Cold Noodles with Sesame Sauce

Earlier in the summer I visited Murger HanHan on an invite from the PR company. Located in Mayfair down a back street, it's a real blink-and-you-miss it. Awful pop music was playing, and it was full of people slurping down on noodles. I think we chose a bit badly, actually; wide belt noodles with tomato, egg and garlic dipping sauce came in a vat of broth so huge we could have bathed in it, while the tomato and egg was comforting, it was also very sweet and devoid of garlic. Should have gone for the biang biang noodles. Impressively long noodle, though.

The pork murger, which is a flatbread cut open and stuffed with meat (the original burger, apparently) was quite bland, and very very fatty - though they do offer it on the menu with lean pork only. But there was seemingly no flavour to it other than the pork itself and a little salt. I get the feeling that this is super traditional, though having never been to Xi'an I can't confirm. The spicy beef murger with peppers and cumin is on the list for next time.

What we did love, though, was this cold steamed rice noodle with sesame sauce. Thick, chewy noodles were mixed up with slivered cucumber and beansprouts underneath, giving essential crunch to the slippery noodles, the creamy sauce being full of rich sesame flavour. They sent me the recipe, hurrah! So I set to making it myself.

I can't find rice noodles that are shaped like this - cut to a square shape, basically - they're all flat like pho or ho fun, or round like bun noodles, or too fine like vermicelli. I set about making my own, though to do this I trialled two methods; mung bean jelly noodles, and cold skin (liang pi) noodles.

More on the latter later, because mung bean jelly noodles were my favourite. The sauce could have clung to them a little better, I guess their surface is too smooth, but in terms of satisfaction of chew these guys really swing it.

For the noodles: 

100gr mung bean starch 
500gr water 
A pinch of salt 

Mix the starch well with half of the water in a large bowl, and add the salt. Bring the other half of the water to the boil and on a low heat, add the starch mixture bit by bit, mixing the solution until it is well combined, with a whisk. Cook on a low heat until the mixture becomes more transparent, then take off the heat, grease a tupperware box and pour into it. When cooled, place in the fridge until needed.

To use, slice thinly width ways and then slice again to the width of the noodle desired. For this I sliced into cube shape. 

Here is Murger HanHan's recipe for the sauce; it's practically verbatim except I've reduced the soy sauce down because it was plenty salty enough. This makes quite a bit - enough for 4 - 6 portions. 

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
7 tablespoons Chinese sesame paste (this is a darker colour to tahini, and tastes richer but you can use tahini at a push)
6 tablespoons of warm water
5 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
2 tablespoons sesame oil
1 teaspoon of cayenne pepper (I used chilli oil here, and upped it to 1 tbsp)
1/2 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon finely chopped garlic
1 cucumber, chopped to thin slice 
1 small bag beansprouts (I blanched mine because I don't love raw beansprouts)

In a large jar, combine all the ingredients except the cucumber and the beansprouts, and shake vigorously. Layer the beansprouts, cucumber and noodles, then drizzle the sauce over it and toss well. I added coriander, more chilli oil and some steamed choi sum to make it a full meal, and you could add chicken or crispy tofu too. It's a great lunch salad, but keep the sauce separate till you're ready to eat it. 

Lobster E-Fu Noodles with Sichuan Chilli Oil

Every year, Action Against Hunger hold an auction, to which restaurants, chefs and food people submit prizes for. I've long since been a supporter of theirs; way back in 2011, I helped cooked a dinner for 55 in aid of the charity, so I was only happy to help, and I blithely promised a dinner for 8 cooked in the winner's home. 

When the auction itself started, I realised what I was up against. It's not a competition, but there were some serious prizes going. I made my friends promise me that they'd bid at least twenty quid so it wouldn't be too embarrassing if it went for nothing. I refused to look at the auction until it was all over, lightly sweating at the palms in anticipation. £926 was the final total - an intimidatingly generous amount. I set off writing the menu, and getting in touch with suppliers to help out with ingredients.

Everyone I spoke to was wonderfully accommodating, and generous. Turner & George supplied the meat; a beautiful pork shoulder for the Bo Ssam, that was roasted and served with spring onion and ginger dressing, kimchi, and coriander and jalapeño sauce. This was slow roasted and then absolutely packed with brown sugar for a final blast to create a caramelised, fatty pork crust - hunnggghhh. This is one of my favourite sharing dishes, as you have to use your hands to cup a lettuce leaf, spoon a little rice into it, top with pork and sauce / pickles, and shovel it in. It's communal eating at its best. 

