Vietnamese Food in Viet Kong Country

In Southern Vietnam 12-19July2009.

Colourful sticky rice sold by street hawkers. Tastes are quite dour. Worse it was topped with a mixture of sugar and salt. The Vietnamese really like their sugars.

The colour purple.

Mekong Specialties

They call the fish the Elephant Ear Fish. From the Mekong river. Put a piece of the fish on a rice paper, add some vermicelli, those veges and wrap it like a poh piah. Some fried spring rolls in the picture too. Those are yummy though a tad oily.

The fish alive, in the local market... well, I think they are the same type of fish.

River fish cooked in tamarin and herbs soup with veges. I think its their local version of asam laksa but definitely more watery. Theres lady'd finger, pineapple, some other vegetables. Not really to my liking. Its tasted sweet and slightly sourish at the same time although the sweetness is overpowering. I dont even like the way it smells. Phoung Nam Restaurant in Can Tho City.

Lemongrass Restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City.

Platter of local appetisers. Clockwise from the top. Fresh springrolls, fried springrolls, shredded chicken with cabbage and fish 'balls'. Love em.

Bun Cha Gio & Thit Nouong (Rice vermicelli with fried prawn springrolls and grilled pork). Soupless.
Heo Noung Me (Charboiled pork with sesame served with vegetables and rice vermicelli) lower corner. Nice... but I have expected better.

Do Bien Xao Mien (Baked seafood with glass noodle in claypot). Yummy..

Grilling Mongolian BBQ

First time I came across Mongolian BBQ was in Taipei, Taiwan back in 2002. Copthorne Orchid Hotel, Penang this time around.

Mongolian BBQ does not actually involve barbequing or at least my understanding of what is barbequing. It is more kind of like grilling. Using different ingredients but only one cooking methods. Paying almost RM40 for it seems 'stupid' it to me, but since my friends wanted to try, so 'cincai’ la.

Basically Mongolian BBQ’s concept is simple. Pick what you want from an array of small cuts of meats. Here they have beef, chicken, lamb, fish, prawn and squid.

Add in whatever greens and mushroom that you want, then pick whatever sauces, seasoning or combinaton of seasonings that you want or think suites the mix.

The quantities are up to you. People who tend to be heavy handed like me will usually regret the outcome.

When you are satisfied, bring the mix to the cooks. Over a big flat ‘roti canai’ style grill pan, using two spatula, the cook will grill it for you. I still remember the cooks in Taipeh uses a pair of gigantic chopsticks too.

The cooks will add nothing to your mix except maybe water. So you got nobody else to blame if you don’t like what was served up. Hey, you are the one who did the selection. You picked what you wanted.

There are the salads and starters, and deserts and fruits too.

About 5 or 6 other dishes. The fried rice and fried shanghai-style noodles are too salty. But first time I am happy having white steam rice at a buffet. As I said earlier, I overdid it - adding too much seasoning and sauces to the grilling, making them too salty that I really needed the white rice to helps.

Only manage to have two plates and another plate of grilled vegetable before I gave up. Need two cups of strong coffee to get rid of the charred/burned aftertaste. Not going again.