Hanoi - more food

Here you can see some folks eating while sitting on the sidewalk on small stools - a common way to dine out in Hanoi. You can get citrus-flavored pork wrapped in banana leaves on the street, too (this one at a bia hoi joint). Also pictured is some fried beef noodles from the pho place, the best of all possible mojito worlds (a huge glass stuffed with lime and mint, it was incredible), and someone making rice paper for wrapping spring rolls. Ah, Hanoi - what wonderful food you have.

Hanoi - bun cha

Bun cha - one of the best meals I've ever eaten. You combine everything pictured into one wonderful dish. Aaaaah.

Hanoi - Quan An Ngon

We also went to Quan An Ngon, a great restaurant that has tables inside a circle of vendors selling street style food. You order from the wait staff and they take care of getting your food from the different vendors and bringing it to your table on one bill.

We were watching another table order and took a lot of their ideas - corn/grass jelly drink, grilled tuna steak, snail and green banana soup, and fresh spring rolls. We also tried the seafood fried rice, which had lots of nice squid pieces in it. We didn't try the escargot out of the shell they were eating, but got a picture mid-extraction.

Highly recommended!

Hanoi - Green Tangerine

We went to the Green Tangerine, a nice French restaurant in the old quarter of Hanoi set around the courtyard of an old house there. It was very fancy, but we're glad we splashed out for our lunch - it was delectable!

Sam had fish, I had duck, and for desert - creme brulee and chocolate mouse.

Hanoi - souvenirs!

A couple souvenirs we got - a wood stamp with our likenesses and names hand carved into them while we waited, and some weasel coffee. Weasel coffee is coffee that's passed through the digestive tract of a civet cat. The stomach acids of the civet smooth out the bitter notes in the coffee, and make for one smooth brew. It's pretty rare and a bit hard to find, so we figured we'd give it a whirl. The nice man assured us that the coffee we purchased was genuine, but we won't really know for sure until we try it. We tried some at the store, though, and that was definitely the real deal - the only time I've tasted such a smooth brew before was when someone gave me a sip of some Blue Mountain coffee. Yum.

sidenote: I'd rather not know how they go about collecting the coffee beans after they've gone through the civet cat. Eww.

Real men don't use power plugs

At least the wires have plastic on them because, you know: safety first.

Hanoi - power, then and now

Some folks in Hanoi still use coal fired stoves - here's what they look like once they've been used (the cylinders with the holes in them were coal). More typical is taking power from the wires, which get a bit jumbled on the poles around the city. I remember reading in an article in the local paper that up to 30-40% of such wires are either no longer used, or are 'self-installed' by folks looking to piggyback on the local utility lines.

Hanoi - water puppets

We went to a water puppet show in Hanoi - puppeteers stood in water behind a curtain, and manipulated puppets on poles in the water in front of them. The effect was puppets moving through the water unaided, and it was a lot of fun. The accompanying orchestra played and sang traditional Vietnamese music.

My favorite puppets were the dancing girls. At least I think they were dancing - they tilted side to side and waved their arms around. Maybe they were scolding the menfolk? Either way, they were great.

Hanoi - traffic

A bit of traffic around town - note the motor scooters everywhere, as well as the pedal-driven cyclos. Not many stop lights, and folks drive every which way - definitely a town to be careful in when crossing the street!