Mango, Pomelo, Sago.

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“You can always come back, but you can’t come back all the way”. Bob Dylan, Mississippi.

Well, I came back. Back to a Hanoi that I was only too happy to leave 2 months ago. Much changed here in my absence, this city is speeding towards something like modernity, but my opinion of it remains unchanged. Dylan is right though, I haven’t come back all the way because these last two months have changed me.

For starters, I seem to have lost any cooking ability that I may once have had. These last few days have been a kitchen disaster: weirdly textured too-tart gazpacho, bland bread and a revolting cocktail. It may be the ridiculous humidity here that is throwing everything off, but I’ve also certainly lost interest in cooking for one.

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Secondly while living whole heartedly in the present, I’m furiously contemplating the future. What the hell am I going to do next? Every so often the uncertainty of this ‘next’ hits me like a fist in the guts and I scramble to assemble plans, always lacklustre and full of holes, but plans nonetheless. If someone would like to push me in a certain direction, I’m open to it. A bunch of years ago, while working in a restaurant I mentioned to a colleague that he might like to write me a ‘life plan’. Much to my surprise he returned from his break with a step-by-step guide to getting my life on track. I still have it  in a box somewhere, but I’ll never forget step 1: “Go and eat a banana in the park”. I wonder what would have happened if I’d followed through.

Thirdly, I just feel different now.

So here I am, unsure of the future, living in Hanoi in a kind of limbo for the next little while and eating the only thing I have managed to cobble together without fail: desserts from Hong Kong.

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My friend Alex (who doesn’t read this) always jokes that I should have been born Chinese. I got a thing for China, it’s true, but I’m scared that I hold the place in too-high esteem. So for now China isn’t on the cards, but I’m still all about it’s food.

I remember hanging out in Hong Kong a few years ago, visiting dessert houses at any opportunity. We would normally order something totally out there as well as an old reliable option with mango, having left Australia just before the season started. This combination was one of my favourites: mango, pomelo and sago. Simple, easy and delicious. Now, thanks to the kindness of a friend I have a blender (thank you Karen, it is fabulous. Best blender ever!), and most of the ingredients I can recreate this little patch of Hong Kong in my Hanoi kitchen.

Most of the ingredients: A little while ago I got back from the local Vietnamese supermarket with what I thought were sago pearls. As soon as I unpacked them I smelt that my little hard white balls of gelatinous love were in fact strange perfect spheres of white pepper. Ugh. Lucky I didn’t try and cook them. So instead of sago I used a thick tapoica starch noodle, but take my advice and use sago if you can get it.

I don’t have a proper recipe for you, just cook your sago as per the packet instructions. When cooked, cool it down in cold water and set aside. Meanwhile blend your mango up with some milk (you can use coconut milk if you want), as much sugar syrup as you need, and some ice cubes if necessary. To assemble, mix sago and mango together, place in serving bowls and top with peeled and separated pomelo jewels. Eat immediately,

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So while I’m looking forward to new places, new flavours and experiences I’m going to have some fun in Hanoi and hoping to get my kitchen mojo back. I’m thinking about Korea, the UK and Europe. I’m looking forward to going back to Australia, hanging out with my friends and eating all the things you can’t get here. And I’m trying to remember that you just can’t come back all the way.

Posted in Dessert 5 Comments >>

Goodbye holidays, hello Hanoi.

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Market haul. I actually bought 2 kgs of tomatoes and a whole load more capsicums, limes, chillies and herbs. I won’t tell you how ridiculously cheap the whole experience was.

A few days ago, thanks to the wonders of jetlag and early morning flights, I stayed up all night. I got stuck in a 3am traffic jam in Kuala Lumpur (party town!) and made it to my airport bus just in time. There was also time for one last round of kaya toast before blearily boarding and passing out. I arrived in Hanoi to the usual visa getting rigmarole, which ended with my passport almost being confiscated because I don’t look like the photo in it. I adore the photo in my passport, but they’re right, I look nothing like that.

