EatingAsia

On the Saigon Snail Trail

For many food-obsessed travelers to Vietnam the Holy Grail is a fantastic pho. Which is a shame, really, because in the course of a single-minded quest for the ultimate version of this northern Vietnamese soup noodle many equally worthy noodle dishes are bound to be overlooked.

Bun oc (snail and rice noodle soup), for instance, consistently flies under the foreign chowhound's radar. Yet this combination of thin rice noodles with one or another member of the molluscan class of Gastropoda in flavorful broth - also a specialty of the north - is brilliant, easily as delicious as the finest bowl of pho. It certainly was a favorite of a certain formerly Vietnam-based blogger.

We hit Bun Oc Thanh Hai with our friend My late one afternoon last November, after an abruptly aborted tour of a bun factory followed up by an alleyway jelly refresher. The place is a favorite of Saigon's snail afficianados and the molluscan-focused menu is extensive. Bellies full and contemplating dinner in a few hours, we're forced to limit ourselves to just a couple of dishes.

We order bun oc rieu cua (snail and crab noodle soup), which, like many a Vietnamese noodle soup, is served with a gorgeous selection of crunchy herbs and veggies including perilla, fresh basil, mint, bean sprouts, shredded banana blossom, and thinly sliced banana stem (the heart of the trunk of the banana tree). The bowl contains good-sized chunks of not-at-all rubbery snail meat and tomato, bits of crab, and slippery noodles in a punchy pork and crab broth. Floating on top are crab dumplings so light and delicate that they literally dissolve on the tongue.

What's special about this version, My tells us, is the addition of just a bit of vinegar made from rice wine dregs. We get a saucer of the stuff on the side upon request - it's lightly sour and just barely alcoholic, a fine addition to the sweet-savory broth.

We follow up our bun soup with a favorite Vietnamese snail dish - oc hap nhoi thit, or stuffed snails. For this dish the snail is removed from its shell and minced and mixed with lemongrass, lots of strong black Vietnamese pepper, and other spices. It's served with a ginger-vinegar-chile dip reminiscent of the one that will accompany our chao vit the next afternoon. Like duck, snails are a 'heaty' food; cooling ginger provides a balance. This version of oc hap nhoi thit is peppery and lemony and very snail-ish (in a good way); we find ourselves popping the little snail plugs into our mouths one after the other in defiance of groaning stomachs.

Bun Oc Thanh Hai's gregarious owner was a farmer in Thanh Binh, in the north, before moving to Saigon in 1981. She was an ambulatory seller, peddling bun oc from fixings carried on opposite ends of a shoulder pole, for four years before setting up her always busy shop in District 3. 

Over noodles and stuffed snails we ponder the French influence on Vietnamese food, wondering if escargot inspired oc hap nhoi thit. I would wager that snails were a part of the Vietnamese culinary repertoire long before escargot made an appearance in the country; they (and paddy crabs) are eaten by nearly every Southeast Asian rice-growing (or formerly rice-growing) populace. But stuffed snails? That, I suppose, is a question for a Vietnamese food historian.

Bun Oc Thanh Hai, 14/12 Ky Dong Street, District 3, Saigon. Tel. 08-8-435-785. This shop is located on an alley that cuts off an alley that cuts off a main road; I haven't a clue how to find it. Do yourself a favor - have your hotel receptionist (or a Vietnamese friend) call for directions. Or you might try following the directions in Graham Holliday's review of the place, prompted by a tip he received from a snail-loving local, here.

Working Hands

              Fish vendor, Pham Van Hai Market, Ho Chi Minh City

Vietnam's Other Black Gold

A few days before we left for Saigon, I poured the last of the 5 pounds of Vietnamese black pepper that had moved with us to Malaysia in 2005 into our pepper grinder.

This was not a coincidence.

Did we return to Saigon just to restore our stock of Vietnamese pepper? I wouldn't say that, exactly. We knew we'd go before the end of the year. As October passed and our stash shrank, well ... it just seemed like a good time to make plane reservations.

Vietnam isn't the country that comes to mind when gourmets start talking black pepper. It's all Tellicherry this and Sarawak that; if a pepper-loving foodie really wants to impress her cohort she might proclaim an allegiance to Ecuadorian prganic Ecuadorian black pepper.