Most Asian meals involve a soup course, and we made Vietnamese meatball and pickled mustard green soup; it's the perfect balance of tart, spicy and slightly sweet. It also includes dill, which a lot of people are surprised about, given its association with Scandinavian food. The recipe is in Chinatown Kitchen. 

Obviously we had to have dumplings just because I love them and I have become pretty good at folding them, if I say so myself... 

With such a generous donation, I really wanted to have something in the meal that was particularly luxurious (even more so than a really decent piece of meat), something you wouldn't normally cook at home for yourself or for a small dinner party. Lobsters are often a bit daunting, especially as it's best to buy them live for them to be at their freshest. See Woo helped me out with all my Asian ingredients; they were total mega-stars at their Chinatown shop, and furnished me with everything, from dumpling skins to pickled mustard greens, chillis, dried shiitake mushrooms, the lot. Since they had an incredible new live fish counter complete with lobster and crab tanks, I fired off a cheeky request for four live lobsters and held my breath. 

Success! They were MASSIVE. They were pulled from their tanks thrashing, and I hauled them home, people eyeing my bag warily. It happened to be the day my tube line was undergoing works and there were no taxis. I'm not sure how much the lobsters appreciated 2 tubes and a bus. Into the freezer they went. 

In their sleepy state, the lobsters were gradually warmed up in their salty pot bath so they were good and asleep before they died for my cause. Have I mentioned how massive they were? They were so big I had to borrow my neighbour's stock pot, as mine was insufficient. Once just cooked, they were plunged into an ice bath to be ready to be stir-fried the next day, for possibly the best noodles I've ever cooked. 

E-Fu (or yee mein) are a type of noodle that are sold in a round yellow cake. They're 'luxury' noodles, brought out at special occasions, mainly celebrations. They're soft and airy, and their sponginess soaks up whatever sauce they're cooked in. Often its simply ginger and spring onion, but with a pretty killer Sichuan chilli oil recipe I've been honing for a while, I took them up a notch. After all the food that had already been served, I was startled to find the dish came back completely empty, besides the shells. "They're licking their chopsticks!" my friend / waitress whispered to me. It's a bit labour-intensive, but it is worth it.

Lobster E-Fu Noodles 

Serves 8 with other dishes, or 4 as a main with vegetables

4 live lobsters, cooked in salted water until barely cooked

8 spring onions, whites and greens separated 

5 cloves of garlic, minced

3 inches of ginger, peeled and minced

100gr beansprouts, rinsed well

100gr brown shimeji mushrooms, washed and separated

4 tbsp cooking oil

2 rounds of air-dried E Fu noodles

Sauce: 

2 tbsp light soy sauce 

1 tsp dark soy sauce 

2 tbsp mirin

2 tbsp sake

1 tbsp Shaoxing rice wine

1 tbsp cornflour

100ml water or chicken stock

1 tbsp Chinkiang black vinegar

For the Sichuan chilli oil:

200ml vegetable oil

1 piece of cassia bark

1 star anise

1 tbsp coriander seeds

1 tsp cloves

1 tsp Sichuan peppercorns

1 black cardamom 

3 tbsp coarse ground red chillis

2 inch piece of ginger

1 head of garlic, cloves separated but in their skins

2 tbsp light soy sauce

1 tbsp soft brown sugar

Firstly, make the oil the night before. Add the cassia bark, peppercorns, star anise, coriander seeds, garlic, ginger, cloves, and cardamom to the oil and heat until a fizzing sound. Keep on a low heat and simmer for 1 hour. Add the sugar, soy sauce, and chillis to a large heatproof bowl, and heat the oil up so it's shimmering for just a moment, and then VERY carefully pour over the chilli mixture. Leave to cool, and leave overnight. Strain into a clean jar.

You can prepare the lobster whichever way you prefer, but we found that leaving the tails in the shell was nice for people to see and work on, but extracting the rest of the meat from the claws was the best idea unless you have the right utensils and people like getting messy. So take a good half hour or so to do this, as it can be fiddly. I'm talking like I did this but I made my friend bash those claws out while I, uh, folded dumplings. 

