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Local delicacies
Jan. 3rd, 2017 07:51 pmVietnamese coffee is usually 'drip coffee' - hot water dripping through a large portion of ground coffee in a metal filter set above the cup - and what emerges is a strong and stimulating drink. Most places will serve either sweet milk or fresh milk with it: I have occasionally managed to get hot milk which means that the coffee as a whole is still hot - the dripping process takes time. I did not at first realise that the 'sweet milk' is condensed milk, which I doubt I have consumed since I was a child. The mix of ferociously strong coffee with a similar quantity of thick sweetened milk gives one a very powerful rush.
Yesterday we had a variant on the 'Hot Pot' idea I posted about earlier. The pan on the table-top stove was more like a frying pan and it contained lots of pieces of fish which were already starting to cook nicely in some oil. We were also given a bowl of noodles and two bowls of different chopped veggies (one mainly onion) to cook or heat in the pan. With this came several small bowls of condiments - including soy sauce, spicy sauce, oil and vinegar, small lemons slit for squeezing, chopped chilli - which could be added either to the food cooking in the pan or to one's bowl of cooked food. It all tasted very good.
In my discworld post I quoted a list of the more unusual foods consumed in Vietnam, including dog. I do not know whether dog is considered a delicacy but it is certainly a dish here and there are restaurants - mainly, I gather, in more rural locations - which specialise in serving it. I do not know whether these facts are connected, but Vietnam seems singularly free of the feral dogs which have been a feature of most places we have visited. Maybe Vietnam had a big blitz on them, like Greece did a few years ago, or maybe, as they have been regarded as food animals, they have traditionally been managed differently.
Yesterday we had a variant on the 'Hot Pot' idea I posted about earlier. The pan on the table-top stove was more like a frying pan and it contained lots of pieces of fish which were already starting to cook nicely in some oil. We were also given a bowl of noodles and two bowls of different chopped veggies (one mainly onion) to cook or heat in the pan. With this came several small bowls of condiments - including soy sauce, spicy sauce, oil and vinegar, small lemons slit for squeezing, chopped chilli - which could be added either to the food cooking in the pan or to one's bowl of cooked food. It all tasted very good.
In my discworld post I quoted a list of the more unusual foods consumed in Vietnam, including dog. I do not know whether dog is considered a delicacy but it is certainly a dish here and there are restaurants - mainly, I gather, in more rural locations - which specialise in serving it. I do not know whether these facts are connected, but Vietnam seems singularly free of the feral dogs which have been a feature of most places we have visited. Maybe Vietnam had a big blitz on them, like Greece did a few years ago, or maybe, as they have been regarded as food animals, they have traditionally been managed differently.
