Eating, eating, its all about eating

Ah its a story to chew on. Vietnamese food is a mix of remarkable influences from over the millenia - Indian, Thai, Cambodian, Chinese to name a few. But the country's regions have developed a distinctly Vietnamese culinary style. And there is no better place to try it than - everywhere - on the street, in small cafes, a lakeside eatery, in elegant colonial houses and in friends' houses.

So here's a (continuous - so come back) menu of recent taste sensations:
The best pho ga (chicken noodle soup) in Hanoi at 34 Le Van Huu street, opens for breakfast to around 1pm, and still presided over by matriarch May Anh. In Australia we are used a chicken noodle soup south Vietnamese style, with lots of aromatic herbs. But here in Hanoi its the REAL deal: a rich chicken broth filled with rice noodles and spring onions, chewy beignets on the side, to which you can ask for an egg to be dropped in. Then add lime, chili or garlic as you wish. And a beer or water if its lunch time. All for around .75 cents. I was lucky, the youngest of the family still recognised me after a decade!

Au Lac House in a renovated French villa in the city's centre and a large spin off from the owner's Au Lac Cafe on Ly Thy To Street. Its a place to celebrate the new life of a Vietnamese Australian friend who has come back to Hanoi. We try soft shelled crab in tamarind sauce, banana flower salad and Hue specialty rice cakes stuffed with shrimp. And there is a remarkable range of international wines on offer. We try (at last!) New Zealand Cloudy Bay Sauvignon which, at current US/Australian dollar rates, was pretty good value. All in all a great place to try good Vietnamese food in a great location.
Au Lac House is centrally located at 13 Tran Hung Dao Street, Tel (84) (4) 933 3533.

The West Lake (Ho Tay) has a slew of restaurants on the water.
Recently, city authorities extended the lakeside road so it now rings the entire lake and a public walkway built. Gardens have been planted along the wide footpath on the south-western side.
In the construction boom starting in the early 1990s houses were illegally built on the road to and around the lake.
A Vietnamese friend and I note the illegal fishermen on their jerry-built piers already hauling in fish whilst at the northern end local authorities are just setting out to inspect their domain. We settle in at a local eatery and order chewy steamed water snails, susu leaves from the hills of Tam Dao or Sa Pa in the north, grilled soft shelled shrimps (to die for) - all with their distinctive dips based on salt/pepper/lemongrass/fish sauce. The staff are attentive and thoughtful - even offering us a fresh table whilst they clear up the detritus that is the sign of a Vietnamese meal that has been enjoyed.
At around Aust$3-4 a dish this is great value.

Speeding on Vietnamese coffee

Stock markets can rise and plunge again while you wait for coffee made Vietnam-style. Easy to forget in modern Vietnam that coffee-drinking is not just a sensory experience, its still considered a social ritual to take time over.
In my friends’ house in Ba Dinh in Hanoi’s north western area near the Ngoc Khanh Lake I wait for my first coffee. Vu places a small aluminium dripolater with pin-size holes on top of a demi-tasse cup. In goes the coffee – top quality Arabica Robusta from the Central Highlands -and he adds boiling water.
Then we practice Tieng-Anh– Vietnamese to English conversation.This is the deal my friends and I have struck.
I will converse in my poor Vietnamese – forgotten after a decade’s non-use, and the three 'young ones' in the family will speak in English. An English-Vietnamese dictionary is permanently perched on the refrigerator in the kitchen where we eat and chat.
Ah, now the first cup of coffee is ready. But the boiling water has got lost through the pinholes and the coffee is cold. We add more hot water and I drink it too fast.
"How much coffee did you put in?" I ask. "Five teaspoons," Vu says. Kaboom goes my head and I'm speeding already. Probably the only way to face my first day in Hanoi, now a city permanently on the move on motorbikes.

Riding the Tiger

Singapore Airline's baby, Tiger Airways, is now operating from Darwin and Melbourne in Australia and fares are falling as this new cat on the block goes head to head internationally with Australia's JetStar - and domestically with Virgin as well.
Its a midnight run from Darwin to Singapore's and it looks like a packed plane of returning Singaporean students and holidaying families as well as travellers from Australia. But a system failure means we are delayed three hours at Darwin, not the best airport to hang around after midnight. We finally shuffle sleepy-eyed onto a jet with upright seats, no reclining here, and a South African pilot is apologising for the delay. The hostess is determined the ensure my handbag is stowed in a locker during takeoff, then I doze - off and on - as passengers are given the opportunity to buy drinks and snacks. Arrival at Singapore's Budget Terminal is smooth, Immigration processing rapid - and there's sweets on the desk for you - and baggage unloading is fast. The entire terminal looks like an empty aircraft hangar and, unlike Changi airport, just a 5-minute shuttle bus trip away, there are no on-site rooms to hire or large massaging lounge chairs to sink into if you have a long wait between flights - just pull up an empty space and unroll your sleeping bag or sit in another upright chair. Retail shops include 'adventure' gear, including tents, packs and clothing/boots, 711, travel accessories, down-market gift shops and the usual run of so-so food/drink. My first experience on a Tiger is no frills and fine, but I suspect in the larger world of aviation the claws are out in Asian budget travel.

Burek heaven is a bite away

Just 18 miles south of Sydney's CBD Rockdale's main drag is a hotch-potch of car smash repairers, retail shops - and a little family-owned Macedonian bakery serving up bureks and breads. Its a yeasty smell as a friend and I walk in. The owner gently eases from the oven a side of lamb that he's roasted for a customer; it happens regularly he says. But we've come for bureks, filo pastry filled with spinach and cheese, or ground beef, or aromatic cinnamon-topped apple, cooked Macedonian style in big round pans. The local Macedonian-Australians are eating them with buttermilk but we wash a plateful down with coffee. On the way out we resist the super-sweet baklava but buy a crusty loaf of bread, one of several varieties in the basket. A family member is happy to give us the lowdown on the bread spread but customers are lining up behind us waiting for their slice of heaven.

Alexander's Bakery Cafe, 494 Princes Highway, Rockdale, Sydney. Phone 956796
Image from Wikipedia