You can only fit so much food in before you have to leave Hanoi.

Our last few days in vietnam were sad on many levels, not the least of which was that we would be missing our continual investigation of, and appreciation of, Vietnamese food  and drink. 

 

I have really enjoyed a lot of the fruit combinations used in mocktails, smoothies and iced drinks.  I love the combinations they come up with.  They are colourful, tasty and refreshing.  I must start experimenting with fresh fruit and soda and fresh fruit and yoghurt at home.

 

 

I added another experience to my breakfast list, banh cuon, a sort of rolled rice noodle dough with scallions.  Yummy with a little sauce poured over.

For other meals, we tried  the restaurant at the Museum of Ethnology,  Baguette & Chocolat, which I remembered with  pleasure from a previous trip.  Like the mseum, the restaurant is looking a bit tired, but the food is still good and the staff, who are still being trained by the Hoa Su School,  are still young, enthusiastic and friendly, though in need of some supervision as they were not quite on the ball or keeping an eye on their customers.  We aren't sure they got our order right - one of these was supposed to contain crab and meat and the other pork, but one clearly had prawns and the other, which tasted very good, didn't taste of  crab.  But, we couldn't be bothered to compalin once we started because the waitress was so sweet.

The desserts were good though -  sweetened black rice and yoghurt, and taro, coconut and chocolate  icecream.

 We also revisited the Net Hue restaurant and this time, we had fried rice cake with steamed prawn dumplings (banh ram it nhan tom) which was fantastic

and a grilled pork and peanut dish (bun thit nnoung) which was very tasty

Bob went for his old favourite, the banana based dessert, but I tried a new experience che sen hue (Hue lotus sweet), which I loved.

 

And then, it was all over.  The food on the Vietnam Airlines trip back was so disappointing, like all airline food.  After all the weeks of being catered for and eating well (Vietnamese food is so light and tasty, using so many vegetables), I was not looking forward to cooking again.  Luckily, my gorgeous daughter and son-in-law had thought of that and cooked us dinner -grilled meat and prawn skewers and a light salad, with home made chocolate ice-cream.  Maybe being back isn't so bad!