Cooking class in Hanoi

We love to cook and we love to eat.  Our trip was full of new and delicious smells and flavors.  While we avoided the BBQ bugs in Thailand, we couldn’t resist taking a cooking class in Hanoi to learn how to prepare some of our favorite Vietnamese dishes.

Based on Trip Advisor reviews, we sought out Apron Up Cooking Class taught by Chef Nhi.

https://www.apronupcookingclass.com/

We started by deciding on a menu: Pho Bo (beef noodle soup), Bun Cha 

(BBQ pork noodle and the meal President Obama had with Anthony Bourdain (https://www.cnn.com/videos/travel/2016/09/14/anthony-bourdain-parts-unknown-hanoi-1.cnn/video/playlists/anthony-bourdains-parts-uknown-best-moments/)), 

Nem ran (fried springroll), Nom du du (papaya salad), and Café trung (Hanoi egg coffee) for dessert.  Once our menu was planned it was off to the market to find the ingredients for our meal. 

The market was a very narrow street lined with vendors on both sides of the street and again, multiple motorcycles zipping up and down, pulling up to a vendor to purchase the needs for an evening meal.  Some hopped off their scooters while others stayed on their rides and made their purchases over the handlebars. The market had every smell possible in another sensory overload, most good, and some less than desirable. 

Our chef explained to us that with often limited refrigeration many families will come to the market twice a day and purchase only what they need for the next meal.  The butcher where we purchased our pork was on an open-air table on the sidewalk of the street.  Chef explained that the table would turn over four or five times a day with a fresh pig being brought from the farm constantly as the product was sold out at the market.  While we did not purchase a snout, or tongue, or ear, all parts of the pig are bought and used in various recipes.

The photos below should probably come with a warning to some (especially those who might be vegan), however the experience was beautiful and wonderful to us.

Chef Nhi

The butcher

No thank you, no snails today

Fish scaling

We were told that these women made the best noodles in Hanoi and indeed, they were amazing.

After returning from the market we began preparing the filling for the spring rolls then wrapping them in very fragile rice paper.

Spring roll ingredients: wood ear mushrooms, shitake mushroom, glass noodle, shredded carrot, bean sprouts, minced pork shoulder, diced shallot, egg yolk, fish sauce (goes in everything), black pepper. 

To soften the rice paper, we dab it with a vinegar/water mixture.  Wrap it up and fry the rolls in a hot wok.  (Class secret: fry the rolls twice and they will be less oily)

Serve with dipping sauce

It's SO HOT!

Bun cha ingredients:  pork belly, lemongrass, garlic, shallot, fish sauce, oyster sauce, pepper, sugar, honey

Mince everything up and after the mixture sits for about an hour, shape into meatballs and grill.  The meatballs are served with fresh rice noodles and dipping sauce.

 

The dipping sauce for both the spring roll and the bun cha is made of fish sauce, sugar, rice vinegar, water and black pepper and mixed well with papaya, carrot, garlic, and chilis all finely chopped

Hanoi Pho Bo has a ton of ingredients and is simply delicious.  Its texture was lighter than the Pho restaurants in Washington that we’ve been to and we were told that the addition of basil leaves, bean sprouts, and sauces is a South Vietnamese tradition. 

 

The Egg Coffee was to die for.  In an electric mixer whisk together egg yolk, condensed milk, sugar, a few drops of vodka (kills any egg yolk bacteria and adds some flavor), and a small pinch of salt.  When the egg mis smooth and thick like custard, pour it in a cup then add strong Vietnamese Robusta coffee.  The custard will float on top of the coffee.  We put a little cocoa powder on top to make it even more magically delicious. 

Coffee pour over

Our meal for 6.

We graduated!  This was so much fun and definitely a highlight of our trip.

Hanoi

This blog post has taken a while and I might be tempted to edit it over and over again as I am still trying to comprehend all that Hanoi is and articulate the experience of being in this amazing city.

