The 36 hour day

2/18/2008
Meal 1: Dinner on the plane. Unspecified 'beef with rice'.

BDM – Wow! No mini bag of pretzels? It's been quite some time since I've been treated to a hot meal on a flight. Beef with rice was warm and rather tasty. Fruit was pretty good too, but I steered clear of the shrimp salad under plastic. Props to EVA air for the biodegradable cutlery.

JM – Even though we'd just eaten a dinner of take out pizza a few hours earlier, I decided to take one for the blog, it is a culinary blog afterall, and ate a second dinner. And, as BDM already noted, we don't get hot meals on planes much these days. Nothing spectacular to chime in on my part, but it didn't make me want to run to the bathroom either...

Meal 2a: Breakfast (1) on the plane. Mushroom & cheese omelet.

BDM – yeah, I copped out on the more authentic choice for breakfast (rice porridge, see below). But I'm sure to have plenty of non-western meals ahead. Tater tots elicited a nostalgic reaction at first, but that faded quickly away as the mushy-ness of the tots became apparent. The fruit, however, was great: fresh pineapple and grapefruit are a welcome sight after 10+ hours in the stale air of the planes cabin.

Meal 2b: Breakfast (2) on the plane. Rice porridge.

JM – being a big fan of asian-style breakfasts, I anted up for the rice porridge, boiled peanuts, green beans, and steamed bun for breakfast. It wasn't great, but it beat the omelet my neighbor was eating (in my opinion.)

Meal 3: Breakfast at Taipei airport. Japanese noodles in bone broth, Dumplings with veggies and minced pork, dumplings with meat.

BDM – I thought about ordering a sandwitch! The dumplings with veggies & pork were tasty, but the ones with straight up meat were even better! Had that juicy 'explode-on-contact' type reaction when you bit into it. I also thought that the ginger shreds in the soy sauce were a nice touch. Truth be told, I was really just happy to be off the plane after the 13.5 hour leg to Taipei (whose airport felt pretty surreal...not sure if it was the time shift, or the hello kitty gate our flight to hanoi departed from).

JM – i'm sensing a theme here—2 dinners, 2 breakfasts...this can't last. Once again, really enjoying the soup option for breakfast. Was a little uncertain about the “bone broth” but it was tasty and perhaps something got lost in translation?

Meal 5: Dinner in Hanoi. Cha ca (local hanoi speciality).

JM – figured our first dinner in hanoi should be an authentic one. I'd heard a lot about this cha ca place, so I thought we should hit it up, plus it's pretty close to our hotel—key given our uber-jet lagged status. The place only serves one thing, which I think is a good thing right? It's got to be good. Cha ca is basically a dish of white fish cooked with tumeric (to give it the bright color) and then you throw fresh dill and spring onions into the pan and let the goodness cook. Next you pile your bowl full of bun (rice vermicelli), add the dill and fish mixture to your noodles, top with fermented shrimp paste (sounds gross but is tasty) and some roasted peanuts. So good!!

BDM – this was a super cool restaurant in the old quarter of Hanoi. Community tables, awesome charcoal hot-pots keeping the dish sizzling, and zero menu confusion. Very tasty!

BDM enjoying beer #1

BDM – Awake for 14.5 hours after broken sleep on the plane. This single beer put me right to bed. I'll have to do some further research into the actual qualities of the local beer tomorrow...