It is no secret that I LOVE FOOD! If there is something new to taste I am so in! I will try anything once [maybe even twice just for confirmation], one of my favorite ways to connect to a culture when traveling is through food; and boy oh boy did I get to to do that this past month!
If you follow me on social media you would have seen some of the delicious [and interesting] things I have indulged in. Many people were asking what else we ate while there, so hey why not post a blog about it!
(For anyone who speaks Vietnamese I deeply apologize for the lack of accents with my spelling, my blog platform doesn’t recognize them and turns the letters into question marks, so bare with me on my attempt to share the proper names of dishes)
The obvious must of Vietnam – Pho _ Vietnamese noodle soup_ we ate it an absurd amount of times but, oh my do I wish I could have another bowl right now! I will tell you though it DOES matter where you go, some places are not as good as others. The restaurant we went to cooked the broth over night and let it simmer all day so when they dropped the noodles and raw beef in [yes raw, the hot liquid cooks it as you stir in the fixins’] it is a perfect combination of flavor! Still funny how you can crave a hot bowl of noodles in 97 degree whether.
Cha gio _ spring rolls _ I loved the fried ones [some places would call them egg rolls, but most fried spring rolls], thanks to my neighbor in Florida I knew rolling the mint around them takes the taste to the next level !
gua baos _ steamed buns _ I am not a big pork fan but, the pork in Asia is to die for! I ate more pork in one month than I have in the past 5 years, crazy! These steamed buns were addicting! The left is a piece of roasted pork belly, served with a pickle and fried onion strips. The right is a pork served with a pickle relish and some type of sweet bread crumbs. I am drooling thinking about them now. There is another type of steam bun in Vietnam as well, banh bao, which is more commonly seen but every time I ordered them I ate them too quickly and would forget to take a picture, oops!
Bun thit nuong _ rice stick noodle bowl with grilled pork _ sadly, we didn’t discover this till our last week. We took a suggestion from Mikayla’s mom’s nail technician and we were soooooo happy we did! The one on the right is called bun cha gio thit nuong, its the same thing just served with a fried spring roll. I highly recommend this dish!
Com suon _ broken rice with a pork chop _ I told you I ate a lot of pork! The marinade on this was out of this world and it is served with fish sauce and chilis that add a delicious kick. Most of the food in Vietnam is ridiculously cheap for the amount of food you’re served but this meal … only $1.54 !!!
Xuc xich trung cut _ sausage and quail egg bread _ this $0.66 delicious treat has no words that could possibly describe how good it really was! The salty sausage balanced by the sweet quail egg all mixed in just the right denseness of doughy perfection … yum!
Banh mi _ Vietnamese sandwich _ this one had shredded chicken in it and we got it at the mall near our ministry, it was ok but not really what I was expecting. So of course I had to try another one somewhere else to see why banh mi was the thing I was told to try and oh my gosh the egg banh mi from the street vendor was packed with flavor and I immediately understood the hype! We noticed quickly local is the best way to go if we wanted authentic and not made to “accommodate the Westerners” taste.
Vietnamese tacos _ simple, delicious, perfection! Too good to be true marinated pork served in wonton hard taco shells with cilantro and sliced chilis. We found these at an outside food market.
Da dieu xao lan _ stir-fried ostrich _ a couple of my teammates and I wanted to ride an ostrich but, we never got the opportunity so we did the next best thing… we ate one! For our adventure day we went to the Mekong Delta (video to come about that) and with the assortment of interesting foods placed before us we wanted to make the most of our experience and ordered the biggest bird on the menu. It honestly tasted like a chewier beef, not bad at all.
Phin ca phe _ Vietnamese coffee with a drip filter _ Vietnamese coffee is STRONG and really delicious if you’re an espresso lover. The coffee is served with sweet condensed milk (yum!) and is beyond addicting. If I told you how much coffee our team drank during the month you would be highly concerned for our health. There was once place that served ca phe sua da (iced coffee) for only 15,000 VND which is $0.66 … so yeah we loaded up on coffee big time! My parents were able to find a Vietnamese restaurant in the states that serves this, if you have the opportunity go try it!
Smoothies _ usually a daily occurrence (sometimes even more than once, don’t judge me) the fruit in Vietnam is sooooo fresh and delicious. The sketchy little alley smoothie stand we went to although very questionable from appearances was the best in the city and so worth the obvious health risks that should have kept us from going there. My favorite is mango and red dragon fruit!
Peach tea with soda cubes served in a bag _ this wasn’t anything crazy but it was cool to me that they served the tea in a pop-up ziplock bag. The culture is all about “take-away” convenience. Even your coffee comes with a plastic handle to walk with.
Nuoc mia _ fresh sugar cane juice _ delicious refreshing sweetness! This is popular in a ton of cultures yet, I still get super excited every time I see it because it is that good!
Part of our trip to the Mekong Delta was stopping at an island that farms bees for honey. We enjoyed fresh lemon tea with ridiculously fresh honey, royal jelly a substance collected from the nectar that apparently has a lot of health benefits, and homemade banana chips coated in honey. It was a delicious day!
There is matcha flavored everything in this country! IT IS AWESOME!!!! Matcha ice cream with matcha chips, matcha tiramisu, matcha mochi, matcha kitkats, theres even matcha toothpaste (that one was an accident), anything you can think of Vietnam can almost guarantee it comes in matcha too.
Oreo matcha egg puffs _ think flavored misshaped waffles and you have egg puffs. Theres a video at the bottom of the blog of how it was made.
Peanut coconut taffy _ we got to eat these still warm and freshly made on our Mekong Delta adventure. Check out the video at the bottom of the blog to watch the women knead the taffy.
Mango banh bao _ steam bun with mango center _ made to look like a little hedgehog, almost too cute to eat (keyword there being almost).
Rolled ice cream _ theres a video at the bottom of the blog that shows how they made this. My go to flavors were banana, Oreo, chocolate and strawberry!
Chewy Junior cream puffs _ this delicious creation was an accident. Apparently the creator of this treat was attempting to make a healthier version of the traditional cream puffs he had tasted in his travels and decided to bake them instead of deep frying.
Street stand coconut pop _ when its hot and you see something that resembles a popsicle and it turns out to be amazing! Don’t mind my darling teammates creeping in the picture.
Coconut ice cream in a coconut with coconut shavings _ what else needs to be said?
Shaved condensed milk with matcha ice cram, chocolate chips, shaved almonds and coconut, and chocolate syrup and condensed milk _ this is actually a Korean dessert but, it was too good not to share with everyone. Theres a short clip at the bottom of the machine used for the condensed milk.
Che : suong sa hat luu _ Vietnamese sweet dessert : pomegranate seed-shaped tapioca pearls, grass jelly, mashed green bean, panda tree with coconut milk _ the biggest question I got with this one was “how did it taste?” there really wasn’t much flavor, BUT texturally it was killer. Imagine coconut milk with odd flavored gummy worms put in a bowl with ice cubes and some other very texturally unpleasing things and thats exactly what we ate. Theres a video below of some people on my squad trying it with me.
