More Food

Maybe I should just change the name of this blog to "Eating my way through Vietnam".  Between long hours at work and not much time to do anything else, I'm afraid my only adventures these day are the edible variety.

So today, two new treats.

For breakfast, "banh gio".  If there was a Denny's here in Vietnam, it'd be served up 24/7 along with bacon and eggs (although I also understand it's popular as a dessert). 

It comes wrapped in a tiny tree leaf of some kind.

After peeling away the wrapper, inside is basically a white, gelatinous blob.  Not terribly appetizing.

Like so many other things here, though, there's a prize buried inside.  In this case, it's a pork and mushroom mixture which tastes great.  The white, gelatinous blob stuff...not so much.  (Sorry, forgot to take a picture of the innerds).

For dinner, Chi and I headed downtown after a long day, had a couple of icy glasses of tra chanh tea, then drove over to Xuan Xuan Restaurant.

Note sign at right: "Beef and Goat Udders".
And you thought I was kidding.

Chi was somewhat reluctant to dine there because you grill at your table and it get's pretty toasty...on an already warm summer night.  We decided that it wasn't going to get any cooler, so best do it now.

Like so many other Vietnamese restaurants, Xuan Xuan specializes in just one thing.  In this case, "bo" and "nam nuong".  That'd be "beef" and "goat udders" for the uninitiated.

After having a seat on our kiddie stools, the waiter brought over a plate full of the aforementioned ingredients, along with tomatoes, scallions, onions and eggplant.  After adding some vegetable oil and margarine, we tossed everything on the grill.

The meat was ready in no time.  Before eating, it first needed a little marinade in a mixture of salt, lime, red pepper and garlic, something you find most any time meat is served in Hanoi. 

Both the beef and goat udder (udders?) were delicious, if not a little chewy.  And there was enough there to feed a small, goat-udder-eating army.  Needless to say, no banh gio for dessert tonight!