Hanoi was drizzly grey and blessedly cool. The taxi driver laughed at my attempts to speak Vietnamese, if only he knew how often I almost told rickshaw wallahs to đi thẳng or dừng over the last few months. Right now I’m settling back in to this town that feels empty to me. This morning I visited the market, today I may finally cook something, or assemble, rather, as it’s far too warm to consider turning the stove on.

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There were new things at the market: eels, pomegranates, and too many unidentifiables. My last few months have been an onslaught of new and I’m yearning for familiarity, so today I just bought basics. Also, despite my intense desire to cook, my confidence is pretty low right now and cooking for one can be boring and soul-destroying. Regardless, I gotta eat, so I think I might turn some of this haul into gazpacho and the rest into salady deliciousness. Though if you have any ideas of what I should make, I’d love to hear them.

I’ve got a few posts about India brewing, but in the meantime you can read about my time in India here, or check out my photos on flickr. I’m updating these two places every few days and I’ll be checking out and replying to your comments soon.

Posted in Vietnam, market 1 Comment >>

Summertime che

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Eating sweet dessert avocado was a delicious surprise to me. But now for another ingredient out of its savoury western comfort zone: corn. I have grappled with the sweet presentation of this fresh grain before, but never in Hanoi. Are my taste-buds up for Vietnamese sweet corn? I love fresh corn but I despise the sound people make when eating it but I really don’t like that sweet salty gloopiness of that creamed stuff from a tin. Grilled corn with salt, chilli and coriander is some small piece of heaven for me and I even prefer my popcorn salty. Looking at this glass of che (I don’t know the correct name for it, but I call it everything che, because it’s got everything in it, naturally), sweet corn would be the least of most people’s worries.

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As a child I loved junket. Pmum bought some for me when I was a teenager. I was so excited to taste this dessert that I recalled adoring, but whose flavour I had lost. I was excited when the dessert was set and ready for tasting, and inconsolable almost immediately afterwards. It was revolting, but I did quite like the texture.

Texture is what is key in this everything che. It has all manner of jelly from wibbly wobbly, through squidgy to firm, strange jellied fruits, soft and fluffy lotus seeds, red beans with bite, gloopy tapioca and crunchy fresh corn, and I love it all. This corn was tender, sweet and crunchy delicious.

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I was actually going to skip lunch dessert when I saw a woman preparing this for two customers. She held two cups in one hand and deftly extracted spoonfuls of one jellied treat after another, putting exactly the same amount in each glass. For comic effect I stared wide eyed, looking like a tourist, and ordered one. The other customers laughed at me taking a photo, and eating my textural oddity dessert. Unfortunately my favourite south east asian iced dessert ingredient palm seeds aren’t commonplace here (though I often get overly excited by lumps of ice disguised as palm seeds).

While there are some flavours and textures that I just don’t enjoy here, avocado and corn in desserts isn’t one of them.

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Che spots, all over town.
This one is on Hang Dieu in the old quarter.

Posted in Vietnam, Vietnoms 1 Comment >>

Banh troi tau

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Last year when I started breaking the news to friends, family and colleagues that I was trading Sydney for Hanoi I got two main reactions. 1: “Oh, so you got a job in Hanoi? What will you be doing? Wait, what… you’re quitting your awesome job here to go the developing world to be unemployed?!?” and 2: “I am so jealous! I can imagine you drinking coconuts under palm trees, all tropical like. The weather will be fabulous and warm, I wish I were going. Wait, what do you mean… winter? Cold? Really?”. Yes, that is correct, I chose to be unemployed for 6 months, and it gets cold in Hanoi. I really like cool weather, so I didn’t too much mind skipping the southern summer for a short damp Hanoi winter. Actually I much prefer it to the current ridiculous heat. Winter in Hanoi is locals wearing puffy jackets, gloves and scarfs even on mild days, freezing on the back of a motorbike, days of constant drizzle, banana fritters, hot pot (lau) and warm sweet soup desserts.