Twist the head off, then the claws. Lay the back out flat and using a sharp knife, cut lengthways through the tail. Any green tomalley or red roes, extract and add to a bowl. Use a hammer to bash the claws in and pick out the meat. Keep the shells; they make a great bisque. Once you have extracted all the meat, place in the fridge. 

Add the tomalley and roes to the sauce mixture and work well, so there aren't any lumps. Chop the whites into 2 inch pieces, and finely slice the greens and set to one side. 

You may need to do this in two batches, as it's rather a lot to go in one wok. Heat plenty of water into a wok until it is boiling, and add 1 round of the noodles. Stir them so they break apart, and cook until al dente - about three minutes. Fish out into a colander and rinse, meanwhile cook the other round and sieve again. Empty the wok of water. Place the noodles in a big bowl and toss through with 4 tbsp Sichuan chilli oil.

Heat the wok until smoking, add half the oil, and stir fry the beansprouts and mushrooms for 3 minutes, constantly stirring. Remove to a large plate. Add the rest of the oil and add the garlic, spring onion whites and the ginger, and add the lobster meat, stir-frying briskly for a couple of minutes, just so you get the aromatics flavouring the lobster meat. Remove to another plate. Add the beansprouts and mushrooms back in, along with the noodles and the sauce mixture. Heat on a low heat, tossing everything together well, and add the lobster meat back in to warm through. Drizzle with another 3 tbsp Sichuan chilli oil.

Take off the heat, place on a snazzy serving dish, and maybe use a lobster head to garnish. Serve with tongs for people to help themselves. 

(I'm also cycling across Ghana in November for child.org; you can sponsor me here, if you so wish. I'd be forever grateful!) 

Banh Banh, Peckham Rye

When I was travelling around the South of Vietnam, I was besotted by the food there. Giant bowls of steaming hot broth came with tangles of noodles, and baskets of fresh glistening herbs to tear into, to season each mouthful. Each street corner was cluttered with ladies hunched over charcoal barbecues, wafting smoke lazily as skewers of meat sizzled away. Every scent was mouth-watering, and I found it almost impossible to go by several hours without a snack. 

Banh Banh has opened recently in Peckham Rye. Great! Near my house. Owned by Peckham-born Vietnamese siblings, the restaurant inside is light and airy, a small number of wooden tables, nearly all booked. The menu is short, concise and keenly priced, ranging across the ubiquitous summer rolls, through to noodle salads and pho. 

Banh khot pancakes (£9) pictured above are their speciality; small, crisp savoury pancakes, their predominant flavour is coconut. A large prawn nestles in the middle, and the idea is to wrap the pancake in lettuce and herbs, dip in a nuoc cham-based dipping sauce, and eat. It's a messy business, and unfortunately I didn't really get on with them. They were just incredibly bland.

Flock and Herd fish sauce wings (£6) were impressive for the meat's good provenance, but were not even comparable to ones better, such as Salvation in Noodles' version, or those of Smoking Goat. They were apologetic in flavour, lacking in a crisp exterior. We lost interest quickly. 

It was a very warm evening, so instead of the pho, we opted for the cold bun noodle salad (£9). This came with barbecued pork patties, a spring roll, julienned lettuce and cucumber, all to be mixed in with fried shallots, noodles and a fish sauce dressing. Once again, I found the flavours to be muted; it was all very mild and felt a bit generic. 

Better was the papaya salad, which had proper acidity and zing. The black sesame cracker was a nice touch, to pile the salad on to.  

Likewise too, the beef in betel leaves drew no complaints with us, and we happily munched away on these, drenching the vermicelli noodles underneath with more nuoc cham sauce. 

All in all, it was all a bit meh for me. I had expected fun and exciting things from a place that billed itself as 'Vietnamese street food', but actually everything felt a little tame. I really wanted to like Banh Banh, but there was just no magic. 

Banh Banh
46 Peckham Rye
London SE15 4JR

Dover Sole & Wild Garlic Nuoc Cham Noodle Soup

It's Spring! It's Spring! The evenings are getting lighter, the days longer, and ok sure whatever the weather is not getting any warmer but that's just round the corner. 

I get more excited about wild garlic than I do about asparagus coming into season. Asparagus you can technically get all year round - and apparently you are a very bad person if you buy the Peruvian stuff (though no one seems bothered that we're clearing them out of avocados for our trendy brunches) - but wild garlic is just a very short season, from around March to June. The leafy greens grow in woodlands, and are easy to spot; a pointed leaf that smells strongly of garlic. 

