Old Town Binders - Hoi An, Vietnam

Our last stop in Vietnam, Hoi An, is widely regarded as "bursting with old town charm". Not sure what that means, but one thing is for sure, the Binders were pretty much bursting with Vietnamese food on our way back to Bangkok. Hoi An is a nice place, slightly bigger than Luang Prabang (3 streets instead of 1), and an old trading port - which explains the wide variety of influences from Japan and China throughout old town Hoi An. Another UNESCO World Heritage site, the streets, temples, meeting halls and buildings have have been mostly well preserved. We quickly realized that seeing incense burning in front of a dragon or some kind of statue inside of an Asian temple/house warrants probably 1-2 hours max, and the true "charm" of this town is the food, cruising the streets, and getting a custom made suit for the fraction of the cost at home. So that was our plan for the 3 days in Hoi An.

The streets of Old Town Hoi An

Our second favorite restaurant in Hoi An, Morning Glory, which makes Vietnamese street food in a Nice restaurant, still pretty cheap too

Ok, I'm about to go into a rant on food. If you don't like Binder rants, or food, you can skip to the next paragraph... But then again I am not sure why you are even reading this blog. Mark, our food guide in Hanoi, had recommended a place called Bale Well in Hoi An. Not even sure what it was, we blindly went there our first afternoon. And again on our last night, because it was pretty much the perfect Binder meal (not just Brando, Bri too). Basically, it's build your own spring roll wrap thing. The ingredients are grilled pork (thit nuong), spring rolls (ram cuon), crispy pancake (banh xeo, crispy omelette thing with bean sprouts and shrimp), some sort of kim chi with pineapple, various Vietnamese greens and herbs (which I have a new love for), all wrapped in simple rice paper. THEN, there was a not-your-average-peanut-sauce sauce that probably had some magic in it, which you could add a sweet chili sauce to, in order to increase/decrease the level of sweet/spicy/magic balance in your dipping sauce. Follow that up with a nice long pull of an ice cold beer. The ladies of Bale Well are super friendly and will show you how to make the first few. The thing that makes these so great, are not only the fresh and flavorful ingredients, but the variety of textures and flavor (crunchy, flaky, meaty, hot, cold, sweet, and spicy) all in one. If you've ever heard a Binder food rant, it almost always points out that the best foods have a variety of favors going on at the same time, and are well constructed to contain all those favors in each bite. And almost always include a sauce. These met the criteria, thus constituting the perfect Binder meal. Not to mention, we were stuffed and each had 2 beers for about $11.

The ingredients. The next series of photos will show you the assembly.

First you take the rice paper... Ignore the gecko on the wall behind me

Then you add your greens

.... Then your Kim chi stuff, don't forget a pineapple chunk

Insert spring roll (yes, it's a spring roll inside a spring roll)

Add grilled pork, there is a special technique to getting it off the stick

Preparing to roll, this took some practice, so I had to eat quite a few

Call me Bob Marley

Dip it!!!

Bite that thing!

Look at that combo of deliciousness!

Drink beer!

Good shot of the spread, notice the change of outfit and lighting as we went multiple times.

They not only will help you make a roll, they will even feed it to you free of charge!

The outdoor kitchen, where they make magic

We didn't JUST eat spring rolls in Hoi An, we did actually go see the sites, both walking and biking the entire town. In short, the sites are old relics of the last 500 years Hoi An has been around, like Assembly Halls where groups of Chinese and Japanese groups met, and an old Japanese bridge. Pretty cool I guess, hard to follow after the spring rolls, but the biking/wandering the town and stopping for Vietnamese Iced Coffees, beers, and more food more than kept us entertained for a fun couple days.

Free bikes from out hotel

Old Japanese Bridge

Chinese and/or Japanese stuff around town

Japanese bridge

Puppies!! Seen on a random corner

The sign says "Hoi An", because that's where we are

Beer break, and trying to make sense of the map

Note the two old ladies holding hands in the back, best buds 4 life

Hoi An from the river that made it popular

Morning Glory's take on Bun Cha, awesome but a notch below the stuff on the street

Banh Mi, finally!!

One last thing we were told is a must in Hoi An, is to get a custom suit made. Considering I have one suit that fits me, and it was the one I wore when I got married, we figured this was a great opportunity to spice up my wardrobe for when I return to society. Completely custom made to you, you can get suits made as cheap as $80, with a really expensive suit getting up to $350. I got a suit and a blazer, an experience made a bit more hilarious by the army of tiny Asian women surrounding "the big goon", which I'm pretty sure is what they were calling me to each other while laughing right in front of me. Either way, I got some sweet new custom threads stuffed in the bottom of my bag for the next few weeks, at a fraction of the price at home. Feel free to compliment me at the next wedding and/or business meeting.

Picking my fabric. Crazy they made a suit out of that in under 24 hours!

Getting measured

Really getting all the specs

Some final adjustments, note she is standing on the stairs.

Me, my gal, and the final product.

Well, that wrapped up our time in Vietnam, as we flew back to Bangkok, then took a shuttle/ferry about 5 hours to the Island of Koh Chang, Thailand where we are currently watching the sunset and chilling out for the next 6 days. We plan on doing some SCUBA diving, lots of lounging, reading, and working on our base tans for Bali. Bummed the A's are out of it, but it's giving me the ability to disconnect a lot more, and Koh Chang is just the place to do it! Trip is over half done, just 3 weeks to go!