That's black pepper they're walking on

Vietnam is the world's largest black pepper producer, and the spice is a key component of the cuisine. While Vietnamese food isn't as overtly chile-hot as Thai food, many dishes have a nice kick thanks to this Vietnamese black gold. A quick Google search turned up no mail-order sources for this peppercorn that, in my opinion, is the equivalent of any other 'gourmet' varieties. If you happen to be in Vietnam you can buy it by the kilo for a steal.

What follows is an extremely quick, tasty recipe that highlights black pepper's uniquely complex heat. If Vietnamese isn't within your reach, use whatever is. Just make sure that it's very fresh (ie. still fragrant; a good whiff should make you want to sneeze), and freshly ground.

Light and Bright Vietnamese Herby Omelet with Black Pepper-Salt-Kalamansi (or Lime) Dipping Sauce

We ate this street snack on a grey, misty winter morning in Hanoi. At 630am on a Sunday the city's streets were strangely quiet. About 4 blocks from the lake we came across a granny tucked under the overhang of an office building. Seated on a tiny stool, she was making omelets, emerald green with chopped herbs, in a small pan over a single burner. We ordered one and marveled at its simplicity and brightness. The dipping sauce - a combination of salt, lots of fragrant black pepper, and kalamansi juice - added zip and beautifully complemented the fresh taste of the herbs.

Any combination of Asian-ish herbs works here, the more the merrier - just be sure not to go too heavy on the strongest-flavored herbs. This morning my omelet included Thai basil, mint, Vietnamese coriander (polygonum/laksa leaf), perilla, cilantro, and sorrel (caution: too much sorrel and your omelet will be more gray than green). You might also use wild pepper leaves, or a bit of dill. Arugala would be a nice, albeit inauthentic, addition. A few chives or one scallion chopped with the greens are possibilities, but don't use enough to overpower the herbs. Don't be alarmed at the amount of minced herbs in this dish - the egg really shouldn't be much more than a binder. 

sea salt or Kosher salt

freshly ground black pepper

kalamansi or lime halves, for squeezing

4 eggs

1 1/4 cup of a combination of fresh herbs chopped together to a fine mince

vegetable oil

1. In a small saucer mix (for each person) a pinch of salt, a few generous grinds of pepper, and kalamansi juice (2-3 halves, depending on the size of the fruit) or lime juice (1/2 a juicy lime). Mix lightly - it's not necessary to dissolve the salt.

2. Beat the eggs to thoroughly combine. Stir in the herbs.

3. Place a (preferably non-stick) skillet over medium heat. Add a dribble of oil and then wipe it around with a paper towel to remove the excess.

4. Add the eggs and cook slowly, covered, to allow them to set. Once the top no longer jiggles slide the omelet onto a plate and then turn the plate over into the skillet, to cook the other side. Avoid browning the omelet, if you can.

5. Once the omelet is cooked, slide it onto a plate and eat by dipping pieces into the sauce. (Lovely eaten room temperature, too.)

Tons of pepper for export

The Feel-Good Factor

Saigon is not the most cordial city in the world. It's a little rough-and-tumble, a bit jagged-edged, pretty aggressive. Energetic, exciting, adrenaline-pumping - yes. Warm and gooey? Not exactly, and especially not when compared with the larger cities of its Southeast Asian neighbors. When you're a resident, the place starts to wear on you a bit.

Hong Hanh was our Saigon oasis of niceness. From our first appearance at the top of the precariously steep and narrow flight of stairs that lead to Hong Hanh's second-floor perch we were never made to feel anything but welcome. We didn't speak a word of Vietnamese (shame on us, but that's the way it was) and no one at Hong Hanh spoke a word of English, but we weren't brushed off as the pain-in-the-arse foreigners, ushered to a corner table and then ignored for the duration of our stay. We were treated like every other customer: efficiently, affably, and with lots of smiles.

(We don't suppose it hurt that we often ordered the equivalent of several meals at one sitting and cleaned our plates every time.)

Our memories of those smiles - and of its mostly Hue-influenced specialties - carried us directly from hotel check-in to Hong Hanh's doorstep. We were happy to find that, other than the young staff's average height, little has changed over the past couple of years. The food's still fantastic, and the welcome is still warm. We were remembered, and even greeted with tears by Hong Hanh's proprietress. We got a little choked up ourselves.

Then we set to work and started ordering.

