Vietnam!

First I have to apologize because I have not been keeping up with this blog.  And I have no excuse.  I am from this moment pledging to be much better about regularly posting.

So as some of you know, if we are Facebook friends, I visited Vietnam in February (because I blew up your news-feed for a week with pictures of me eating food).  Now I will continue to blow up your news feed with much delayed blog posts about Vietnam. This will be followed with regular updates about my travels.  Because a paragraph or so ago I promised to post more regularly.

I had a lot of feelings about this trip, and part of me treated it as a "homecoming" of sorts.  As you may recall, I taught in China for two years, and while I do not regret my decision to leave China, there are many things I miss about my previous home-away-from-home.  I knew Vietnam was not China, but geographically, its the closest I'd been to China since leaving in 2013, and I had a lot of hopes that (particularly food-wise) I'd be able to satisfy some of the cravings and nostalgia I'd had since leaving China.

Vietnam was not like China, it was it's own thing.  However, it did not disappoint in any way, including culinarily.  And I am going to begin the first of several posts about Vietnam by talking about all the things I ate. Because priorities.

Now, I have always advocated that when you are traveling, especially for a short period, that you not over-indulge (if not out-and-out avoid) street food.  Because you never know when that delicious street food is going to wreak havoc on your digestive system.  But I ignored pretty much all of that on this trip and my digestion was largely fine--or at least not prohibitively terrible.  Lesson: Street food at your own risk.

I risked it.  And I'd do it again!

Throughout our trip, we found several vendors selling a variety of different types of food--from sweet, to savory, and everything in between.   And I indulged in as many of them as humanly possible.

All of this was delightful.  But my favorite by far was the lady on the far right, who was making a rice-paper-dried-shrimp-and-spices/veggies taco.  And oh my goodness it was so good I kept going back!

So you cannot go to Vietnam without trying Pho (pronounced sort of like Fuh).  Not only is it like the national dish of Vietnam, but I don't think you can actually avoid it as it is literally everywhere.  Not that you would want to avoid it, because its freaking delicious.  And I am not a huge soup fan, which is sort of what Pho is; its steaming hot broth, with a slightly fishy flavor that is jam packed with meat (usually beef), vegetables, and lots of noodles.  You may order Pho a variety of different ways in range of different spice levels.

We had our first experience of Pho in Vietnam in Hanoi on our second night in Vietnam.  We were recommended to go to a very well known place, but when we found it (we think we found it anyway) we were somewhat intimidated by the complete lack of a picture or English menu (I am very good with picture menus, but also disappointed in myself for not taking a risk and trying to figure it out sans English/Picture menu).  So we walked a ways until we found another restaurant--it also did not have pictures but it did have a menu that I could read, so we ordered our Pho at the counter and then had a seat with our Coke and patiently awaited our beef noodle soup--which did not take long.

Phoooooooooooooooooooonomenal

This second day in Hanoi also included the moment all my dreams came true.  Now, American fast-food brands have largely made their way across the globe (yay globalization!) but some have yet to make it to the small island nation of Bahrain.  And one of those things is Dunkin Donuts.  Dunkin has, however,  made it to Vietnam (I saw it during the ride from the airport, in which I just pointed at the Dunkin sign and screamed and Jaime promised we could find it)  We found it.  And we found in again three days later in Ho Chi Minh City.

We all need to follow our bliss....some of us have a really basic bliss. 

As teachers, we are limited to our vacation time, so we wound up visiting Vietnam during the Tet New Year...which every single travel blog recommended that we did not do.  Because things would be closed. And while I think we probably paid more for some tours, there were still tour companies who were willing to provide services during this time.  And it was great because no one else was there--we had a whole junk boat to our selves (more on that soon).  However, there is a lot of internal travel as people travel out of the big cities to get back to their home towns to celebrate this typically family-oriented holiday.  Ho Chi Minh City was very crowded and noticed this in particular when we went to a few restaurants after a day of sight-seeing.   We would enter a restaurant, peruse the menu, finally decide on what to order...only to be told that the things we wanted were sold-out.  This literally happened three different times.   We figured out that we just needed to be a few blocks away from the center of the city and then this stopped happening.  So again, don't hesitate to travel to Vietnam during the Tet Holidays.  During this search for food, we did take the opportunity to try several of the sandwiches available as part of the street food, but alas I have not pictures of it. Which is a shame, because it was so good.  (You can find pictures and info of Bahn Mi here)

We were not totally disappointed in the lack of river crap meat.  But still. (Also, if I had to write a whole menu in another language it would be filled with many, many, many hilarious typos). 

