Vietnamese Food

Anyone who knows me knows how much I love food. If you look at my bank statement, 90% of it goes to food vendors...specifically Honey Pig (how I miss you!!) Here in Vietnam, food is thankfully much cheaper. Here are some miscellaneous foobservations and pictures from my time here so far.

Never turn down a fruit drink. Smoothies and shakes alike, fruity things here are done to perfection. They use real fruit and the texture is super creamy and rich. My favorite are the stickie ickie sweetsop smoothies. They're gloopy and white and feels like butter running down your throat :P~

Fresh papaya mmm..

Vietnamese people eat a LOT of baguettes. I would argue that they eat more of that ish than French people. They eat it with meat, veggies, or simply dip them in condensed milk. This is unfortunate for me because I hate bread, but at least it's not American bread X(

My little cousin contemplating life, the universe, and everything

Everywhere you go, everything you eat, you get a trusty plate of peppers on the side. Breakfast omelet? Peppers. Pho for lunch? Peppers. Sick from the flu? Peppers. Grandma's funeral? Peppers. And they're actually spicy...unlike in 'MERIKAH!

Reason #213 why I won't live past 50

All the noodley dishes here are comprised of three things: the noodle, the broth, and the garnish. Depending on the combination, you get a totally different dish. Everyone of course knows pho, but here, I love bun bo hue and banh canh best. These have thicker noodles and more variety of meat.

Titillating 

Nothing beats a freshly picked coconut. Unlike in Americaaaa, palm trees here are loaded with coconuts everywhere you go. If you're a real gangsta, you climb that shit unassisted. If you're even more gangsta, you get your uncle with a machete to chop that shiz down for you.

like a BOSS

The more into the countryside you go, the bloodier it gets. Literally. Everything is eaten with coagulated something or other. I've had many ducks and chickens killed for me as a guest. They bleed them out into a dish and put the blood in with whatever they're making. I was afraid of eating it cuz of bird diseases, but it was OK (I think)

Vietnamese equivalence of down south home cooking

Vietnamese BBQ is not as good as Korean BBQ. Or maybe this only applies to Honey Pig. The beef here is much tougher than in the US so that's 95% of it right there. However, the prawns are hugantic and makes up for this quite nicely.

Goat wrapped around a cheese stick. Weird, I know, but it was really good. 

For dessert, you gotta chow down on some ice cream. The ice cream here is much less milky than in the US, which is a good thing. The flavor really comes through and doesn't sink in your stomach and give you major itis. It's refreshing and always my favorite part of the meal :)

Don't ask me why it's in a duck basket ¯\(°_o)/¯

Bali CONT

Day 2

We relocated to a more natury area of Bali today and I stayed at this gorgeous little forested 2 bedroom villa. Thing is, it wasn't even expensive. In Atlanta, $40/night lands you in the ghettos...or just ClayCo.

The day began with a tour of a coffee plantation. So there’s this weasel that poops coffee beans and that’s apparently the most expensive coffee EVAR…like hundreds of dollars for a cup. Yeah, I got to taste ass coffee. Achievement unlocked.

Straight from its butt to my mouth

Snakeskin fruit including some other fruits I've never seen

Coffee beans

Tea, chocolate, and coffee

Then they took us up to the top of a Balinese volcano (…ikr?!) and we ate breakfast at a restaurant overlooking the whole thing. Very nice place, but terrible breakfast.

We took a bike tour back down. So I haven’t ridden a bike in almost a decade didn’t really have the dexterity to take pics cuz I’m such a bike n00b. I was definitely the slowest one and nearly died a few times coasting down.  However, the ride was fucking beautiful. Rice paddies, coconut trees, villages, temples….

Amazing Race call meeeee!!

This kid thought I was Indonesian. When I started speaking English, he was disappoint.

Later on I had a superb dinner at this restaurant rated highest in Bali called Bridges. It was on a bridge unsurprisingly. I was the only non-white person there besides the waitresses. I was also the only American on both the bike tour and basically anywhere else. People kept telling me that Americans are close minded and don’t travel enough. That’s when I say well, I’m not American, I’m Vietnamese.

Prosciutto something or other 

Salad. Don't judge me.

Lob lob

Filet mignon taken from a horrible angle

I also went to the beach but didn’t take any pics cuz of the wetness. Beaches here are beautiful but very touristy.

Day 3

The third hotel I stayed at was balltastic, but I liked the hotel from Day 2 the best.

This morning I had an organic lunch at this one restaurant in the middle of a rice terrace. The walk there was sickeningly nice. But I figured you’d be tired of seeing rice terraces by now.

Smoothie made from REAL mango...take notes America!

After lunch came the monkeys. And believe you me, there was a shit ton of monkeys.

Monkey "forest"

Scared shitless from my monkey experiences in Peru

He wants something...

Maybe they're not so bad?

O_o look at his rage face! LOL

CLICK HERE FOR VERY DISTURBING NSFW MONKEY PIX

Today ended with a nice relaxing bit poolside. Back to Vietnam I go in a few hours!

:)

Bali

Day 1
Bali has always been on my bucket list ever since I saw it on House Hunters International. Reality TV makes me waste time and money in so many ways...

