Seafood vendor, Saigon, December 2008. Photo © David Hagerman
We've been collecting Chinese propaganda posters since we lived in Chengdu in 1984-85, so I suppose it's no wonder I feel a special affinity for this photo.
Just a quick, unillustrated post - because internet speed here in KL is so sluggish it would take 5 hours to upload a photo (note to Malaysia's powers that be: when it comes to internet services, government monopoly is so not working) - to link to our article on the Hoi An specialty cao lau in yesterday's Wall Street Journal Asia.
We'd love to tell you more about one of the spots included in the 'Sources' list at the bottom of the article, but there's that little issue of connectivity ... next week, perhaps.
We generally avoid malls and mall food like the plague. So it was a little disconcerting last year to find ourselves spending a lot of time in the region's shopping center food courts for a feature article in today's Wall Street Journal Asia 'Weekend Journal' (the annual Food Issue) on street foods cooked and served 'off the street' (a few out takes here).
I have to admit I accepted the assignment with some ambivalence. For me eating on the street is an integral part of travelling (where street food is available, anyway). It's such an easy and delightful way to connect with locals and immerse yourself in local culinary (and other) culture.
But I also realize that there are lots of travelers who, for whatever reason, just can't go there. And I do not turn my nose up at you. Street food is not just about the food, it's about the experience, and while the experience can't be recreated in a shopping mall food court or restaurant (though Saigon's Quan An Ngon comes pretty close), in the course of our research for this piece we found that - sometimes - the food can.
So I say, to those who just can't bring themselves to eat on the street or in a market: I'm glad that there are places like this, where you can find at least an approximation of the street's flavors. (I also say, put yourself in my hands for a day and I'll have you converted. But that's neither here nor there.)
For this article we visited malls and standalone restaurants in Bangkok, Jakarta, Saigon, and KL (we had help in Singapore) . And we found something interesting, a little tidbit that hasn't entered the debate about the desire of some regional municipal governments to sweep foods off the street: places like Jakarta's Kafe Betawi (a chain) or Tanah Abang food court may actually become repositories for some tastes of the street, as certain street foods disappear from their natural habitat.
The owner of Kafe Betawi, who is really very passionate about street foods, told me that she tries to conjure, in her restaurants, approximations of street foods she remembers from her childhood that are now nearly extinct on the street. And on the 8th floor of Tanah Abang, a massive textile market, we found a street specialty - kerak telur, a sort of rice and egg 'omelet' with coconut and palm sugar - that we'd been searching for in vain. It was even cooked old-style, over charcoal.
***
That said, for us the street is still where it's at. I mean, just have a look at that opening photo: com tam (broken rice) topped with grilled pork, sweet-tart cucumber-carrot-daikon pickle, a fried egg, and scallion greens (fish sauce-chili dipping sauce on the side) taken with a glass of inky iced coffee at a tiny, low-to-the-ground beaten metal table, at 7am on a Saturday in an alley in Saigon's District 1.
It's a dish we often overlook, common as it is to nearly every Saigon city block in the a.m., but it's so delicious. The broken rice is fluffy, light, almost couscous-like, the pork slightly sweet and smoky, the pickles a sharp counterpoint to the richness of the meat. The egg's yolk, broken to spill over the rice, pulls it all together. And the dipping sauce, with it's lightly sugared, fish-flavored chili punch, is the flavor of Vietnam itself. What a way to wake up. (That, and the coffee.)
But this meal isn't just about the deliciousness of what's on the plate in front of us. It's about being out and about when Saigon is at it's best, when the buildings still cast long shadows and the air is a bit cool and as close as it ever gets to clean; when the motorcycles, relatively thin on the street, speak a soothing purr instead of a deafening roar; and when locals, fresh from a night's sleep and not yet worn down from all the crap that a day in Saigon can throw at them, are at their friendliest.
(Smiles and nods also come from the sight of a couple of tall foreigners perched on kiddy stools hunkered down over a plate of com tam. Don't ever underestimate the power of partaking.)