Hong Hanh's menu - which had been translated, with varying degrees of success, into English during our absence - is extensive: various noodles and banh cuon (rice flour 'pancakes' with various fillings) compete for attention with banh da (rice cracker) dishes, nem nuong Hue (sour fermented pork sausages with a chili kick), and a few miscellaneous snacks. We stuck with our favorites and were gratified to find them as scrumptious as we remembered.

Hong Hanh's bun thit nuong is simply stellar: room-temperature bun (rice vermicelli) topped with grilled pork, carrot and daikon radish pickle, peanuts, and fried shallots. The pork in this version is sliced extra thin and lacquered with a sweet fish sauce and black pepper marinade, chewy and tender at the same time, and exceptionally smoky. Beneath the bun lies a generous mound of pickled vegetables and shredded herbs.

Banh can cua is thick, round tapioca starch noodles in a crab broth made viscous by the addition of tapioca flour. Hong Hanh's version boasts an exceptionally rich, complex broth courtesy of the addition of pork bones (one of which will end up in your bowl, sporting tender meat) and plenty of black pepper, and each serving is crowded with generous chunks of crab meat, crab and pork dumplings, a rectangle of pork blood, and a slice or two of daikon radish. Chinese deep-fried crullers do a good job of absorbing all the goodness the bowl has to offer, and the ubiquitous 'side salad' of bean sprouts and green leaves freshens things up a bit.

Less well-known than pho and bun are Vietnamese mien (bean starch noodles). Hong Hanh's mien preparations include a fine mien cua nuoc leo, a delicious concoction of crab meat, crab balls, slivered bamboo, mushrooms, pork blood, and mien in a meaty-shellfishy broth.

No meal at Hong Hanh is complete without at least one order of banh da (black sesame seed-studded rice cracker), here eaten with miniscule clams sauteed with copious amounts of lemongrass and chopped green onions and peppery polygonum (the dish is called banh da xuc hen; a version with snails - xuc oc - is also available).

Served with peanuts and fresh polygonum on the side, this Hue specialty is just the sort of combination of textures, temperatures, and strong yet complementary flavors that Vietnamese cooks excel at. Sitting at our table-with-a-view, we had to marvel that food this ethereal could be churned out by Hong Hanh's color-coordinated staff (Friday is pink day for gals, brown day for guys) from such a cramped and basic 'kitchen' and prep area. It's dishes like this that drew us back week after week, sometimes days in a row, for two-plus years.

That, and those smiles.

Hong Hanh, 2nd floor 17A Nguyen Thi Minh Kai Street, Saigon. Morning to night, with a break between 2 and 3pm.

Duck Rice Porridge

That title is a bit of a test. We were curious as to how many would stick with this post after seeing the words 'rice porridge' up top.

Known variously around the region as congee, zhou, khao tom, chao, bubur, and lugao, rice porridge may well be Asia's most underrated dish. Perhaps it's the unfortunate use of the word 'porridge' which, for most Westerners, conjures up images of gloppy oatmeal or lumpy creamed wheat. Maybe the untrained Western palate is to blame; for many of us rice is a bland, uninteresting side starch more suited to the task of sopping up sauce than serving as the focus of a meal. Whatever the reason(s), we find that fellow non-Asians are more likely to wrinkle their noses than lick their lips at the mention of any form of Asian rice porridge.

Chao (the Vietnamese term for rice porridge) skeptics in the Saigon vicinity, get yourself to Thanh Da district and prepare to be converted. Chao Vit Thanh Da's chao vit (duck rice porridge) is the Saigon dish that we most dreamed about after moving to Kuala Lumpur. That's right - not pho or bun thit nuong, neither bun bo Hue nor banh xeo, but the specialty of this cavernous eatery with its utilitarian stainless steel tables and no-nonsense service. The place is so well-known that most of the city's taxi drivers (if they're locals) don't need an address to drop you on its doorstep.

Chao vit is a divine sum of its glorious parts. There's the chao, a porridge of medium consistency made with broken rice and duck stock. Dished up from a huge kettle floating whole green onions and bits of duck liver on its surface, the chao is crowned with chopped scallion greens and a healthy mound of fragrant Vietnamese black pepper (among the best in the world). And there's the duck, steamed to velvety tenderness, chopped and topped with a flurry of crispy fried shallots.