Now the hotels we stayed at provided breakfast...and most of the tours we went on provided lunch, so we dinner was where we were able to search for our own Vietnamese culinary experience.  On one such jaunt I had my moment of reconnecting with my time in China.  One of my favorite dishes in China was a simple vegetable dish that consisted of mushrooms and bok choy.  I ordered this and pretty much ate the whole thing (despite it being served family style).  I cannot stress to you how much I love this vegetable .

Our hotels did not disappoint meal wise either; they offered a lot of different types of breakfasts, including a pork dumpling featuring my very favorite vegetable.  But more importantly this is where I fell in love with Vietnamese coffee.  Which is made in this super cute (cute because its so little!) little cup in which the superfine grounds are placed.  The cup has a strainer inside, then the bottom of the cup is also a strainer and it sits in a little dish that also has a strainer in it.  This little dish is placed above your mug and the the strained coffee slowly drips into the mug.   The coffee it creates is very strong, kinda chocolaty, delightful brew.

Bok choy on the far left, bok choy dumplings in the center.  And the real star of this show is the mini coffee creator to the far right.  It's so good. 

Vietnam provided some of the most culinary satisfying moments I have had since 2013, including the opportunity to drink my body weight in milk tea.

I began with my most personally satisfying part of this trip; the food.  It was, however, by no means he only satisfying part of my trip.  I will be posting several posts over the next week or so that highlights different aspects of my trip to this lovely country.  I hope this post was as satisfying for you as eating this food was for me...and if it convinces you to visit Vietnam, I only hope that you also indulge in eating all of this wonderful food---and even more that I did not get a chance to try.

P.S. Vietnam also has Coconut Oreos...which are ammaaaaazing and I have not been able to find anywhere else.

A Taste of Bahrain

So many of the rewarding things about being a teacher are the often-lengthy holidays.  When you live in the middle of the world, your question is always: should I travel during this one or should I just take staycation with my sweatpants and my couch?  Since I am planning a trip to Vietnam in the spring, and since the only place I'd want to be during Christmas is with my family any-who, I chose the staycation and my sweatpants.  However, there's only so many days you can spend laying on your couch, and thus these are good times to explore the local things Bahrain has to offer.

It can be difficult sometimes when you live in such a small country, especially when you are used to living in such a huge country.  In the States, we could hop in a car, drive for hours, hike through some pretty stunning nature, etc when on vacation.  When in China, we could hope on a train and in a few short hours be in another part of the country.  There is a lot to do in Bahrain, but you do have to actively look for it...or have friends who do most of the looking for you. Thank you Amy!

Besides seeing Star Wars with the entire world, this year we took advantage of some local holiday promotions.  Many of the restaurants in a trendy little neighborhood in Bahrain did a promotion this year.  Participating restaurants advertised a Taste Tour at the yearly art instillation in the same neighborhood.  If you picked up a booklet, you could bring said booklet into each restaurant and for 3BD per restaurant, you got a sample platter of what each restaurant has to offer.

Look at this cute (and sometimes strange) art!

Basically, it was a good opportunity to try some of these restaurants (you know, the ones you think of maybe going to, but instead choose a tried-and-true favorite to guarantee a satisfying food experience) without committing to a full (and possibly disappointing) meal at an unknown venue.

Each restaurant stamped your booklet and at the end of the meal, you rated the restaurant on presentation, service, taste of food, ambiance, overall experience, and whether or not we would consider visiting again.  We ranked them on a 1-5 scale, with 1 being the worst and 5 being the best (except for the last question which was yes or no).

    


So naturally when we met up in 338 district in Adliya, we decided on a "Go Big or Go Home" approach and we were going to hit as many restaurants as we could before bursting.

Our first stop was Cafe Amsterdam and Barcelona.  These are two different restaurants but they share an outside seating space and we are pretty sure they are owned by the same people.  It is right on the edge of this neighborhood and directly across from the Gulf Hotel.  The best part of this neighborhood is that everything is within walking distance through little back streets and at this time of year, that art instillation makes these back alleys extra cute.  It's also never cold in Bahrain, so walking about in December can be something you do in sandals.

So we sat down and they passed out menus.  We slid out the booklet and told them we'd like to do the tasting from both Barcelona and Cafe Amsterdam.  We asked for just the one platter, despite their telling us (and this would happen repeatedly throughout the day) that the platter was best for just one. But knowing we planned on hitting several restaurants, we insisted that we would share the one platter.  This was a good decision, trust me.