It's about the aromas that waft about in that alley, the good ones: the comforting, enveloping smell of steamed rice, the hint of sourness rising from the vendor's jar of pickles, and the meaty smoke snaking up from the grill that taunts your growling belly while you're waiting for your plate of com tam and then, after it's delivered, stokes your hunger even as you're eating.
It's about the tinkle of bicycle bells and the honk of motorcycle horns (at the end of the alley sits an apartment building, and at 7am residents walk or ride by your table on their way to work, school, the market, breakfast, coffee), and the nods and high-fives sent your way by other eaters, many of whom probably breakfast here every single day. It's about the vendor's smile as she sets down your plate, the coffee lady's laugh at your pronunciation of 'cafe sua da', the privilege of watching your meal prepared right in front of you, and the pleasure of tucking into something so luscious yet so ridiculously cheap.
In short, this fantastic plate of com tam is about everything - the whole experience rolled into one tasty package.
And that's why, given the choice, the street is where we eat.
Com tam, alley behind the opera house, Saigon. Starts early, closes when she runs out.
Christmas came and went without much notice around here. We're preoccupied with a number of other things at the moment, and honestly we've never cottoned to Christmas in Asia, with its somewhat soulless consumerist frenzy that rivals anything in the US (Philippines excepted - there, in spite of the heat, Christmas does feel like Christmas). Besides, we're half still in Vietnam, mentally at least.
Today we're thinking of Saigon (though we're not done with Hoi An yet) and a simple but utterly delicious concoction dished up by a vendor at Tanh Din Market (just off Hai Ba Trung Street). We noticed this woman when we were there last August. Seated next to an enormous metal pot, she was surrounded every morning by a clutch of customers perched on tiny stools spooning up a pale soup from small bowls held close to their mouths. We assumed it was chao (rice porridge) - an excellent chao we figured, if her steady business was any indication - and vowed to investigate further when we had a chance.
Said opportunity presented itself a few weeks ago, and we found that her specialty is not chao but sup cua, or crab soup. Sup cua is fairly viscous, along the lines of a banh canh, but if you can get past the texture you're in for a treat. What we assumed were egg threads crowding the broth turned out to be shreds (and a few chunks) of super-sweet crab meat and the thinnest slivers of dried Chinese mushrooms. This vendor's broth is so redolent of crustacean that it must be made from boiled with crab shells.
She tops each bowl with a sprinkle of fresh coriander and a blob of chili sauce; diners are left to add soy, if they wish, white pepper, and yet more cilantro and chili. It's a small bowl but the soup is filling. Assertively crabby but generally mildly flavored, it makes for a comforting breakfast.
Our neighbor and her mother, residents of the 'hood, told us they eat breakfast here everyday. We sure wish we could.
Sup cua, Than Din Market (front 'food court' - this vendor sits across from the wooden hu tieu cart), early morning to mid-afternoon.
A pho delivery
They do pho a little differently in Hoi An.
We eyed this popular stall on our first morning at the market, then returned the next day to find the vendor absent, his space empty. It was the first or the fifteenth of the lunar month and most of the market's prepared food sellers - save our favorite cao lau purveyor - had gone veggie or stayed home. When he didn't appear the next morning, or the next, we feared we'd missed our chance. But on our last morning there he was, back in business, sending out tray after tray packed with steaming bowls of pho.
He does a simple beef pho, with what we can only assume is a central coastal twist: after noodles, meat, and broth are in the bowl he adds a hefty spoonful of viscous fermented bean sauce (the pot in the center, below).
And with his noodles he serves a plate containing a jumble of fresh herbs, wide slices of pickled green papaya, and a mound of roasted dried chili flakes.
Diners douse the contents of the saucer with soy sauce (some also add fish sauce directly to their noodles), mix the lot up, and eat it with their pho. (Just dumping the green papaya et al directly on top of one's pho is simply not done.)