Apparently. I just buy it from the vegetable stall that sets up in the farmer's market in Camberwell, because Camberwell does not have any woodland, and quite frankly I can't be arsed to go find any. I won't begrudge them the £1 for going to do the hard work for me. 

When cooked, wild garlic wilts like spinach does, so I tend to use it raw to flavour things, like I did with this noodle soup. Here, I've used it instead of the traditional garlic cloves to make a spicy, salty, sour nuoc cham sauce, that's Vietnamese in origin. It's really lovely, this - a light, delicate broth that's flavoured with lemongrass and chilli, and for good measure I also simmered the Dover sole carcass in there, after I was done with filleting it, for a little extra depth. You can use any greens you like; a couple stalks of purple sprouting broccoli and some sugar snap peas were my preference. You can use white fish fillets of any kind but you may need to source some fish stock for the richness (a simmered hake head would do nicely).

Dover Sole & Wild Garlic Nuoc Cham Noodle Soup 

Serves 2

1 Dover sole, around 400gr, skinned and filleted (here's a How-To)
160gr dried flat rice noodles, cooked in boiling water until tender, and drained
1 stick of lemongrass
2 red birdseye chillis
A handful of greens, blanched and refreshed in ice water
4 tbsp fish sauce
1 tbsp sugar
Juice of 1 lime
A large handful of wild garlic
A drizzle of chilli oil (optional)

It's really an assembly job, this. Divide the noodles into individual bowls and garnish with the blanched vegetables. Meanwhile, in a large frying pan with a lid, add around 400ml water with the lemongrass stick, roughly chopped up, one of the red chillis, roughly chopped, and the dover sole carcass (but not the skin). Bring to a boil, then simmer for 15 minutes with the lid on. Add the dover sole fillets, simmer for 3 more minutes, then remove the fillets and set to one side. Place the fillets into the noodle bowls evenly. 

Mince the wild garlic by hand, and place in a bowl with the sugar, fish sauce and lime. Add the chopped chilli and mix well. Taste, and adjust if necessary. 

Strain the broth and bring to a hard boil, then pour evenly over the bowls of noodles. Plop a healthy tablespoon or two of the wild garlic nuoc cham on top, and drizzle with chilli oil if using. 

(For more recipes using Nuoc Cham, or other noodle soups, buy my book, Chinatown Kitchen.)

Phu Quoc, Vietnam

I worry about Phu Quoc. A mere hour's flight from Saigon, it sits off the Southern coast of Vietnam, near Cambodia. You can take day trips to Kampot and eat crabs stir-fried in black pepper. But Phu Quoc itself, a large island, is in the grips of construction. The main roads are being paved at speed, and new developments are sprouting. These are no trifling hotels either; from the work going on, they are going to be gigantic. The beaches are incredibly beautiful, and much of the island is dense jungle that has is a national park.

To the north of the island, Vinpearl has opened a giant, glitzy amusement park, garish and bright. Soon, Phu Quoc won't be the island life paradise it used to be, or still has current signs of. Get it while you can, because it really is a beautiful place. The sand is fine, the sea is clear and the food is good eating. I can't speak for the German and Russian restaurant, or the pizza places, or the curry house but I can tell you about roadside noodle restaurants and the night market.

Hire a pushbike or a scooter and get out to down-town Phu Quoc. It's frenetic and busy, with the market stalls selling fish, vegetables and meat. There's a lot of beep-beeping of scooters, vendors calling out to customers, shading themselves from the 35 degree heat. Metal and glass carts selling noodles or rice dishes were at every corner. We swerved splashes of water and ice used to keep the fish fresh, and pedalled past children on their way to school, piled high on motorbikes, sometimes three to the bike.

After a long morning exploring on our bikes in the blazing sunshine, we ate bun rieu, our t-shirts dark with sweat, by the dusty side of a bridge. The little old lady assembling the dish that was round noodles, a crab paste and lots of chives brought us glasses of cold tea, packed to the brim with ice to cool us down. 

We breakfasted often at a small café on the main road into downtown Phu Quoc, characterised by flapping bed sheets pinned up to keep the sun off the customers. Other diners had big bowlfuls of what looked like tripe and other innards, but the cook, already looking at us a bit wide-eyed, selected only the premium slices of beef for our noodles. I can't say I wasn't relieved, given it was our first meal of the day. A huge pile of chillies were passed around the diners, for you to take the chillis out and mash them in a saucer with lime juice. Some people just munch on the chillis straight up.

