Traveling on an Empty Stomachs

 Little by little, one travels far. –  J.R.R. Tolkien

HANOI, VIETNAM

July 25 – 31, 2013

Day Three

• Orchid Cooking Class with Chef Tien
• Dinner at Nha Hang Ngon

Chef Tien

Orchid Cooking Class with Chef Tien

One of the best ways to learn about a culture is through their cuisine.  On our third day, we signed up to take a traditional northern Vietnamese cooking class at Orchid Restaurant (25 Hang Bac Str, Hoan Kiem, Hanoi, Vietnam) with owner, chef, and local food expert, Chef Tien.

The class begins with a basic introduction into traditional foods and a quick review of the menu you will be preparing.  After that, Chef Tien takes you on an adventure to the local food market to shop for main ingredients.  Next you are back in the kitchen to learn, cook, taste, share, and experience great food from start to finish.

Orchid Restaurant & Cooking School

At Dong Xuan market shopping for ingredients we needed for the class. Chef Tien steers us towards a lady selling balut (duck embryo) and encouraged us to try it. Jonathan takes him up on the offer and is quite surprised that it was better than his last balut experience…

Trying out chả quế; a delicious meat pate flavored with cinnamon, star anise and other spices.

Making phở tái; basically a whole day of work goes into making this delicious bowl of heaven…this particular bowl (with cooked beef and then topped with rare beef) was the best I’ve tried and yep, I helped make it! Secret ingredient…sea worms. Look no further, these add a depth to the broth that is hard to substitute (that’s why we smuggled some into the US…shhhhh).

Hanoi style Vietnamese spring roll and a seafood salad

Here we are making cha ca (pan fried fish with turmeric and lots of dill); this is a famous dish in the area and we made it with a twist…rapped up with romaine and rice paper.

I highly recommend this class.  Just the trip to the market with a local chef was worth the experience; learning to make all these wonderful dishes…was the cherry on top.  No, wait, eating them was the best part!  So what do you do after about 8 hours of cooking and eating.  Nap.  Guess what happened after that…  Yes, I was hungry again.

Dinner at Nha Hang Ngon

I don’t know how we actually do it.  Jonathan and I don’t eat like ravenous animals at every meal when we are at home but somehow we easily fit in enough food for a family of four at almost every meal when we travel.  I would be ashamed or embarrassed but I’m not…because we eat it all (or nearly so) every time.  There’s always this looming feeling that if we don’t try ‘it’ now we may never have the chance to…so we order and we order and we order.  Needless to say, I was not hungry the next morning.

When you encounter a menu the size of a novela, you get one of everything that is most appealing…and if you’re indecisive, just order it.

What a day!  We learned so much and enjoyed every waking moment.  Vietnam has so much to offer and if you aren’t convinced yet…stay tuned for part three, coming soon!  A little teaser… on day four we head off on an overnight trip to Ha Long Bay.