What we like here are the the herbs, which are varied (Thai basil, rice paddy herb, teensy-weensy watercress, mint leaves and a parsley-like green) and plentiful, the richness-sans-sweetness that the bean sauce adds to the soup (super-sweet hoisin is more common in Saigon and around), the full-on heat of the dried chili flakes (reminiscent of Thai guayteow nam, for us), and the sour punch of the green papaya which, eaten together with the chewy noodles, makes for a crunchy/soft, steaming-hot/cool texture-temperature contrast tour de force.
We're generally not pho-natics, but this is a great version.
Pho vendor, Hoi An Market, in a corner of the covered seafood section, right near the water
I brought a whopper of a cold home from Vietnam. This seems to be par for the course when we're traveling and cramming a lot of work into a relatively short space of time. It might also have had something to do with the fact that we arrived in Hoi An unprepared for cool weather and lots of rain. Lacking a rain coat - or any warm clothing, for that matter - I spent the better part of 5 days in a locally-purchased rain poncho that resembled a garbage bag with sleeves. (Dave assured me that if I wore the same in San Francisco it would quickly become must-have wet weather garb for the city's fashion divas. Ahem. Nice try, Dave.)
When my cold started to rear its ugly head I wished for something I was drinking quite a lot of exactly a year ago, while battling an even nastier cold while on assignment in Pampanga, Philippines. When a string of early mornings (as in 3am, for dawn mass) and non-stop days lay me low the kitchen angels at our host's home boiled up batch after batch of tea made with an herb growing wild outside the house. They called it 'oregano' (pictured below, and above - same name, two different leaves - two varieties, perhaps?). It eased my sore throat, cough, and general feeling of unwellness.
This 'oregano' is actually Indian borage (Plectranthus barbatus), a fuzzy, fleshy-leafed herb thought to be native to India that's also found in Australia, where it's known as five-in-one (thanks to once-prolific EatingAsia commenter RST for this link and others related to the herb). In India the tuberous roots are also used as a spice or prepared as a pickle.
And Indian borage is found in Vietnam, where it's known as hung chanh, tan la day, and thom long. We first noticed it at a Hue/Hoi An market in Saigon; the vendor told us that it's not for eating, but for boiling into tea when you have a sore throat or cough. According to the link above it also grows wild in Malaysia, where it's known as daun bangun-bangun. We've not seen it in the market here, yet.
The herb smells a bit like Italian or Greek oregano but, to my nose, even more like sage or thyme. In Pampanga I asked if the herb was used for cooking; the response was 'no'. Yet something called 'oregano' is perhaps part of a dried herb mix called sangkot-sangkot that's added to a Philippine stewed meat dish called apritada.
According to that link above Indian borage is added to fish or goat meat curries in Malaysia and on Java (thus one of its Indonesian names - daun kambing or 'goat leaf') and, according to my Vietnamese herb book, there '...young leaves are cut into small pieces to enhance fish or meat as a seasoning before cooking'. (A similarly fuzzy, fleshy, and odiferous leaf, the name of which escapes me at the moment, is cooked with dog in Vietnam to mitigate that meat's distinctive odor.)
Intriguingly, the herb is also used in cooking in Cuba and the Caribbean, where it goes by the name of 'Cuban oregano' or 'French oregano'. In this 2005 Miami Herald article chef and cookbook author Maricel Presilla writes that the plant made its way to Latin America during colonial times. Which begs the question - from where and via whom? From the Philippines with the Spanish? Or from southern India or Malaysia/Indonesia with the Portuguese? Or...? And how did the herb find its way to Vietnam?
Filipinos, Australians, Indians, Malaysians, Vietnamese - anyone familiar with this herb - do you cook with it? And if so, how do you use it?
But back to Hoi An. I searched for Indian borage tea in vain but I did find, bubbling away over a wood fire in a corner near the seafood section, a vat of che tuoi, or 'fresh tea'. The leaves used for this tea are indeed unfermented and, from the looks of it, pretty old.
Branches, berries, leaves - everything goes into the pot and the vendor, who's been pouring cups of che tuoi in the market for over thirty years, gives it all a good boil for a couple hours. This isn't meant as specifically a cold remedy but its slightly bitter, grassy flavor and warmth was most welcome on our misty Hoi An mornings.
