Catching up

Sorry for my posting delinquincy of late!  I'm afraid the last couple weeks have been spent busy at work preparing for the visit of Air Mekong's big cheese American investor man (who also happens to be my old boss; or at least, the boss of my boss, Jerry Atkin).  Anyway, when I've not been at work, I've been living a rather routine, unadventurous life, not really worthy of blog posting.

Fortunately, the business side of Jerry's visit ended Friday and we're literally out touring Vietnam as we speak, each of three of us on rented scooters tooling around the Central Highlands.  Our first day was fantastic and I've taken lots of pictures which I'll be posting here soon.  Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my downloading cable, so I'm not sure how quickly I'll be able to post them here, but I'll get something up as soon as I can.  

Until then, I'll try to get back into the swing of things by posting this morning some stuff I haven't been able to post over the last couple of weeks. 

First, we went out for seafood last week and visited an interesting street vendor in the Old Quarter of Hanoi which featured fresh seafood.  Really fresh.

That styrofoam box contains several live, blue crabs

Plenty of squid and snails from which to choose.

You basically pointed to whatever seafood it was you wanted and the waitress brought it to your table a few minutes later.  We had crab (which, while good, I was reminded, is never worth the trouble), calamari and lots of snails.  Pretty tasty stuff, especially given that Hanoi isn't exactly a seaside town.

Meanwhile, back in Madison, Craig and Ali have been trying their hand at their own Vietnamese cooking.  Apparently they've already mastered ca phe sua da (although we'll withhold judgement until I'm able to personally sample), so they've turned their attention to food.

Craig took home several recipes with him after visiting last month and decided to take his first stab at bun bo nam bo, which is one of my favorites.  After carefully assembling all the ingredients (rice noodles, herbs, beef, sprouts, peanuts and fried onions), this was the end result:

Rumor has it that it tasted pretty good.  Unfortunately, it didn't look anything like the real thing served here in Hanoi at the Bun Bo Nam Bo Shop next to the office and shown here:

So after providing a few pointers, Craig and Ali made another attempt this week and came up with this:

Looks just like the real thing, huh?!  And they said every bit as good. 

Warning to all future visitors to Wisconsin and/or Arizona!  You may well be a guinea pig for future Vietnamese cooking lessons and, while you may rest assured that no dog will ever be served, all else is fair game!  (The good news is, the drinks you see featured are part of the deal, so it's not all bad!).

I'll post again as soon as I can download the first of my pics from yesterday's trip.  And there are lots of them.