The Food

Delicious! In a word, a description of our experience with Vietnamese food. After all, food was the focus of our holiday. From the sophisticated restaurants like Indochine and Club Opera, in Hanoi to the re-enacted regal banquets of Hue, to the more intimate family restaurants in Hoi An and Dalat the food was consistently of high quality and presented exquisitely. For pictorial proof of this have a look at Delicious Dishes.

The following are drawn from our limited experience:

	A few cook books.
	A selection of restaurants.
	A couple recipes.

Vietnamese Cook Books. Books that we can recommend are:

	"The Food of Vietnam: Authentic Recipes from the Ascending Dragon"(Food of __ Series) by Trieu Thi Choi, Marcel Isaak, Periplus. We purchased this in Bangkok on our departure from Vietnam. As well as the authentic recipes which we followed to re-live some of our Vietnam memories it contains an interesting historical background to the development of many of the dishes.
	"Foods of Vietnam" by Nicole Routhier, Martin Jacobs (Photographer), Craig Claiborne. This is a classic! A beautifully presented book which was recently acquired as a birthday present from Adrienne to Sally and we look forward sampling the many lovely recipes enclosed.
	For more books go Amazon.com

Restaurants. As you have no doubt gathered we enjoy exotic food and in Vietnam we ate meals at various levels of sophistication. Some were just superb and most were good examples of the very broad and varied cuisine of Vietnam. The cost of many of the meals was included in our tour. On Vietnamese standards most were very expensive but by our home country standards they would have been extremely good value. The following is a list of some of the more memorable restaurants we tried with some observations. The addresses are in most guide books or just take a "gourmet tour" to lead you to them or others of equivalent standard. We haven't tried to rate them as we would rather encourage you to go and try for yourselves:

Hanoi

	Indochine - delightful ambience and delicious food make this a top choice in Vietnam.
	Club Opera - as the name suggests this is a sophisticated and up market place to dine.
	Cafe 252 - made famous by Catherine Deneurve and still a popular cheap light eat stop. Also a good place to get information on local tours.

Hue

	An Dinh Palace Restaurant - based on the delicious banquet lunch we had you could expect a magnificent dinner here. This is quite new so may not be in many guide books - so here is the address: 97 Phan Dinh Phung, Ph 833019, Fax 823399, contact Nguyen Thanh Mai
	Lac Thien - a delightful economical family restaurant.

Hoi An

	Cafeteria 22 - we had a superb meal on the pavement.
	The Mermaid - they were desperately busy the night we were there but still managed to satisfy our developing love for Vietnamese food.

Nha Trang

Lac Canh - barbecue restaurant - try the sweet and sour soup.

Dalat

Thanh Thanh - unpretentious but not to be missed.

Recipes

Grilled Tuna With Fresh Turmeric (Mermaid Restaurant, Hoi An)

This makes a novel barbecue dish. The "tuna" used in Vietnam had quite a white flesh and we have used "groper" successfully as this appeared more like the fish used than the darker tuna.

Requires a wire clamping grill. The one we have is about 200mm square and is useful for other barbecue dishes.

Fresh turmeric may be hard to find in some localities but it is worth hunting for as it does make a difference to the flavour.

Ingredients
	300gms	cubed tuna fillet
Marinade
	1tbsp	fresh grated turmeric (or 1tsp powder)
	1tsp	shallots or spring onion
	1tsp	garlic
	1tsp	fish sauce
	0.25tsp	black pepper
	0.25tsp	salt
	1 pinch	sugar
Vegetables	3tbsp	chopped spring onions
	3tbsp	thinly sliced soaked woodear fungus or Chinese mushrooms
	3tbsp	vermicelli noodles
	1tbsp	peanut oil

Mix all the above ingredients together. Place the mixture on a double banana leaf or aluminium foil which is the folded over the ingredients to form a parcel that matches the size of the clamp grill. Cook on the barbecue or char grill for 5mins each side leave for another 5mins before unwrapping at the table. Serve with a ginger sauce.

tuna.jpg (5752 bytes) The tuna "parcel" in the clamp grill.

Sugar Cane Prawns (Thanh Thanh Restaurant, Da Lat)

The demonstration was probably invaluable for this dish but we will try and explain the steps to making this entree dish a success.

Ingredients	per sugar cane
	1 piece	sugar cane core about 25mm diameter and 150mm long.
	100gms	tiger prawn meat
	10gms	pork fat
	1/3tsp	pepper
	1/3tsp	salt
	1/3tsp	sugar
	1/2tsp	crushed garlic
	1/2tsp	crushed shallot or spring onion

	Peel prawns and use only the tail meat. Place the meat in a cloth napkin and squeeze out any excess water (do this twice). Place the prawn meat in a mortar (or food processor) with the sugar, pepper, salt and pork fat and work until finely minced. Then add garlic and onion and complete mixing.
	Form the meat around the sugar cane leaving the ends free of meat.
	Grill on a low heat for 15 minutes turning continuously.
	Serve as is with a light fish/chilli sauce or at the table strip the flesh off the cane and place in a rice paper roll with vermicelli noodles, lettuce leaves, fresh mint, Vietnamese basil, sliced carrot/radish and fish with chilli sauce assemble ingredients to individual taste.