For those of you who read my other blog (http://happy-traveller.blogspot.com/), you'll know that I'm big on Vietnam...Especially the F.O.O.D !!!
Now that I'm back from the baguette-feeding-frenzy, I'm finally calm enough to think about why my most vivid memory of Vietnam is actually the times I spent eating at the roadsides.
I'm no arty-farty food/taste-analyser but my objective view is that by right, Vietnamese food should not cut it on the international stage. It does not seem to have a unique taste of its own, and come to think of it, all that I ate is actually a genetically modified version of other cultures' cuisine that I have tasted before in food-haven Singapore.
Like the pork-chop rice (top), which undoubtedly reeks of influence from their previous ruler for 1000 years, the Chinese. Or the bobo chacha which I enjoyed together with the rice at Orange Lantern, a relatively new Vietnamese restaurant in Singapore. This sweet all-time favourite dessert with various versions in Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand has manifested itself in a coconut-thick concoction swimming with fragrant mango strips (think Thai-style salads...yummy!) topped with chunky-crunchy peanut bits... Simply sedap!
Both are tasty but does not quite capture the authentic taste of Vietnamese roadside legends.
Maybe that's the essence of the Vietnamese food allure - empowerment to the itinerant hawkers who are able to dish up improvised and improved versions of the real thing.
For example, the pork chop I ate in Vietnam's Ho Chih Min city surpasses any equivalent I've eaten Chinese-style in terms of marination and succulence-packed in a slice of such 'thinness'.
The bobo chacha I ate in Bian Than Market is also packed with colourful bits of fruits showcased in slim (everything is slimmer in Vietnam) transparent glasses stacked in a free advertisement of tempting tastes that no one can possibly walk away once your sight crosses its path in the most minute of seconds...
And of course, there is the baguette... but my greatest love in Vietnamese food of course deserves a separate entry of its own, and the post derived from a careful stew of drafting and redrafting so that the words are at least one-tenth worthy of the taste of the mind-boggling baguettes ....