There's also the dipping sauce, an intoxicating sweet, sour, and lightly spicy blend of, we're told, fish sauce, garlic, fresh red chilies (extra on the side, if you ask), sugar, vinegar or lime juice, and loads of grated fresh ginger - a 'heaty' element to balance the duck's 'coolness'. (We swear we detect a hint of lemongrass as well.) And, of course, there's the characteristically Vietnamese accompaniment of crunchy, cooling, fragrant fresh herbs and vegetables. Here, it's banana blossom, cabbage, basil, polygonum (known in Malaysia as daun kesom), daikon radish, and carrot, all doused with the sugared vinegar that the carrot and radish have been lightly pickled in (photo above) and sprinkled with peanuts.

A must-have addition to this feast is one or two of the banh trang (hefty yet airy rice crackers coated on one side with sesame seeds) being grilled to one side of the shop.

How best to tackle this dish is matter of personal preference, and one glance around Chao Vit Thanh Da shows there's no consensus on the matter. We find that this method works well: spoon a bit of chao into a small soup bowl. Add a chopstickful from the veggie plate. Grab a slice of duck, positioning it carefully between chopsticks so that it loses none of its fried shallot garnish, and dunk it in the dipping sauce. Maneuver duck to mouth and eat it over the small soup bowl. Working the duck off the bone will require some effort, but all the while duck a heavenly mixture of duck juice and dipping sauce will drip into veggie-crowned chao.

Deposit any bits of duck bone on the table and turn full attention to the soup bowl. At this point, rice cracker might be broken up into the bowl (or perhaps it's been done before the duck was eaten, to give it time to go half-soft). Finish the bowl, and repeat.

Every now and again mix things up a bit by enjoying both cracker and chopstickfuls of vegetables on their own, or dipped in sauce. When duck and veggies have been demolished (asking for another plate of vegetables is not out of the question) dump any remaining dipping sauce into the dregs at the bottom of the chao bowl.

Then, slurp, enjoy, and marvel at the celestial combination of hot and cold, raw and cooked, crispy and soft, and bland and spicy that you've just devoured. And declare yourself a rice porridge devotee.

Chao Vit Thanh Da, 118 Dong Binh Quoi, Thanh Da, Saigon. Tel 556-6640. Morning to evening. Look for the lineup of motorcycles parked out front. Ordering is simple - indicate the number of servings you'd like and ask for 'banh trang' to go with. Note: Chao Vit Thanh Da is about 15-20 minutes by taxi from District 1. If you catch a cab at your hotel the doorman will no doubt discourage you ('Why go all that way? You can eat chao vit anywhere1') Trust us - the extra effort is worth it.

Pink Bananas

Over the two-plus years that have elapsed since we left Saigon for Kuala Lumpur we've nursed a few fond food memories. (And no - we don't count pho among them. Are we the only visitors to/former residents of Vietnam who do not count themselves among the world's pho-natics?)

There's a problem with nostalgia, culinary or otherwise: it's only half-rooted in reality. The rest is idealized re-imagination - so encounters with whatever one is nostalgic for are bound to disappoint. We returned to Saigon prepared to be, at least a little bit, underwhelmed.

But we weren't, not once. We found the flavors of the city's streets to be, if anything, brighter, bolder, and altogether more captivating than we remembered. Case in point - banh chuoi, a simple banana cake.

But not so simple. The Vietnamese culinary repertoire has multiple versions of banh chuoi; some are sticky with glutinous rice flour, others dense and seemingly flourless, while still others resemble the cakey banana bread made with gone-black bananas that we grew up with in the States.

The banh chuoi we'd been savoring in our minds' eye is more French-ish bread pudding than cake, and made with a variety of low-starch, strawberry-fruity banana that turns pink when it's cooked. Throughout our first year in Saigon we bought slabs of the stuff from a stall at Ben Thanh market and ate them after dinner with dollops of local full-fat cream so thick it didn't require whipping.

Then the stall closed. Occasionally we unearthed other versions of pink-banana'd banh chuoi around town, but none to compare with our first love.

So, you see, we were nostalgic for banh chuoi before we even left Saigon, and, as we contemplated returning, not at all hopeful that we'd find a version that lived up to our fantasies. We weren't looking for it a couple of weeks ago as we wandered the prepared food section at Tan Dinh market. Then, suddenly, we struck a banh chuoi bonanza.