A friend who was born in Vietnam but immigrated to Washington State at age 18 months with her family thanks to a progressive open-door policy by Governor Dan Evans offered some insight.  She recently made her first pilgrimage to her country of birth (she’s a US Citizen now) and compared going to Ho Chi Minh city like visiting Manhattan.  Like us she followed her visit in Saigon to go to Hanoi.  She told me before we left that Hanoi was like going back in time. 

Great article here: https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/editorials/when-washington-did-the-right-thing-for-refugees/

From a quickly developing city in the south, to a city in the north that is extremely alluring and traditional in old ways with a unique chaos from the fast motorcycles zooming in all directions and telephone poles cluttered with thousands of wires as divergent as the motorists on the streets below. 

Hanoi caused all our senses to explode at once.  Incredible smells, heat and humidity like we’ve never experienced, amazing food, beautiful people, constant noise from street vendors or the previously mentioned motorcycles. 

It is noteworthy that everyone we met is very hard-working.  Every chef, everyone in the market, every government official, every motorcycle mechanic stall (there were several), it was apparent that they were goal oriented and dedicated to their task.  The city is vibrant and alive, and at nighttime it was dazzling to the eyes.

Our stay was shortened due to a typhoon which cancelled our cruise in Halong Bay, but our time there will be a part of my soul forever.

We will return.

On our second day in Hanoi we went to the Vietnam Military History Museum.  

We walked several blocks to get there in 100 degree temperature and 90% humidity.  I think that lent itself to part of the Hanoi experience as well.

The museum was much more than just the US war in Vietnam, but hundreds of years of history including war with the Huns, and of course 80 years of French occupation and slavery.  It seems that only in the last 30 years has this small country had any semblance of peace in it's existence.

I will let the experiences speak for themselves.

3 days in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) and Vung Tau

Day 1

Our first day in the city was spent exploring and searching for more great meals.  It took a couple hours to get through customs and have our VISA’s issued, which gave us time to talk to a couple locals who had been traveling internationally.  The first great tip we received was to find the “Secret Garden” restaurant not far from our hotel. 

The first trick after checking into our hotel was to navigate crossing streets while dodging scooters and motorcycles that do not stop at crosswalks.  Once you decide to go, commit to the other side and do not stop, the motorists will move around you based on your walking cadence. It was amazing to witness the sea of people moving at different speeds, navigating around each other, all to a different destination through merging traffic, on and off sidewalks to park or criss-crossing what might be called lanes to go down the next street or alley.  I found it beautiful and mesmerizing to watch.

Alley way to Secret Garden

The Secret Garden was exactly that.  A small marking on a garage door, through an alley of parked motorbikes, and up four flights of stairs in an apartment building to a rooftop restaurant.  We arrived semi-early due to hunger from our flights from Thailand.  The staff was finishing their dinner but happy to see us and seat us with cocktails and menus.  We ate an amazing fish soup with snapper, incredible fried spring rolls, and a couple stir fry dishes.  We were so happy!

After dinner we wandered the street nearby and found ourselves near the capitol in “Uncle Ho’s Park”.  The park featured a giant statue of Ho Chi Minh in front of the capitol and a long walking mall leading to the river.  What good fortune to find the ferry terminal for our ride to Vung Tau at the end of the park. 

It has been hot, between 90 & 100 degrees F, and very humid (75%).  We have mostly acclimated, but we drink many bottles of water to stay hydrated.  This already feels like a city we need to return to and explore more.

Day 2

Coffee culture in Saigon may be more serious than Seattle.  There are a couple Starbucks, but those are easily avoidable just like home (still protesting over my Sonics) in favor of hundreds of local roasters and shops.  Coffee is mostly served sweet and best with the common additive of sweetened condensed milk over ice.  Talk about a wake up and very delicious!

After coffee and breakfast, we caught the ferry for a two-hour ride down the river.  It was beautiful and full of traffic from large freighters and oil tankers to small fishing vessels.  The scenery was beautiful and included new high rise housing units closer to the city, and lush green palm jungles as we became more rural.  After exiting the mouth of the river the water was pretty choppy in open water until we reached Vung Tau. 