The night market, on every night, has an abundance of seafood. It's hard to know where is best to go, as by and large the selection looks pretty similar. It can be a bit overwhelming with people trying to convince you that theirs is the best, but we traversed the length and decided based on the number of diners.

We pointed to the dish the two local men sitting next to us were eating - what looked like a pile of salad in rice paper rolls, and we were given a plate of raw marinated anchovies mingled amongst it. The dreaded fish leaf was present and needed to be picked out, but otherwise I loved this; it was an enormous portion, but each bit had a different assortment of herbs. I've never seen rice paper like it; usually as with making summer rolls you need to dip them in hot water, but these were perfectly pliable and delicate without and needed but filling. Our local buddies next to us were impressed and started taking photos with us and of us. We smiled politely and concentrated on our rolling.

Huge prawns were split in half and grilled to just-done with plenty of garlic, and a lime-salt and chilli dip. Snapper was smeared in a garlic, chilli and sugar paste, to be barbecued in foil until caramelised, and eaten with rice. It was a wonderfully light, simple and delicious dinner, which cost just a little more than peanuts. We were told that prices at the night market were around 10% higher than local restaurants. It still doesn't come anywhere near breaking the bank.

The night market continues on to dessert stalls selling 'ice cream rolls', shaved ice drinks and then to clothes and souvenirs.

Wandering around one night round the back of the night market, we came across Oc Noc Quan on Ly Tu Trong street. We were immediately drawn by the barbecue going outside, and that nearly every table was packed with Vietnamese people with the odd foreigner here or there. We wedged ourselves in, amongst groups of lads cheers'ing big glasses of beer, and couples cooking on their own hot pots. Fish tanks with folorn-looking fish lined the back wall.

We ended up eating here twice out of our 4 nights, it was so good. Crispy noodles with seafood and vegetables were flavoured with a lot of black pepper, and the fried rice version was just as good. I think the dish cost £2. 

Clams with holy basil were sweet and delicious, cooked in a thick-ish sweet and tangy sauce. Lotus stem salad was an enormous portion and the building fiery heat made us gasp for water (beer). The couple next to us were carefully extracting whelks from their shells.

We asked for a barbecued fish, and our server pointed out one in the tank to us and the poor bugger was swept out of its prison. It reappeared 20 minutes later. I gave it a poke and was slightly disturbed to find it was still in its entirety. I flagged down our nice waiter and gave him a pleading look, and he deftly peeled back the charred and burnt skin, exposing the perfectly cooked flesh and avoiding any guts. We went from being aghast with our Western ways firmly in our heads, to admiring the ingenuity. This was served with that same rice paper, herbs and cucumber, and vermicelli to wrap it all up in, alongside a nuoc cham sauce to dip it into. One of my favourite ways to eat.

It wasn't all plain sailing; crab claws were obviously from frozen and had a mushy texture to them and were left largely untouched. Corn stir-fried with shrimp was tough and strangely dry, lacking in sweetness. But for a couple of duffs, we had some really great eating.

With a bloody great hangover, we ventured to the north of the island, to find an untouched beach mostly to ourselves, amongst fishing boats. It was perfect for my state of mind; I didn't want to be anywhere near anyone. Solitude was bliss.

I'd recommend doing this if you have a scooter, as it's a bit of a way in a taxi, without many to take you home again. We spent a very enjoyable day all on our own, with a quick break for lunch at a restaurant overlooking the ocean. 

The restaurant was full of Vietnamese families surrounding hot pots, each dipping their ingredients into the pot. Their meals went on into the afternoon, grazing as they went. We pointed to one of the hot pots blindly, putting everything in the hands of our waiter. 

It might seem crazy to be huddled cooking around a boiling pot when it's 34 degrees out, but once you're sweating you're arse off, you're sweating your arse off; a little hot soup doesn't make a difference. We got a huge basket of all manner of vegetables; chrysanthemum leaves, Chinese cabbage, morning glory and the like. A plate came with lots of different sliced fish, and a big bubbly thing we had no idea what was. We threw it in the pot and it turns out it was sea urchin, emerging from the pot looking rather like a deformed sponge. We poked at it, and feasted instead on delicately cooked fish and prawns, in a lemongrass-heavy broth, spooned over rice.