The version up top was the prettiest of the lot, nestled, as it was, amongst a cache of tropical-hued glutinous rice cakes. It promised - with its formidable height, thick slices of barely-blushing pink bananas, and crackly surface sporting nicely caramelized fruit slices - banh chuoi bliss. But its texture, bouncy from glutinous rice flour, disappointed. This was not the soft, yielding banh chuoi of our dreams.

Then, euphoria - an ugly duckling of a banh chuoi (above) that sent us into spasms of ecstasy. Those chunky, pale squares of banana cake may not have elicited swoons on sight, but with their dense, buttery-eggy half-cake half-pudding swaddling tender chunks of pink bananas bursting with tart-sweet strawberry flavor, they came through in the end.

Every bit as scrumptious as we remembered, even without the full-fat cream. Score one for nostalgia.

Pink banana banh chuoi, food court, Tan Dinh morning market, Saigon.

Vietnam's Black Gold

Cafe sua da (Vietnamese iced coffee with milk) - if there's a better way to wake up in Southeast Asia, we don't know it.

We love Malaysian coffee. Thai coffee, sock-filtered the old-fashioned way (if you can find it), can be lip-smacking as well. Sumatran and Balinese brews give a certain endearing jagged-edged kick (just avoid the loose grounds at the bottom of the glass). A mug of Philippine barako is worth a bit of contemplation. But there is just nothing like a glass of iced coffee Vietnamese-style. So thick, so smooth, so caffeine-laden, yet so refreshing.

We gave up long ago trying to figure out what the secret is. We tried brewing our own at home when we lived in Saigon, using the fiddly local drip-drippy stainless steel filters, then employing paper filters, and then the muslin sock technique. We used highest-grade Trung Nguyen coffee as well as beans proffered by various sellers about town, grinding it coarse and grinding it fine. We bought packets of pre-ground beans adulterated with additives. We stirred in sweetened condensed milk, then tried condensed milk and sugar. In the end our home brew never tasted even an eighth as good as the stuff whipped up by the gals at the coffee shack down the street.

Rumours abound concerning what goes into the stuff. We don't want to know. We don't care. We just want to enjoy our cafe sua da in ignorant bliss.

This proprietor of a neat little coffee room (calling it a 'shop' would be stretching it) on a narrow street in the vicinity of Tan Dinh market whips up her version the standard way, adding a shot or two of pre-brewed pitch black joe to a glass already annointed with sweetened condensed milk, piling in the crushed ice, then adding more coffee before finally giving it a stir. As always, coffee is accompanied by weak tea to 'refresh' the palate and wash away the sweetness of the milk.

We found something a bit different at Ba Hoa market, where this caffeine mistress presides over a short length of a tiled coffee 'bar' (the term is used loosely) with impossibly narrow, low-to-the-ground wooden bench seating.

She starts by stirring the standard sweetened condensed milk-coffee base, but doesn't blend the two compenents completely, leaving a thin layer of untouched milk at the bottom of the glass. Then comes ice and more coffee.

We don't know if her no-final-stir method is aesthetically motivated or if it affects the taste. We do know that this glass of cafe sua da, with it's lovely Jello 1-2-3 effect, is the best we drank in three caffeine-addled days.

We stayed for another glass, and another. And then returned the next morning for three more.

Cafe sua da, anywhere in Vietnam, 24 hours a day.

Back-Alley Jelly

I had forgotten how loud Saigon is.

The deep-throated rumble of the motorcycles that rule its streets makes sidewalk conversation all but impossible. At morning and evening rush hours that purposeful hum would literally shake the floors of our District 1 house (now, curiously, a trendy creperie).

It's the kind of racket that rattles the bones, the sound of a city on the move from work to home to play and of a populace rushing from present to future. It's exciting, exhilerating, electrifying.

Until, all at once, it's not.

Narrow alleys offer respite for those in need of one bloody minute's peace.

Pick a passageway barely wide enough to accomodate two motorbikes. Enter and walk, then turn a corner and go a bit further. Suddenly homogenous din is replaced by distinguishable sounds of daily life: the swish of a bicycle, the wail of a baby, the thwack of cleaver on chopping block, the clatter of cutlery against plate, the sales cry of an ambulatory vendor.

In spite of Saigon's headlong rush to 'modernization' men and women selling snacks from carts on wheels and baskets suspended from shoulder poles are still very much a part of the urban landscape.