My cold, by the way, is pretty much vanquished, and in just over ten days. That's a record for me; these things usually seem to hang on for weeks. I don't know whether to attribute my quick recovery to che tuoi, thoughts of oregano tea, the handfuls of vitamin C tablets I began swallowing at regular intervals as soon as my symptoms appeared .... or candied turmeric.
Candied turmeric is sold alongside candied ginger all over Hoi An's market. Before I even got sick a vendor told me it's good for a cough and sore throat. I bolted at least a half a bag at the first sign of a sore throat and then continued to snack on the astringent treat for a few more days.
What's your (non-Western pharmaceutical) cure for the common cold?
We went to Hoi An in search of great cao lau. We ate the dish all over town, but the version served at this stall (above) in the market is hands down the best (a version served at a shop not far away runs a close second; unfortunately for anyone squeamish about eating in the market or at a local-style eatery, every version we sampled in a proper restaurant or cafe disappointed).
A proper cao lau - a noodle dish that allegedly originates in Japan - is a porky tour de force, featuring slices of stewed shoulder or leg, a rich dark broth imbued with porcine goodness, and crunchy squares of lard-ified dough (the crispies that top inferior versions are fried in regular cooking oil).
Though pork figures prominently in the dish, its noodles - made with wheat flour; hearty and pleasingly rough-textured; and cut thick, wide, and square - are just as important. (The crunchy 'croutons' are made from the same dough.)
Last but not least the dish incorporates bean sprouts (blanched with the noodles, which have already been steamed before they're sold) and a characteristically Vietnamese mix of fresh greens and herbs, the components of which vary vendor to vendor. Curly leaf lettuce is a mainstay; Thai basil, rice paddy herb, sprouts of one sort or another, wild pepper leaf, mint, and fish mint might also make an appearance.
So what makes this vendor's version Number One? First, her pork is tender and shot through with the flavor of soy and whatever else she stews it in; many others top their cao lau with roasted or boiled pork that has little flavor on its own. Second, her 'broth' is rich and intense enough to call a 'gravy' (have a gander at the dark goo in that pot above). Cao lau is served just enough broth to cover the bottom of the bowl, so it really needs to taste of something besides Maggi sauce or msg-generated umami to make the dish shine.
Third, she adds a nice variety of greens. Elsewhere we were served versions that included only lettuce and a token leaf of Thai basil or two - pretty shoddy, in our book. Also, this lady's cao lau boasts appropriately al dente noodles and crisp-tender sprouts. Finally, she offers alongside an exquisite chili sauce. Ruby red, a little sticky and slightly sweet but quite spicy as well, it might more appropriately be called a chili 'jam', it's a concoction I'd love to spread on garlic toast or dribble onto scrambled eggs.
Definately a cao lau to remember. By the end of our last morning grazing the market we had absolutely no room for a final bowl. Poor planning on our part, and we're still regretting it.
Cao lau, 7am-late afternoon, Hoi An market 'food court' (Look for the blue and white sign; this stall also consistently has the most customers of all the stalls offering cao lau.)
Last week in Hoi An we had time to do something we haven't in ages: hang out in a market.
Hanging in the market is a particularly useful exercise in heavily-touristed Hoi An, where finding good Vietnamese food is a challenge. In the market it's a different story. There's so much fantastic stuff there that by the end of our fourth day our list of favorites had grown too long to manage in one morning. It's a damned sorry situation in which to find yourself - last day at the market, forced by lack of belly space to pick and choose.
This banh khoai vendor works at a low makeshift stall to one side of the market's 'food court', a line of concrete tiled stalls housing vendors selling everything from pho to fruit shakes. As we walked the food court line on our first morning several banh khoai vendors called out and waved their crepe pans at us - a flashing red light, in my book. We turned a corner and there this was this woman, quietly serving customers, completely oblivious to our existence.
We sat.
Banh khoai is the predecessor to banh xeo, a huge rice flour pancake filled with pork, shrimp, and bean sprouts that's more common in Saigon and south. As it cools banh xeo gets unappealingly soft and heavy with oil; for me it's always been a three-bite wonder.