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As soon as the weather gets cold, dessert shacks around the city add pots of steaming Banh Troi Tau to their displays. These are glutinous rice dumplings boiled in a sweet ginger soup. Order some (the easiest way is to point at the pot, then sit down), and you’ll get two dumplings, one filled with black sesame, the other with coconut. In my extensive sampling of this dessert I have also had some filled with mung bean, or a mixture of black sesame and coconut (see picture above). These dumplings are mochi like, chewy, stodgy, filling, sweet winter perfection. The best soups are syrupy and heavy with spicy ginger, tempered by a splash of coconut milk and a sprinkling of crushed roasted peanuts.

The portions are quite small, perfect for a warming afternoon snack, though I have seen wisps of women down multiple servings in one sitting.

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Banh Troi Tau is available all over the place, from about November to April. There is one famous place on Hang Giay in the old quarter (reviewed by stickyrice) that is supposed to have superior Banh Troi Tau. I swear there are like million different streets called Hang Giay in the Old quarter, and I have searched on all but one of them at the right time for this shack, and have yet to find it. But that is a task for next winter.

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Ravenous Couple’s recipe for Banh Troi Tau.

Banh Troi Tau spots:

Che Bon Mua: 4 Hang Can
Che places around: 1 Cat Linh
Che places across the street from Bun bo nam bo: 76 Hang Dieu, and another shop a few stores down, opposite Bun Bo Nam Bo’s motorbike parking lot.
Banh Troi Tau Pham Bang (famous spot): 30 Hang Giay

Price varies, but should be about 10,000vnd (62c AU).

Posted in Vietnam, Vietnoms, review 3 Comments >>

Avocado with yoghurt

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I’ve eaten a lot of avocados. A Lot. I bet I’ve eaten more avocados than you. Actually, I think my parents would beat me in the avocado eating stakes, but I’m sure that I’ve eaten more than all you non-avocado farming mere mortals. I’d put money on it, in fact.

Once I wore a ‘Cholesterol Free’ sticker to primary school one morning after hanging out in the shed ‘helping’ Dad pack fruit while I waited to be taken to the bus stop. I remember because Mrs Curnow picked me out of the crowd of silent year 2 babies sitting cross legged on the ground, backs as straight as possible and said “Cholesterol free? My husband could eat you then!”. I didn’t realise how dirty that was at the time.

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Despite the cubic megatonne of avocados I’ve consumed over my lifetime I was firmly rooted in the hippy End-Of-Freeway style of eating them. That is savoury, simply and probably to excess. It is only very recently that sweet avocado preparations have hit my radar but I was instantly hooked. I remember my first taste well.

In 2005, Felix and I went overseas together for the first time. First stop: Hanoi. We stayed in a hotel in the old quarter, and were both smitten by the rush and bustle of the city. We frequented a Sinh To shack nearby, eating plates of mango and tasting all manner of exotic fruits. On our last day we took the plunge and shared a Sinh To Bo (Avocado smoothie). Nervously I finished all the pineapple and mango slices before taking a tentative sip. I was scared that this fruit that I knew so well and loved would be tarnished by the addition of sweet milk and ice. How wrong I was. Now I am making it my mission to eat a buckload of dessert avocados to even up the playing field.

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There is a cafe near my school that serves instant noodles, coffee and fruit drinks. Since the avocado season started some colleagues have dismissed the coffee altogether and now order Bo Dum Sua Chua (chopped avocado with yoghurt). I had drunk blended avo drinks far and wide, but this is the first time I had ever seen something like this. You chop up a ripe avocado and put it in a glass. Top with yoghurt, a slug of condensed milk and ice. To eat you stir the whole thing up, mush it all together and eat it with a spoon. Snack, drink and dessert all in one. Perfect in the heat.

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If you make this at home make sure that your avocados are ripe and easily mushed up. The yoghurt and condensed milk must be sweet and be generous with the ice. As much as I enjoy it, I don’t think that this snack, an avocado smoothie for the blender-less, will take off in Australia where the avo season is in winter. But if you’re in Hanoi in the summertime be sure to order Bo Dum Sua Chua, or the more commonplace yet equally delicious Sinh To Bo.

Posted in Vietnam, Vietnoms 6 Comments >>

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