A taste of tuesday from Hanoi

2/19/2008: We were up and at 'em pretty early this morning, having retired last night at the party-animal-hour of 9pm. First up on the agenda was Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum and Presidential Estate Area. After getting our fill of preserved dignitaries and honor guard action (very Washington DC-ish vibe – aside from the whole communist thing...), we walked over to Van Mieu – the Temple of Literature, a Confucian sanctuary. It was an overcast and cool day, which had me thinking black & white. All this sightseeing worked up an appetite so we ducked out of the temple and into Koto, whose staff is disadvantaged children and former streetkids, being trained to work in restaurants by an Australian-run charity.

Mid Morning Snack: Vietnamese coffee and the 'Taste of Koto' sampler: shrimp spring roll, duck egg roll, and pork & mushroom stuffed pastry.

BDM - Much love to Koto and the community outreach that's happening here. Spring rolls were small, but packed a mighty taste. Pork and mushroom pastry was my fav (other than the warming and rich cup of coffee).

Lunch: ComViet. Fried rice, fried tofu w/ tomato sauce, fried squid 'ComViet' style, hanoi bia.

BDM – Squid was excellent! Texture was similar to the dumpling earlier and I really enjoyed it. The fish sauce with dill (for dipping) lends it a sweet and slightly salty taste. The beer was light...very light, which is refreshing after a long morning of touristing-about.

JM – fried tofu in tomato sauce took me right back to my days working in Saigon. The grandmother of the family I lived with used to make a dish very similar to this that I loved and I haven't had it since I lived in Saigon—more than 11 years ago!!

The star of lunch - squid ComViet style!

Dinner: Tandoor. Chicken tikka masala, navaratam korma, saffron rice, nan.

JM – After an afternoon nap, BDM and I considered hopping in a cab and heading to a popular restaurant that serves traditional street food, but we weren't sure if it had indoor seating and it was cold outside. So we decided to walk half a block from our hotel and have Indian food instead. Turns out Indian food in Vietnam tastes very similar to Indian food in America! We're off to Ha Long Bay tomorrow for a two day cruise on a junk boat, so we'll be back to eating the food of my people soon enough...

BDM – Hey, we're in Indochina so why not explore the Indo-taste? Unfortunately, the awesome Indo-flavor I was looking for wasn't at this particular restaurant. Meh.