Not so the smaller, more manageable banh khoai. The filling in this vendor's version is minimal - a single small slice of fatty belly pork and a half a small shrimp layed in the pan after the batter's been poured, a flourish of bean sprouts added just before she slides the pancake out of its pan. To eat, they're opened onto a square of stiff rice paper, layered with a few slices of tart star fruit and young banana and a handful of greens and herbs (sprouts, basil, paddy herb, mint, and lettuce, at this stall), and rolled tight. The dipping sauce alongside is made from soy beans and glutinous rice; chili's optional.
In one, two, three ... maybe four bites you're finished. The pancake's stayed warm and its edges crackly to the end, lightly cooked bean sprouts as crispy as the fresh greens you just added. This is a heavily oiled treat, but not overly so - the extra grease works here, soaking into the stiff rice paper and mixing with the dipping sauce.
Our usual limit was two each, but only because in this market we had other fish to fry - cao lau, central-style pho, ngo bap, banh beo ....
We're currently in Saigon, having just come from Hoi An, where we spent five days on the hunt for the town's best cao lau and ate our way up one side and down the other of its lovely little market (outside of the market food in the Old Town's generally been a disappointment). Yesterday's breakfast - one of them, anyway - was an unexpected joy: ngo bap, plump kernels of rehydrated dried corn, black beans, and roast peanuts tossed with white sugar, peanut powder, and fried shallots in their oil. It may sound a strange combination, but the disparate flavors and textures really work.
More - much more - to come next week.
Nam Son is a Saigon rarity: a restaurant that's been around for decades. Our friend My, who's in her mid-thirties, remembers eating there as a young girl. In Saigon, which is remaking itself by the minute, a thirty-plus year-old restaurant seems antique.
Back when My's parents brought her here Nam Son was a relatively upscale restaurant, and it's obvious from the peeling paint and nicked floors that this place has seen better days. But it's got a certain vintage appeal, and the second-story dining room offers a fine view of Saigon's legendary traffic through a veil of its trademark tangle of telephone and electrical lines.
The food here is mostly Chinese Vietnamese (the Chinese characters on the restaurant's facade mean 'northern mountain') and the menu is short. We were in town to research canh chua (sour fish soup) and so that's what we ordered, along with a plate of mi xao.
We slurped up alot of canh chua that week, and Nam Son's version made with ca loc, or snakehead fish, was one of our favorites. For a canh chua it's simple, almost austere, with minimal pineapple and no tomato. The emphasis at Nam Son is on spongy bac ha, or taro stem, which has little taste of its own but is a great absorber of flavors, making it a perfect soup ingredient. The fish lurked under the vegetables in the form of a meaty, albeit slightly bony, steak. The broth was fish-flavored and stridently sour (a plus in our opinion) and the dish was garnished with lots of chopped paddy herb. An enjoyable bowlful, one we'll certainly revisit on our next visit.
Mi xao is often described as Vietnam's version of chow mein. The dish does indeed consist of deep-fried egg noodles topped with stir-fried mixture of protein and vegetables. Nam Son's version, which is accompanied by a saucer of vinegared sliced chilies the likes of which often accompanies Chinese noodle dishes in Malaysia (but much spicier), includes squid, prawns, pork, liver, and lots of mustard greens in a comforting meat-flavored sauce spiced with black pepper. It's a deeply tasty dish and Dave and I ended up sparring over the last bites.
As we were finishing our late-afternoon snack a family - dad and mom, maybe mom's brother, and two kids still in their school uniforms - sat down and ordered a proper meal with rice. The scents wafting over from their table led us to wish we had time in our schedule to return for dinner. Nam Son serves just the sort of simple but honestly good food that puts big silly grins on our faces.
We'll be back in Saigon in a month or so. Nam Son has not seen the last of us.
Nam Son Restaurant, 702 Nguyen Dinh Chieu (corner of Nguyen Thien Thuat), District 3, Saigon. Don't be fooled by the Nam Son imposter next door! The Nam Son you want is the two-story corner shop.