Indonesia is absolutely beautiful and exotic. The people here look really.....different. I pride myself on knowing how to distinguish Asians but Indonesians...veryyyyyy interesstingggg. Everyone here keeps thinking I'm Indonesian though which is good cuz I get the domestic rate!

The hotel was exquisite and surprisingly cheap. The food has also been good so far with one exception (scroll down). I am leaving right now to go see the rice terraces and monkeys and plants, so more pretty pics to come!

paradise much?

real, not man made at all waterfall

My chicken lens case found a friend!

Calamari on the beach...u jelly?

It doesn't look like it, but this banana pancake was off the chain

NEVER GO TO ANOTHER COUNTRY AND GET BACON. This was a crime to humanity!

Ho Chi Minh City

I'm back to Saigon and just moved into my new plizzace!

So the walls, the curtains, the ceilings....everything is GREEN. Good because that's my favorite color, bad for anyone else who visits.

Did I mention the walls have hearts and star shaped glitter on them? Yeah.

Buttt I quite like it. It’s spacious, in a quiet part of town, and near some good places to eat.

Furiously cleaning

touristy hotel right outside my balcony making me feel poor

Not much to talk about since I just moved in. Haven’t eaten anything delicious yet. Just a lot of Choco Pie, which is fucking fantastic!

This. OM NOM NOM.

Anywayssss, I've been talking a lot about the good (mainly delicious) things Vietnam has to offer. But it isn't all peaches and cream...there are some things I don't like. I thought it'd be best to make a list:

1) The traffic. Scary as all fuck. Yes, the drivers here are crazy but they are also very good at dodging traffic. However, I have seen at least 3 motorbike accidents where they crashed into each other and just got up and drove away. One of these instances involved a woman, who looked pretty bruised when she got hit, but the other guy rode away before anything could be done. I haven't seen anything bad happen to pedestrians, but let's hope I'm don't become the first casualty I encounter.

2) (Some) people. Specifically my relatives. They believe that I am absolutely incapable to doing anything for myself, which can be extremely irritating. I especially hate when I go to eat somewhere with my cousin and she grabs things out of my hands, flavors and garnishes my food for me, and basically spoon-feeds me my noodles. I'll put up with a lot of things, but do not mess with my food. I had to keep my pimp hand strong and let her know. Well, sort of, I just kind of asked her can I do it myself.

3) The money. Why so many goddamn zeros? I get the 1000 confused with the 10000 confused with the 100000. And same for the 2000 and so on.

4) The public restrooms. It's disgusting.

5) The aminals. Anyone who knows me knows I hate aminals. Your pets are not adorable, and no I would not like to see pictures of them in baby strollers. In Vietnam, the aminal sitch is even worse. Take your average American dog and take away all the fat until you just get a sack of skin and bones, throw in some large googly eyes that are festering out of its head, scruff up the fur and mat it down with some sewage water, and add a dash of foam at the mouth and you got a suspect for rabies.

That's about everything so far. If this were the US, my list would be even longer. But then again, I've only been here for a few weeks.

Watch this video if you get a chance, it made me laugh way more than it should:
http://wimp.com/guyscartoon/

Da Lat

I've been in the highlands of Da Lat the past few days. Weather here is awesome cuz the sun's not constantly shitting on me like it is in Saigon. It's actually kind of chilly and I've been wearing windbreakers even though everyone here dresses like it's middle of winter in Russia.

OK, so I ate the best fucking noodles ever the other day. It's Chinese ramen and it went down like butter. BEHOLD:

I give this nine thumbs up!!

I also had the best ice cream I’ve ever eaten. I know I keep saying this shit but I’m honestly not BS-ing. Vietnamese food >>>> American food, the NASDAQ, your mother, etc.

Soursop ice cream

The café where I had this had every flavor of ice cream on the menu: chocolate, coconut, bitter melon, even durian!

It’s true what they say…DO NOT COME TO OTHER COUNTRIES AND EAT AMERICAN FOOD. These fries were so gross.

Soggy butt piss

Apparently they were very good cuz all my cousins were stuffing their faces. They also really like the pizza and hamburgers here.

Peppers in Vietnam are quite spicy. Gives the pho a good kick.

Burns going both in and out

Shopping here is kind of a nightmare. There is just so much crap (literally, sometimes I see random turd trails in the marketplace) everywhere that you just leave empty handed and exasperated. I feel the pressure to bargain everywhere I go because I think I’m getting ripped off. The price of clothing is not that great because of inflation, so now prices are basically the same as over there. I bought shoes yesterday for $15. You gotta know where to go, and I don’t really yet.

Vortex of marketplace hell

I would have to say the thing I like most about Vietnam so far is definitely the food, specifically the fruits. Before you die, you must eat all of the following (in no particular order because they are all so goddamn delicious): PASSION FRUIT, MANGOSTEEN, VIETNAMESE CHERRIES, SAPODILLA, RAMBUTAN, SWEETSOP/SOURSOP, AMBARELLA, WATERAPPLE, and of course DRAGONFRUIT

Go forth and eat!