And so, after a few days of exploring, sitting on beaches and stuffing ourselves silly with seafood, it was on to Hoi An.

(I'd recommend staying at Phuong Binh House, where we stayed. Simple bungalows with decent A/C, and a good restaurant and beach location.)

Two Nights in Saigon, Vietnam

We landed at night, from a rainy Hong Kong that averaged around 17 degrees C. Ho Chi Minh City (or Saigon, as it's more commonly known) blasted at us at 36 degrees, meaning that just stepping out of the airport broke us into instant sweats. It was the epitome of culture shock; taxis tried to lure us from every direction, tugging at our bags, shouting over to us. The money was confusing and full of zeros (30,000 dong to the pound) and traffic was chaos. Everyone drives a scooter in Saigon, and the sheer volume of them, beep-beeping away was overwhelming. 

We stayed in an Air BnB right in the middle of backpacker land, in District 1. Have you been to the Khao San Road in Bangkok? It reminded me of that. Music pumped from the bars, and just walking down the street elicited people thrusting their wares at us, shouting prices, keen for attention. We were shell-shocked. We dumped our bags and headed immediately for a foot massage. Recommended by The Legal Nomads, we made our way over to Kien Chi Gia Foot Massage, 20 minutes away on foot, but this itself was no trifling matter. 

How do you cross the road? There are no zebra or pelican crossings. We had to do what the locals were doing - just walk out into the road, head up, with confidence and sure enough the scooters go around you. It goes against absolutely everything you were taught about road safety. An old lady took us by the hand and led us across, smirking. We were told later to make sure you don't make eye contact when you cross the streets - this confuses the drivers as to what your intention is. Just go. By the time we got to the massage place we were jibbering wrecks. Led to a darkened room with rows of leather seats, all taken up by silent customers, the foot massage was incredible. The back and shoulder combo also - but be warned, it does feel a little bit like being beaten up. They're not messing. 

We attempted to go to Com Nieu Sai Gon, much lauded by Anthony Bourdain and said to be one of the best restaurants in Saigon, but when we got there we discovered it was a rickety old shack that was decidedly shut. We later learned we were at the wrong one, and so we went to the correct restaurant on our stopover before heading north - verdict? Don't bother. Stick to the streets. 

Back to the present, with stomachs grumbling in a foreign land, we wandered around some very quiet streets and came across an absolutely giant restaurant, lined with fish tanks with all sorts of crustaceans. We jumped on a table. We soon realised that we were the only women customers in a restaurant full of raucously drunk men. After trying to up-sell us onto foreign beer and offering us seafood by the kilo, we knew we had to stand our ground with the waitresses and very firmly picked dishes from the menu with obvious prices. Hunger made us determined and blind to the stares. Steamed lemongrass clams were sweet and free from grit, finished with healthy bunch of basil used more like a vegetable than a herb.

Tiny baby shrimps stir-fried were to be the innards of summer rolls, assembled by ourselves. A red-faced man from a nearby table came to try to persuade us to join him and his friends, swaying on his feet and sloshing a beer around. We decided it was time to retire to the air-conditioned haven of home. 

The next morning, we had better success with finding our establishment of choice, Pho Thanh Canh. They've been serving pho for 45 years, and we didn't even have to ask before they furnished us with two bowls of steaming pho (pronounced 'fuh') with slices of beef, a giant basket of herbs, limes, chillis and beansprouts. I can't think of a better breakfast. It seems counter-intuitive to eat hot soup in such heat, but actually it makes you sweat more, thereby allowing you to cool down quicker. Whatever, I'm down with it. Pick a bit of herb for your mouthful, slurp it down, repeat. Sawleaf and basil are in abundance, again more like a vegetable than a garnish that we often associate with herbs. The broth was crystal clear and beefy, the note of aniseed shining through. It was properly restorative. It cost around £1.  

After a sweaty morning exploring the Independence Palace we went off in search of Banh Mi Huynh Hoa, reportedly the best banh mi in the city. It was closed. Unlike the rest of the city, who seem to eat lunch anywhere between 11am and 1pm, Banh Mi Huynh Hoa opens at 2pm into the night. Those delicious filled sandwiches would have to wait. Instead, we headed for a hole-in-the-wall filled with office workers, all sitting down to more noodle soups. 

