it into the sauce.
Unfortunately, we were served with rice paper rolls that had been sitting in the window for sometime, so the outside was quite dry. I expected a nước chấm type sauce to accompany it since we’re in Vietnam, but we got a hoisin type sauce similar to what you get in Melbourne. Biting into the roll, it also tasted the same as in Melbourne. But as pictured here, it looks like there is more veggie and herb action here. Aside from freshness of the ingredients, I wonder what really makes a rice paper roll a cut above the rest. I like them, but they all taste quite similar.Gee I’m wordy, so much for keeping my Vietnam posts short, lol. I’ll stop here and write about the rest of what we ate in the next post. We shall venture out of touristy Bến Thành Market!
Source: fatboo.com
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