Quan An Ngon

For the fifth night in a row this week, I had plans for another evening out on the town, this time to send Good Wishes to Ms Hoa, an Air Mekong employee who will be leaving for the Netherlands in another month to complete her Master's Degree near Maastricht.  As a going away gift, I had hoped to find some books for her on Holland, so Chi and I decided to head downtown for lunch yesterday to see what we could find.

Ok, that was really just an excuse to go to one of my favorite restaurants in Hanoi to eat.  The restaurant, Quan An Ngon, is an extremely popular eatery started by an entreprenuer here in town. 

The premise is amazingly simple.  He approached the best street vendors in Hanoi, basically gave them stalls around a courtyard where they could prepare their specialties, a share of the restaurant's earnings which far exceed what they could make on their own and, in the process, created a one-stop shop for all sorts of great Vietnamese food in a clean, comfortable setting.

Two of many booths surrounding the courtyard

Looking into the courtyard from the entry

The setting is awesome.  The courtyard is built around a huge tree in the center (see trunk unflatteringly extending from woman's head, center).  Awning's have been attached to the tree and extend to the vendors stalls along the sides to provide shade.  (This generally works fairly well although on a visit a month or so ago, I got caught in a downpour for nearly an hour; the restaurant was partially flooded as we waited for the rain to stop; of course, the next day, all was well).

Better than the setting is the food.  The menu is huge and food from all over Vietnam can be sampled here.  Today we got Bahn Xeo, a specialty from Saigon which is one of my favorites.

The main ingredient is a thin, crepe-like pancake filled with, in this case, pork, shrimp (or as they often like say here, "shrimps") and bean sprouts in the center.  The waiter cuts the pancake with pair of scissors to create wedges small enough to fold into rice paper along with fresh herbs resulting in a modified springroll.  Add a dip of fish sauce and it's "Yum!".

In the background, you can see the second dish, which is bahn cuon which is a crepe-like roll made from a thin, wide sheet of rice flour filled with ground pork and minced mushroom. It's like a Vietnamese dumpling, except shaped more like a springroll.  And did I say "yum"?

Finally, we had a serving of bun mang suon moc.  This is another pho-like dish featuring pork ribs and bamboo.  It's got a slightly tangy flavor and is, like virtually everything else I've eaten in this country, delicious.

You may have noticed that the bun mang suon moc you see here happens to be flanked by the best part of Quan An Ngon of all and that's their ca phe sua da.  As you might have guessed, I've tried this at every restaurant north of Indonesia and the ca phe sua da is, hands down, the best anywhere.  Since Craig and I now have a set of ca phe sua da brewers, we shall spend our remaining days attempting to determine how we can best replicate this recipe once I return to the US!

After all the good eats, we rolled out of the restaurant and down the street to a couple of nearby bookstores in hopes of finding some books on Holland for Ms Hoa. 

This shop was air conditioned (note fan on sidewalk)

(I think the books for Holland in this store are right next to the #6-1 5/8 inch coarse phosphate-plated steel bugle-head phillips drywall screws I mentioned in yesterday's blog).   :o)

We didn't have much luck finding books on Holland (it would have been much easier had she been getting her degree in China, France, the US/England or Poland).  But it was fun to poke around several Vietnamese book stores to see what they had.

For Ms Hoa's going away party, we gathered at a nearby Vietnamese restaurant here in Tay Ho.  The restaurant was fine and the food, pretty tasty (although I'll spare you more pictures; you can only take so many pictures of chicken and fish heads!), but more than anything else, it was the company. 

First off, Ms Hoa's probably the sweetest (next to Chi, at least), most naive girl you could meet.  I'm so excited about her plans to attend school in Holland and know it will be a life-changing experience for her.  She's smart and is a hard worker, so I know she'll do well.  But she's going to be terribly homesick during her initial weeks in Europe, so if anyone out there has any friends in the greater Maastricht area, let me know!

Second, there was a group of twelve of us, none of whom was much more than half my age.  As is customary for the only lefty in the group, I sat at the end of our table with Thanh, Mr Liem (this week's groom) and Mr Long (the guy Chi and I went to Bat Trang Village with a couple of months ago).  Chi, Ms Hoa and Mr Minh (my karaoke buddy) also sat nearby and we just had a great time.  We talked about food and work and Holland and about how Ms Hoa should meet Thanh's brother (who also lives in the Netherlands) and we ate and drank beer and laughed and toasted (Update: the proper toast, at the top of one's lungs, is "Mot, hai, ba, yo!; hai, ba, yo!; hai ba, uong!" or "one, two, three, cheers!; two, three, cheers!; two, three, drink!") and it was just an exceptional evening.

There's a lot I will miss about Vietnam when I leave in another six weeks, but it's the friends I've made here that I will miss most.

(And Quan An Ngon's ca phe sua da).