A food tour in the Hoam Kiem district

We continue to discover new breakfast ingredients.  Today, pomelo was included in the fruit, 

there was a yoghurt and fruit taster, and I tried rice noodles with shrimps, spring rolls and rau.  

 

Yesterday, I introduced Bob to Banh Tom Ho Tay at 1 Thanh Nien, opposite the One Pillar Pagoda.  Every one around us appeared to be having fried fish and vegetables, and we saw turtle, pigeon, frog and eel on the menu, but we had salt fish fried rice, 

 

sautéed pumpkin tendrils

 and tamarind prawns.  All very good food.

We have also done our usual sticky- beaking at what is on offer in the streets.  Chicken anyone?

Today, we paid US$15 to do a walking tour of street food in the Hoan Kiem district with Alissa Hoang ( check her out on Facebook).  

We booked it through the Crossing Vietnam Tour company, and for those of you who need a bit of confidence, or want to meet a local, or want to learn more than you know, it is a great introduction to local food.  Each food  type we tried was really great - Bob's favourite was the pyramid cake while I loved the pillow cases.  Alissa said that she would be happy to go with us should we like to explore more food stalls another night, and we might take her up on that!

We started with an old favourite, Nem ( spring rolls)

 at Thanh Hop at 12 Dinh Liet street, which were served with a sauce made from fish sauce, sugar, lime and garlic.

Next, we tried Pyramid cake/ bang gio, which is steamed rice with a pork filling, in Dao Duytu street.

This was followed by another old favourite, Che, a sweet soup which was very refreshing, at a family business which has been going since 1930 on the corner of Hang Thiec and Ba Dan.

The beer cafe was booked out, and we had already had beef pho earlier in the day

 

with tiny little sour limes and chillis 

 

 so our next dish was banh goi/ pillow cases, with fresh herbs and pineapple sauce at Ly Quoc Su street.

We were pretty full, so we called it a night after egg coffee ( cap phe trung) at the Ca Fe Giang, though Alissa was perfectly happy to keep going.

By the way, apologies for not including the correct accents in my written Vietnamese.  My computer acumen is still very limited.