‘Finding myself’ or just an excuse to eat food? Part One

Xin Chào!

This summer I was fortunate enough to travel around Southeast Asia for one month with my boyfriend, Abs, visiting the astonishing countries of Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia. As well as seeing sites, embracing the culture and meeting new people, I was lucky enough to get stuck into the cuisine that these countries had to offer. We even took two cooking classes!

This post (part one) is going to consist of the best and worst dishes of Vietnam and Cambodia. If you would like to read part two, which focuses on Thailand, then please click here (x). If you’re interested in reading about the cooking classes we also took in Vietnam and Thailand, then please click here (x). Though I would appreciate it if you read this post first thanks x

Vietnam:

Our journey focused mainly on northern Vietnam, where the food is a mish-mash of French and Chinese cuisine (if you can imagine such a thing!). We visited Hanoi, Hué, Hoi An and Ho Chi Minh City, therefore I can only comment on foods that we tried in those areas – I am sure there were things we missed out on!

Here is a little taster of what we tried…

• Weirdest things we ate: Banh Beo

Banh Beo is a dish that originates from Hué, and is considered a classic dish. It consists of a rice cake (which is like a circular rice thick rice noodle), which is topped with small pieces of prawn and crispy pork skin. It comes with a sauce as well which you spoon on top before throwing the entire thing into your mouth in a similar fashion to knocking back a shot / an oyster. The texture is extremely odd, and not something I’ve EVER tried before. The rice cake is quite sticky and dense, the prawns offer another flavour, with the crackling finishing it off with a crunch. It works well together, surprisingly. If you visit Vietnam you have to try this – I’ve never seen anything like it anywhere else!

The little individual dishes these were served on were so cute.

• Weirdest things we ate: Banh Xeo

Banh Xeo was also one of the strangest things I’ve tried (also in Hué!!). It consists of a fried ‘pancake’, which is stuffed with quail’s egg, pork, shrimp and fresh vegetables. Now this pancake is very different to the usual flimsy pancakes that we get at the Chinese takeaway. This was extremely crispy and salty, so the filling on the inside gave some relief. I found these to be very moreish (like a packet of thai sweet chilli walker’s sensations moreish) so I would totally recommend these to try. We even made them at our cooking class which you can read about here (x).

These are actually ones that we made at our cooking class!

• Weirdest things we ate: Mcdonald’s Fried Chicken

Finally, McDonald’s Fried Chicken. I KNOW! IN MACCYS! This was not like your regular KFC 11 herbs and spices fried chicken, imagine the coating on a KFC hot wing, but more intense and covered over massive pieces of juicy chicken – that’s what this was! I’m drooling now just thinking about it. They serve it with sachets of hot sauce which I wish they did over here @mcdonalds, and you can even have it with rice as a side instead of chips! Though who am I kidding, of course I got chips…

This was eaten on a public bus in Ho Chi Minh City, I know – epitome of class…

• Best dishes: Claypot chicken

In Hué also (which seemed to be quite the food destination!) we tried the beauty that is the Vietnamese claypot. This dish is typically with pork, though I did prefer it with chicken, and consists of a sweet, sticky, salty and spicy ‘caramel’ sauce smothering slices of chicken. It sounds simple, but trust me, this was one of my favourites. We learnt how to make it at our cooking class also, so I will definitely be making this at home!

This photo does not do it justice.

• Best dishes: Spring Rolls

Spring rolls in Vietnam are either fresh or fried, and I have to say I prefer the fried ones. They are different to the Chinese spring rolls we get in the UK, in fact, very different. The outside coating is actually rice paper, which when fried becomes incredibly flaky but still remains light enough to not become too heavy or oily. The filling I enjoyed the most was pork, which had a saltiness to it, but also fragrance from the other vegetables and a slight crunch from the vermicelli noodles that are also stuffed inside. If you fancy being healthy then do check out the fresh ones though, they would make a great lunch or snack!

The two top pictures are the fresh spring rolls, the bottom is the fried ones. Once again, the bad lighting at these Vietnamese restaurants has caused my photos to not do the dishes justice! You’ll just have to take my word for it.

• Best dishes: Banh Mi

Banh Mi is totally worth all the hype and if you EVER go to Hanoi you HAVE to try the Banh Mi 25 ones. They are the best. The baguette is crispy on the outside and soft in the middle, the pork has just enough barbecue sauce on to not overpower the rest of the sandwich, the paté adds a wonderful saltiness and provides extra meaty depth and to top it off the salad inside cuts through the richness and adds a beautiful freshness. We need this to be more popular in the UK because I swear to God the Vietnamese know how to do a sandwich.

So good we went there twice (and I wish we went even more).

• Worst dishes: Pho

Now, I am not going to say much about the bad dishes, other than I wouldn’t really recommend them to anyone. I know this is controversial BUT I really did not enjoy Pho – which is a staple Vietnamese dish. We tried this at two different restaurant at two different price points, so I do not think that it was just one particular one that I didn’t like. The soup itself lacks bold flavour and I personally don’t like the star anise in it. I preferred the soup when extra chilli was added, however this basically makes it Bun Bo Hué (the Hué spicy version which is much better). I did try a ‘dry pho’ though, which I thought had a lot more flavour to it, this was served with the same crispy bread/pastry thing that is usually served with Pho.

So excited to try our first meal in Vietnam. This Pho was a lot nicer than the other one we had, it’s just shame I found it so underwhelming.

• Worst dishes: Street meat on a stick

I’m not saying anymore than… just don’t do it.

• Special shoutout: Egg Coffee

The espresso shot (Vietnamese coffee) was super strong so if you like your coffee weightlifter strength, like me, you will love it. The ‘egg’ part is a meringue-like topping which is soooo smooth and sweet, it makes a cappuccino look like baby.

Cambodia:

We did not visit Cambodia for very long unfortunately, only spending 4 days across Phnom Penh and Siem Reap. In comparison to our time in Vietnam and Thailand, we obviously tried less Khmer food than we did other cuisines, which has impacted my list slightly.

I have to be honest, I did not try anything truly breathtaking or inspiring, but I do also think that has to do with budgeting (after spending £40 on a trip to Angkor Wat I didn’t have a lot left to spend) and also due to limited time to truly explore Khmer food. This was probably my favourite dish though:

• Beef noodle stir fry, topped with a fried egg

Now this is not like a regular chow mein type fried noodle. The reason why I liked these noodles was because they had a depth to their flavour that was almost earthy, and the noodles themselves were very different. The shape was like a chunky noodle (similar to trofie pasta size), which was crunchy on the outside but soft in the middle. Would recommend!

How beautiful does this look though

• Worst dish: Mango and cashew chicken.

As someone who is a big fan of sweet and sour (and pineapple on pizza), I was interested in the idea of mango in a stir fry! I think its partly due to the fact that the mangoes in Cambodia are not very sweet, but the stir fry itself did not have that same sweetness that it would have had if it were pineapple. Just as bitter as I was when I ate it and saw that what Abs ordered was better than mine.

Trust me, his food was a lot better than mine…

• Special mention: Chips for the table

Very Khmer…

Thus far, you could say that Vietnam was winning in the food battle… but will Thailand knock it off it’s post? Read my next post to find out! NB: the respective posts are coming soon! (When they are out I shall link them here.)

Stay tuned,

Sophia xoxo

That concludes the first part of my documentary of the food I ate in Southeast Asia. If you would like to find out more about Thailand or the cooking classes we took, then click (x) or (x), respectively.