We ordered drinks and while waiting for our platters, began to rate our restaurant's ambiance, which we gave full marks for because it was super cute--terraced outdoor seating, a stage (empty of performers because it was 2pm), lots of flowers and fairy lights.  We imagined it was quite adorable in the evenings.

Yummmmmmmm!

I would categorize Cafe Amsterdam as being like fancier comfort food; it was a lot fried and things came in creamy sauces.  We got fish and chips, salmon puffs with cream cheese, and muscles. I was in love with their french fries; they were like the think wedges, no seasoning, just some salt. 

Barcelona was...different.  One dish was seafood in what looked like a fish bowl with a martini glass in it.  The dry ice was in the fish bowl, under the martini glass, so our seafood was smoking.  Which is more than I need seafood to do.  In the jar was warm veggies and what I swear to god they said was tuna, but it tasted like chicken (it may have been chicken and we just misheard her).  We are not sure why it was served like it was pickled in a mason jar.  The little cups in the center none of us were sure what they were and I believe Christina described it best as a deconstructed french fry (again, not what I'm looking for in a french fry): it was a little potato cup that we believed, based on taste, was filled with a mixture of ketchup and mayo.  I will say this however, those sticks?  They are fried cheese...on a stick.  And they were pretty great.  It was like a fancy, social acceptable version of eating the crispy cheesy bits from a pizza pan.  

Cheese on a stick!  Could life get any better?!

Overall we were pleased with our first stop.  And it was really pretty.  And they had the literal cutest bathrooms. 

Look at this! And the toilets flushed by pulling a little ring at the end of a chain! It was everything I could want in a bathroom. 

Now we were quite pleased with this first stop, although man it did not hold a candle to our next stop: Passion.  Like so many restaurants in Bahrain, Passion is a fusion restaurant that combines select Arabic, Indian, Chinese, Thai, and American dishes.  But the stand-out for Passion is it's loose tea selection.  It also has iced tea, which is great because that does not seem to be a thing that has caught on throughout most of Bahrain.  

So we sat down and eagerly awaited our platter.  Passions is super cute, particularly it's outdoor seating.  Its got a half wall around the courtyard with plenty of trees giving you a good balance of closing  you off from the street and not making you feel too closed in.  So now that we were pretty much food critics, we gave it full marks for ambiance.  I don't have any pictures of the place...whoops. 

Then they brought out this adorable thing. 

I mean, look at all that loose tea!

When the server delivered this lovely tray, she also explained why Passion had paired it with a particular tea.  It took her like 2 minutes.  They had this stuff rehearsed.  I was impressed.  

We left Passions feeling pretty good, upon which we made a mistake.  We decided to check out something called Salad Boutique.  Now I'd originally crossed this off the list of possibilities because of the name, but Amy pointed out that the platter did not include jus salad and I was like, well may be it just has an unfortunate and misleading name?  So we went.   This is what greeted us. 

Keep in mind this experience, and our opinion, represents only what they decided to offer for the Taste Tour. 

Despite a really cute interior (if you like fluer de lis, mirrors, and lots of pink and silver) we were not particularly impressed with this restaurants platter.  Now it is important to note that this does not reflect the full menu of the Salad Boutique and it is possible that it's menu is fantastic, but it did not impress us with it's contribution to the Taste Tour. 

Our next stop was Amy's favorite by far, although I think we all had different favorites.  It is called Houseboat and like Passions, its another fusion restaurant. Its noodles were really good and the peanut sauce I would literally like to put on everything I eat for the rest of my life. 

I have also heard great things about their sushi. 

At this point we were feeling pretty full; we'd been to four restaurants.  But we felt we could power through a fifth, so we marched our way through Block 338, admiring more of that art, on our way to La Cuccina, an Italian restaurant.  Which I am glad I did because it was wonderful; it was like the best, most wonderful comfort food.  I would like a bucket of their mushroom risotto and I would like to eat it on my couch...maybe with some of Houseboat's peanut sauce? 

So at this point we were about to die.  Because we ate so much wonderful food.  We struggled (you know, with locomotion) back to our cars, casually viewing the art again, with a full appreciation for the culinary experince to be had a five new restaurant and gratitude (even through the pain of food baby) that we did not spend the day on our couches watching Netflix.   I was also reminded that it is important to make sure, when moving to a new country, that you make the effort to find things to do, even when your new home doesn't necessarily have the same things to offer that your previous homes have had.  The Taste Tour was fun and the get-out-and-explore attitude served us well as it encouraged us to find New Years plans, which I will blog about soon.  Happy 2016--do something new today!