Here, the herb basket was more of a salad, with slivers of banana blossom, mint leaves and chopped lettuce on each table. The noodles we had were bun cha ca (bun referring to the round noodles, ca being fish) and were made up of balls of minced prawn and fishcakes, sliced into the soup. We were having a brothy day. 

That evening, we were picked up by XO Street Tours for their night-time 'foodie' tour. We were drawn to this tour in particular as they advertise that they're the only operator to have accident insurance, and I love a bit of insurance, me. They're also all-female drivers, if that is the sort of thing that swings your decision-making. We jumped on the back of the scooters, white knuckles gripping on really tight as we weaved our way through the traffic. I was pretty certain of imminent death, but weirdly once you're immersed into the traffic it all just seems to make sense. The scooters flow around the pedestrians, and everyone is going slowly enough to be able to react. 

Our first stop was bun bo hue, a spicy beef noodle soup, while we met the other people on the trip. Here, the garnishes offered were more sophisticated than we were used to; a rich, dark chilli sauce, slivered banana blossom, and shredded greens.  

Wary of not filling up too soon, we abandoned our noodle soups 3/4s of the way through and jumped back onto the scooters. Our guides took us to the Chinatown market, and shimmied us through the open air stalls selling vegetables, fruit, meat and seafood. Just past sunset, it was full of people buying groceries, vendors yelling prices, transactions reached over from scooter to scooter. At each stop our guide talked us through which district we were in, and what it was known for, so we really got a feel for each of the districts we visited, something impossible to do by foot. We visited the posher District 3, where the apartments are new and shiny, as well as the poorer District 4 in stark contrast. Eventually, we stopped at a huge open-air barbecue restaurant, and small charcoal burning stoves were placed on the tables. 

We were not to do any cooking ourselves, and instead our scooter drivers diligently cooked up the food for us, describing what each thing was and how to eat it. It was here we discovered 'fish herb', Diep Cá
 in Vietnamese, here wrapping the grilled goat. We were told it is an acquired taste; it is not a taste I have acquired. It's disgusting. It's hard to describe, but it's slightly fishy, a bit metallic. From this point on we often found it lurking in dishes and one bite of it is enough to ruin a mouthful and have me reaching for water. Foul stuff.

We were given plates of grilled frog, complete with crisp skin, which tastes just like chicken with fish skin attached to it. We got stuck in but others weren't going near it. Skewers of prawns were barbecued and dextrously relieved of their shells with scissors, for us to eat like lollipops off the stick. 

Back onto the scooters we went, over a busy bridge to District 5 for seafood. On the way my driver asked me if I'd like to try balut, a speciality of Vietnam (called  trung vit long) and the Philippines. I knew exactly what it was and I knew exactly that my stubbornness would mean that yes I would have to try it. She had me in a bind. Firstly though, we had tiny barbecued scallops dressed with fish sauce, peanuts and coriander. Crab legs cooked on the barbecue were cracked open by our drivers and handed to us to dip in black pepper, salt and lime juice; it felt a bit weird to be effectively be fed morsels but I can understand that it might be intimidating for some. Still, I like to roll my sleeves up and get stuck in. 

I couldn't put it off for much longer. The steaming balut was placed before me and everyone peered at me expectantly. Balut is a duck egg which has been fertilised and the duck has started to grow inside it before being eaten by people like me. I tapped the shell open and was instructed to drink the 'soup' accumulated in the top - barf - which just tasted like eggy salty water. You could see the duck feather fronds in the egg whites. I had a mouthful or two but it really just tasted like a very eggy egg with some texture to it. 

We had more clams here, this time in lemongrass and spicy tamarind broth. I loved these, they were spicy but sweet and the broth was incredibly moreish. 

Besides shaved ice drinks with jellies and tapioca in them, I'm not sure Vietnamese desserts are up to much. This was coconut jelly, and we also had a caramel flan. We were offered more food, which I certainly would have gone for if they had been different to what we'd already eaten but for much of the same, I was satisfied. We really enjoyed the tour; afterwards it felt like Saigon made a lot more sense to us instead of the heaving, confusing mass it had been when we first got there. 

I'll admit it though, I still breathed a slight sigh of relief when we packed up to go flop on the beach the next day.

(At the other end of the country, my compadre Helen wrote about 24 Hours in Hanoi - well worth a read)