Traffic jam on the road to Dad's lighthouse

Upon arrival in Vung Tau we found a taxi and showed him the pictures Dad sent with us and he knew to take us to the lighthouse where my Dad was stationed for a year during the war.  The road was barely wide enough for a car and a half and the drive that included pulling over into ditches and overhanging cliffs to yield to oncoming cars and again, hundreds of swerving motorbikes, was harrowing.  But we made it and as we did the sky opened with one or two of the kinds of rain Forrest Gump referred to in the movie.  Oddly, the first rain of our trip.

Inserted from an earlier shared Facebook post:

My Dad is a retired Captain from the US Navy. During the War he served two tours in Vietnam. His second trip he spent a year in Vung Tao. Today we took a ferry down the Soai Rap river to see where he worked. It was an emotional journey for me to take his Granddaughter to a slice of his life over 50 years ago and it was an intentional and important part of this trip for us.

Below are photos from our time here and his time here starting with a picture from Emily’s High School graduation a couple weeks ago.

The second is a picture of Mom and Dad at Grandmas house in Prosser prior to his deployment.

I am grateful to all my friends and family who have served our country and given us the freedom to say what we think about our government, as well as the ability to petition our government as I have the honor to do on behalf of the 380,000 students in our Community Colleges in Washington State.

Thank you also to my friend and former YAG student, Naveed Johnson, who is one of the newest officers in the Navy having received his commission this week.

Thank you, Dad, for coming here so many years ago and thanks Mom for supporting us along the way.

(The pics in B&W are from a photo album he sent with us so we could find out where he was.)

"That was my grandfathers war. Now we only look forward and we should be friends."

After our stop at Dad’s lighthouse, our driver Tuan (who spoke no English) offered to drive us to a place for a late lunch.  There are many ways to communicate other than the spoken word.  We asked him to take us to his favorite place and we ended up at a seafood restaurant near the beach.  

Outside the restaurant on the sidewalk there were tanks of live fish, freshly caught from the sea earlier in the morning.  Inside the restaurant we were happy to find ourselves being the only Caucasian tourists in the restaurant, and our taxi driver helped us order with pictures from the menu.  We had fried rice, and the most amazing steamed grouper (Emily asked us to keep the head covered as she didn’t want her meal looking at her), and local crab.  Washington Dungeness is still our favorite, but we have to say that this was pretty incredible too.  Tuan showed us how to eat so we don’t look like the naïve tourists that we are.   We bought Tuan lunch and showed each other pictures of our families and friends on our smart phones.  Tuan is married with three sons and has grown up in Vung Tau.  He is as friendly and nice as the day is long.  We finished our lunch and he drove us around to see more sights before delivering us back to the ferry.

Tuan

I pause now to be thankful for modern technology as we had our hearts broken to learn about the passing of our cousin, Bethany.  She is the daughter of Aaron and Tracy and mother to Atticus, just 6 weeks old.  Bethany was just 19 years old and our world was better for her in it and the light she gave us.  We have great memories shared with her, one that sticks out is a bike ride Emily had with her in Gustavus and getting caught in a rainstorm laughing all the way back to Aaron’s house.  She was beautiful.

We are blessed to have had Bethany Bohlke in our lives

Day 3

One of my desires on this trip has been to find a tailor for a couple suits for next session.  After coffee we walked two blocks to the local market and had Bahn Mi sandwiches for breakfast from one of the small vendors.  

When we finished eating we walked through the cramped stalls and endured the hawkers offering to sell us Nikes, made here.  (Irony not lost).  

Then I found her, Lien Ha and her sister in a small booth piled to the ceiling with bolts of beautiful fabric.  She quoted prices and measured me for two suits.  One gray and one a blue and brown pattern, both a blend of cashmere and silk.  They will be shipped and might be home when we get there.  Two hand made suits for the same price as a couple shirts off the rack at a department store in Seattle.  We are in no way desiring the start of another legislative session, the next 6 moths can take their time in passing, but I will be looking good when it does arrive.

After our morning at the market, we left Ho Chi Minh City heading north to Hanoi.