Hoi An - Street Breakfast

I broke the yolk on the egg before I took this photo. The dish was still screaming hot so I wanted to give the yolk a chance to coagulate with the gravy that is ladled over top. It comes topped with canned ham (a Viet version of Spam) some real meat and lots of onions. A nice fresh baguette is served on the side (quality baguettes are the only good thing the French did for the Vietnamese).
I ordered a coffee along side and it came to 23,000 dong (or roughly $1.50). Without the coffee the dish is 15,000 (or just under a dollar). It is easily the best breakfast deal in Hoi An. If you get up early enough they are served all around the main tailor market, otherwise head to the Hanh Cafe office the stall I ate at was just around the corner, just off the main drag.

Hoi An Street Food - Part 1

Cao Lau is the local specialty noodle dish in Hoi An. It is a bit like New York City pizza, it just can't be re-created elsewhere. The reason is actually the same as for NYC pizza; it all has to do with the water. Hoi An noodles are made with well water that has a unique mineral composition, so even if you get everything else right, it just won't taste the same.
My biggest complaint about Hoi An is the price of food. I expect to pay more in a restaurant, there is more overhead, but noodle stalls are supposed to be the cheap local's alternative. The price for the noodles at this stall was similar to all the restaurants. It turns out all the locals were Vietnamese tourists. Oh well...
It was over priced for a noodle stall, but it is nice to actually watch your dish being prepared, where you can see that everything is fresh. Behind closed restaurant doors you can never be sure how fresh your food is.
Cao Lau is not quite like Pho or Bun, there is actually little broth. It is more a bowl of noodles than a bowl of noodle soup. The rice noodles come with a healthy serving of sliced pork, and lots of fresh lettuce, basil and bean sprouts.

Cao Lau, Hoi An noodles with pork.

Hanoi Street Food Part 2

I am writing this post while enjoying a bowl of sweet pumpkin soup at a Hanoi's most popular guesthouse, The Hanoi Youth Hotel. While I have been trying to stick to street food, this place makes a great lemonade and the prices are rather reasonable (as long as you stay away from pizza and burgers), and it all comes with free wi-fi connection.
Anyhow on to yesterday's massive lunch.
I walked by this place and they were frying up fresh spring rolls, and they smelled so delicious I had to come in and try them. I shot this video while waiting for what I thought was just going to be two spring rolls (which is what I tried to order).



What I got instead of two spring rolls is a massive spread of food. A bowl of steaming broth with BBQ meat which I assume was pork, and grilled little meat balls, which again I assume were made with pork. Who knows, or cares really, as long as it tastes good, right? Accompanying this was a massive plate of noodles, which you add to the broth as you go (I watched how the locals ate it and just followed suit). When the mama set the soup in front of she tossed in a spoonful of red stuff from a plastic container, pointed to the fresh hot peppers and indicated that I should add some (which naturally I did). The salad is a mix of bib lettuce, a little mint, and basil, which you pick at as you go.

The whole spread.
This set me back 40,000 dong.

Soup with some noodles tossed in.

Spring rolls for dipping into the soup
or eaten with some of the herbs from the fresh salad.

EH-OH

The Fonz's favourite snack. Found these in Hong Kong 7-11

Hanoi Street Food Part 1

Dealing with Hanoi during the day can be a total pain in the ass. Traffic is heavy and the sky is always a crappy gray colour, presumably because of the traffic.
While the city tends to go to bed early, from sunset till 11pm Hanoi is at it's best.
Now that my stomach has returned to normal function (it seemed I suffered from slow digestion because of the switch from rich, braised French style dishes using mostly animal fats to Thai style stir-fried dishes in poor quality palm oils). I bravely stroll into busy food stall and just eat whatever is given to me.

"Little Pillows" from the spring roll stand
I read about these on blog to which I will later post a link.
This cost a whopping 6,000 Dong.

The bun stand. It was hard to find a seat so I knew it was good.

Chopping up the pork hock for the noodle soup.

After suffering from a cold worsened by
train and plane A/C. This bowl of soup did my soul good.

After the Bun stand I made my way to a busy corner where locals were chowing down on bags of sunflower seeds washed down with cold lemon tea. I opted for a beer and sat with the only two other white people there. They left shortly after I arrived, so I sat there soaking in the atmosphere. I was almost done my beer when the corner shop was broken up (not in the violent sense) by the police. I had to hide inside the shop with a few locals while we waited for the police to leave. I would have taken a photo but most people left and the cops were still hanging around the area, breaking up other tea joints.