This woman peddles creme caramel and thach (cool jellies made with agar-agar) from a glass and steel cart. She's been in business twelve years and typically puts in twelve-hour days on the hoof.

She keeps her sweets cool the old-fashioned way, with a single block of ice. As the day wears on the ice gradually melts onto the bowls of jelly underneath. Not a problem - their smooth, uncracked surfaces are impermeable to water.

Her coffee jelly strikes a pitch-perfect note on this muggy afternoon. Silky and cool, it soothes as it slides down our exhaust fume-coated throats. Coffee and coconut flavors are true and clean, unmarred by excessive sweetness. Refreshing, in a word.

Revitalized, we take a deep breath and head back into the cacophony.

Follow Those Noodles!

In Vietnamese cities one must be alert to the existence of hidden culinary delights - dishes cooked in kitchens and served from stalls all but invisible to the untrained eye.

Working Saigon's Tan Dinh market one recent morning, we're made aware of the existence of one such enterprise when a tray-bearing woman emerges from behind the vegetable stall Dave is photographing. We eye the bowl of orange-tinted soup noodles balanced on her shoulder, and then crane our necks to peer behind the stall.

Sure enough, people are eating back there.

Stepping past the vegetable seller we find a family presiding over a splendid table. Today is the fifteenth (or the first, we're not sure which) of the lunar month, days on which many Buddhists abstain from meat. We're told by a regular customer that the fare served here usually includes pho and bun bo (rice noodle soup with beef), but today every dish is vegetarian. Scanning the groaning board we take in turmeric-tinted rice mixed with carrots and mushrooms and topped with roasted peanuts and cilantro; orange-sauced macaroni mixed with chopped fresh herbs and sliced tofu; plump fried spring rolls; crispy-skinned fried tofu served with chili-soy dip; assorted pickles; rice vermicelli in a clear broth packed with vegetables.

As dad serves seated customers and his daughter collects money and tends to take-away orders mom, perched on a low stool at one end of the table, piles basil leaves, cooked bun (rice vermicelli), pickled radish, lettuce, and tofu onto rice wrappers and rolls the lot into neat translucent logs.

We opt for a couple of these, as well as a bowl of the sunset-hued noodle soup that led us here. After telling ourselves that the stall's low-to-the-ground stools with seats the size of a dinner napkin cannot possibly accomodate our American-sized posteriors, we take a deep breath and sit anyway.

Elbow-to-elbow with our fellow diners, we hang our heads over our bowls of mi kari (yellow noodles in a curry-flavored soup) and breathe in their fragrant steam, then pull our faces back to admire the casual beauty of the presentation (opening photo). The pumpkin-colored broth, with its yellow chunks of potato and tofu and mahogany sticks of gluten, crowned with vivid green rau ram (Vietnamese coriander) and basil, chopped red chilies, and a pinch of coarse salt present a tableau that a professional food stylist would have difficulty improving upon.

Meat is not missed. The thin but rich broth is Indian and Vietnamese all at once, ground chile and coriander and turmeric and cloves sweetened to the southern Vietnamese palate and tweaked with pungent fish sauce. Stirred under, herbs add the fresh lightness so characteristic of the country's cuisine. In our mouths the soft bun, chewy tofu, and crunchy lettuce of the rolls spar to delightful effect.

We finish every last drop, and the vendor is pleased. (We also garner a few thumbs-ups from customers at another table.) Following the example of others who've finished and departed before us, we extricate ourselves from our tight spots by remaining seated while pushing our stools backwards, then popping up once our knees are clear of both the stall's tabletop overhang and the shoulders of fellow diners.

As we're paying our miniscule bill a woman bearing a bowl of soup noodles crowned with a fat fillet of fish and accompanied by a plate heaped high with shredded banana flower and morning glory stems appears from the mouth of a narrow alley. We walk over and peer into the dimness.

Sure enough, people are eating back there. And from the looks of that bowl of noodles, they're eating very well indeed.

Tan Dinh market food stall - no address, no phone. Head for Tan Dinh market in the morning, cruise the street behind where the fish, vegetable, and noodle sellers are, and keep your eye out for women bearing trays of noodles.

Saigon Calling

Saigon,

It's been more than two years. It's time we got re-acquainted.

Robyn and Dave

(A gold star for anyone who can tell us where the photo up top was taken.)