The breakfast bar at our hotel in Hoi An – the Ha An hotel - http://www.haanhotel.com/home/
Food on sale in the market
Local food stalls along the river
Three dishes we ate :
Today our last full day in Hanoi we booked into the Hidden Hanoi Cooking School (http://www.hiddenhanoi.com.vn/cookingclasses)
We caught a taxi from our hotel which is near the Hoan Kiem Lake to the cooking scroll which is close to West Lake. We paid 40,000 VND for the taxi fare there with Tourist Hanoi taxis.
We did not do the market tour so the cost of the cooking course was $40 USD each ($10 USD more for market tour) – we paid 1,680,000 VND for the two of us to do the course.
Getting setup we all wear aprons – mine hardly fits!
Today we are doing Vietnamese Street Food
Hard at work!
Little flowers we made from the skin of a Tomato
Outside to BBQ our Meat Balls + Pork Belly
Yum
Our table of food – looks and smells lovely
Sitting down and eating our meal – it was very nice
This is called Coconut Caramel – we used it to marinate the meat balls + Pork Belly
Top Left
Chicken Pho
Top Right
Beef Pho
Bottom
Omelette
All free included in the breakfast spread.
Top Left
Bun Cha – Main Course – $5.70 USD
Fresh rice vermicelli noodles and grilled chopped pork served with fish sauce and herbs
Top Right
Nem hanoi – Appetizer – $3.90 USD
Veggie, Pork, Eggs rolled in rice paper then deep fried & served with fresh chilli, garlic & fish sauce
Bottom
Grilled Bamboo Beef – Main Course – $7.50 USD
Beef mixed with condiments, stuffed in a bamboo pipe, then grilled and served with steamed rice.
We had breakfast up on the 12 floor – I had some Chicken Pho – pronounced “Fho”.
All was good, but after breakfast felt a bit of a funny belly coming on – so we had a quiet morning in the hotel – just in case! Toilets in Hanoi – well no.
I took some of my Tech Un ‘Chi-Kit’ pills which seem to help me a lot - http://www.sindebudi.com/english/pil-chikit.htm
We decided to venture out and see the shopping areas around the Old Quarter – It did not take long before people wanted to sell us things – like the lady selling bananas.
Pam and the bananas – you are suppose to buy after this – but we did not.
This is how one takes a mirror home from the shop
We basically just wandered around the streets as you really do not know where you are. Things didn’t change very much – still the same types of shops everywhere, lot of little food shops that you would not eat in. All quite dirty, mostly selling junky stuff that looks like it has been there for years. We found as we moved around different streets sold similar things, like metal food cabinets, or range hoods, or art, or shoes or music.
A local music shop somewhere along the path we took around the streets.
Pam will be happy when we move on from here as the traffic is too chaotic for here. For me as well but not so much.
So we managed to find the lake again and walked around the part we has not been to yet. We found a little restaurant at one end and went inside for a beer and pam got a pastry – quite nice not too sweet.
The beer is very good here – we have yet to try the 1 day old beer (they do not sell it in this type of place)– looks pretty light from what I have seen but the bottled beer is good. Wei would like it.
The restaurant was nicely decorated inside (although everyone was outside) and our view was nice. Beer was 35,000 VND and Pastry was 30,000 VND.
After dinner I went down to the lake – Pam was not keen to cross the road any more times than needed!
I was approached by a Shoe Shine Man – he wanted 20,000 VND to do my shows which is about $1.50 NZD
I was happy enough since they looked pretty bad from walking around all day.
He did a good job and I was happy – when I got back to the hotel I asked how much I should have paid and they said 15,000 to 20,000 so all was ok.
