An Incomplete Gastronomical Memoir

I'm definitely in Saigon.

"Welcome back", Saigon almost seemed to mentally tell me, through memories of last year's brief encounter rushing back into my consciousness even as new ones were being forged as we walked to the Ben Thanh Market. Pau's childhood friend Philip, who was now based in Vietnam, had ever so graciously volunteered to take us around the city.

After the hotel's free breakfast in which I discovered that the ketchup here is labelled simply as tomato sauce and tastes accordingly, we waltzed our way down to Pasteur Street (yes, that Pasteur) to eat at, of all places, Pho Hoa. For those still clueless, the idea of eating at Pho Hoa in Vietnam is sort of like going to Italy then ordering from Pizza Hut. The local version however was completely unrelated to its more commercialized namesake as we soon found out after tasting the difference in a huge steaming bowl of Pho with everything on it and 3 glasses of what I think is spelled Cha Da. It's basically tea with ice.

The feast continued shortly after in Ben Thanh Market itself. Finding ourselves surrounded by food stalls, we couldn't help but help ourselves. Philip had what looked like fish-based rice cakes brought to us, which we greedily gobbled up. A local store owner was overjoyed when Paulo and I tried his spring rolls (a healthy, tasty, AND cheap snack at VND 5,000* each) and upon discovering how good they were, got everyone else to buy from him.

Dinner later was even wilder......

......but that's another post for another day. I shall return to this when it's not 3am.


*As of August 29, 2010 USD1 = VND 19,500; VND5,000 = approx. PHP11.25