 

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Hungry Binders - Hanoi Food Tour

If you know anything about us, its that we like food. Particularly sharing and trying new food. So, when we read that a food tour in Hanoi was one of the best things that some other travelers had done, it was a no brainer to book it. As we wandered the streets the first few days and saw dozens of people on endless corners huddled on plastic stools around steaming/smoking pots and grills, we could only wonder "can I eat that". Anxious for someone to tell us if it was safe/good, we were stoked for Mark, our guide, to show us what was what. Mark is an Aussie living in Hanoi, and author of The Sticky Rice Food Blog, and Street Food Tour Blog.

Mark met us at our hotel at around 8:30, and we took a stroll for a somewhat typical breakfast of Bun Ca, or noodles with fried fish. We both were a little hesitant as the only fish we typically have for breakfast comes in the form of smoked salmon and is on a bagel. The Bun Ca was surprisingly un-fishy, and had a nice spice to it. Kind of weird, but I actually really liked it.

Bun Ca, fish for breakfast.

This is breakfast?

Our next stop was to a cafe for some coffee, that made me really thankful we hired Mark to show us around because never in a million years would we have picked this cafe or ordered what we did. We cut down a narrow alley, past an old lady cleaning her house and some kids running around, and emerged on another side street. We turned around and there was our spot, Ca Phe Duy Tri, which apparently has been around since 1936. I told Mark about my preference for Iced Coffee, so he ordered us "White" Iced Coffee (iced coffee with condensed milk you stir in) and Cafe Sua Chua, which was an espresso shot on top of some cold yogurt. Sounds weird, but again was awesome, kind of like an affogato.

The alley on the way for some coffee

Bri and Mark enjoying some coffee in the upstairs lounge, the ceiling was about 4 feet high.

Two types of iced coffee: Left is the White Iced Coffee with condensed milk, Right is the yogurt with coffee. Both awesome and strong!

Looks like your typical Starbucks back home.

Well caffeinated, we continued on our stroll, dodging motorbikes and asking Mark random questions about food and Vietnam. We stopped in for a snack of Banh Cuon, basically pork and mushroom dumpling pancake things. Without trying to sound repetitive, I probably never would have ordered this but it was quite good, like a gooey potsticker. It also involved making your own dipping sauce, always a plus in our book!

Dumplings and make your own sauce

The front of the dumpling snack stop. The guy makes the wrappers on the top of those big metal drum things.

To take a break from actually eating, we poked into a market. It started off innocent enough, looking at some nice vegetables, rice, tofu, and stuff we see at home, just not all packaged. Mark described how he shops at these markets almost everyday, and how its very different than how we go to the store once a week and buy everything at once. We then saw some weird stuff, like basically every internal organ, some not-fully-developed-eggs, and crabs that they mash up live into a paste. Yum!

 

Weird stuff at the market. Meal worms, undeveloped eggs, chicken hearts, parts of things and stuff.

Fresh water snails, no we didnt have any and that was just fine with both of us.

I was getting excited for lunch, hoping for some Banh Mi (sandwiches like they sell in the tenderloin for $3, on a baguette with awesome meat, and cilantro, jalapenos) but then learned that they are pretty much a southern Vietnamese thing, much like a lot of the Vietnamese food we eat in California. Because those are the Vietnamese that actually left Vietnam. The northern food is much more influenced by the Chinese. All of this made sense, with my new understanding of Vietnamese history.

Anyway, with that lesson learned, we stopped off for a lunch of Bun Cha, or grilled pork over rice noodles. I got pretty excited when I saw the industrial sized fan blowing smoke off a red hot grill into the street. Not only good marketing, but also a sign of good Bun Cha having a good char on the pork. The blackened pork pieces come in a patty, and kind of pork belly type pieces, in a vinaigrette-y broth which you can put over the noodles, or dump the noodles in your bowl while adding the variety of fresh herbs. It. Was. Glorious. If you ever come to Hanoi and don't eat this, I don't want to be your friend.

Bun Cha meaty smoke cannon.

Meat, noodles, herbs, and fresh spring rolls. Boom!

Check out that meaty goodness!

There's no behind the scenes, this is the sidewalk kitchen.

View from the outside, plastic stools lining the street for 50 feet on each side of the joint. Motorbikes pulling up, every 10 seconds.

Strolling Hanoi with our guide. More motorbikes!!!

Lots of fresh veggies

Fun day, happy Binders. Thanks Mark!

Mark dropped us off at our hotel, full and happy, and with a much better understanding of what exactly all those people are doing on the plastic stools all over Hanoi. He even gave a recommendation for a BBQ chicken place for dinner, which we tried and was awesome as well. It was a little tough ordering on our own, but we did it and completed an entire day of eating nothing but Hanoi street food for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Three days later as I write this, no, neither of us even got a little sick!

*We just got back from 3 days and two nights on a boat in Halong Bay, which was great. We're heading south tomorrow to the town of Hoi An, so we should have a few more posts coming as soon as we can catch up!

 

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