Bakery
26 Jun 2008

Bon Bon Bakery – Ho Chi Minh City

Filed Under:

6 Comments

Bon Bon Bakery (19 Ba Thang Hai, District 10) is a lovely sweets shoppe that The Astronomer and I discovered when we first moved here. It’s located near my old place of employment so we used go quite often during our 1.5 hour lunch break. These days, we only swing by when we’re in the neighborhood shopping at Maximark, a western-style grocery store that carries the essentials like peanut butter and cereal.

This family-run shop isn’t much to look at, but they whip up great Vietnamese cream puffs (banh kem su) for 3,000 VND. The outer shell is light and airy, while the vanilla custard filling is creamy, sweet and chilled. Each puff is stuffed to order, so the shell never loses its nice texture.

The pineapple tartlets (top picture) with sticky preserves are quite addictive, especially at 2,000 VND a pop. I have always adored Vietnamese pineapple preserves (mut thom) because it’s so ridiculously sweet. The pastry tones down some of the jam’s intensity, which helps me to consume more tartlets overall. Bon Bon also makes coconut tartlets, but I’m too enamored with the pineapple ones to try them.

After my trip to Hong Kong, I’ve been on the lookout for egg tarts. I’ve only tried two Saigon varieties thus far—one from Pham Nguyen Bakery that was mediocre and another from here. Bon Bon’s egg tarts aren’t kept warm like those in Hong Kong, but if they were, they’d be almost as tasty. Just out of curiosity, I asked the baker where her recipe came from. She didn’t give me an exact answer, but she said that egg tarts are a Vietnamese dessert. Ohhh, are they?

Chinese
25 Jun 2008

The Astronomer’s 24th

Filed Under:

9 Comments

This past weekend, we celebrated The Astronomer’s big 2-4. There are a million and one spirited things to do in Saigon, but when it came down to it, all The Astronomer wanted on his special day was to gorge on dim sum, consume local libations and sing his heart out. Oh, he also wanted to hang out with babes. Lots of babes.

The babes came into the picture early in the morning. While we were waiting for our friends to arrive for dim sum at the New World Hotel, we saw a bunch of Miss Universe pageant contestants who happened to be staying there. Check Miss Adventure’s site for the full babalicious recap. According to Hawk, Miss Korea is a fox.

Here’s the birthday boy posing in front of a flat screen TV advertising the dim sum special at the Dynasty restaurant that we took advantage of. Only $4.99 for all you can eat! Awesome deal.

Here’s what we ate. The har gow AKA shrimp bags were excellent, as were the tripe, banh cuon and fried turnip. The Astronomer’s favorite were the deep fried dumplings doused with sweet and sour sauce. The food was good, but the service was shoddy for a five-star. In a way, dim sum wouldn’t be dim sum without terrible service, right?

 

Here is Vernon’s lovely Vietnamese teacher Hanh posing with Miss Vietnam. By the way, Miss Vietnam is wearing heels. Really high heels. And Hanh is short.

After dim sum, The Astronomer and I went home and passed out. Then we went running. Running post-dim sum is one of the grossest things ever. When evening rolled around, our friends gathered at our apartment for late night festivities. First stop, sidewalk seafood!

This no-name joint on Ton That Thuyet Street in District 4 (which we’ve visited a number of times before) attracts a fun local crowd and stir-fries up some mean seafood, especially the clams with tamarind sauce. They also make and bottle their own liquor. Who knows what was in it, but let’s just say that it did the job nicely.

 

Good friends, good food and good spirits. What could be better?

Two Cathys and one shot.

 

Hot vit lon. Our Vietnamese guests Hanh and Vuong placed an order for fetal duck eggs in tamarind sauce, so I had one too. Mmm! I mean it. We also ate clams with garlic, blood cockles with tamarind and grilled shell fish with scallions and peanuts.

 

Group shot minus Nina.

After dinner, we hopped a cab and zoomed to New Karaoke in District 3. Hanh made us reservations so when we arrived our room was ready to go!

I got the party started with a sweet sweet performance (if I do say so myself) of “Dress You Up In My Love” by Madonna. The lyrics appear on the flat screen, while the music blares from a fairly advanced sound system. The most awesome part was the video footage that accompanied the lyrics. Instead of a lame music video, there were scenes of Vietnam—Hue, Hanoi, Saigon! While I was belting out Madonna, Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum popped up. Awesome, right?

Oh, and the other super-cool thing about singing karaoke in Vietnam is that your performance is rated afterwards. I scored a 92 with my Madonna performance and a 100 with “Gangsta’s Paradise”!

 

Here’s The Astronomer cheerily singing “Drive My Car” by The Beatles. He scored in the high eighties for this performance.

Here is Hanh singing a Vietnamese number. Later in the evening she treated us to a performance of “Itty Bitty, Teeny Weeny, Yellow Polka Dot Bikini.” How come all Vietnamese people know that song?

And one last shot of the birthday boy (holding a shot).

Saigon
24 Jun 2008

Vegetation Profile: Chayote

Filed Under:

6 Comments

The chayote (Sechium edule), also known as choko, chocho, chow-chow, christophine or merliton, is an edible plant that belongs to the gourd family Cucurbitaceae along with melons, cucumbers and squash.

In the most common variety, the fruit is roughly pear or apple shaped, somewhat flattened and with coarse wrinkles, ranging from 10 to 20 cm in length. It has a thin green skin fused with the white flesh, and a single large flattened pip. The flesh has a fairly bland taste, and a texture described as a cross between a potato and a cucumber. Although generally discarded, the seed has a nutty flavor and may be eaten as part of the fruit.

Although most people are familiar only with the fruit, the root, stem, seeds, and leaves are all edible.

The fruit does not need to be peeled and can be eaten raw in salads. It can also be boiled, stuffed, mashed, baked, fried, or pickled. Both the fruit and the seed are rich in amino acids and vitamin C.

The tuberous part of the root is starchy and is both eaten by humans and used as cattle fodder.

The leaves and fruit have diuretic, cardiovascular and anti-inflammatory properties, and a tea made from the leaves has been used in the treatment of arteriosclerosis and hypertension, and to dissolve kidney stones.

Truth of the matter is, I don’t have much experience with chayote or trai su su as they are called in Vietnamese. The Astronomer, Nina and I recently ate some julienned stir-fried chaoyte at a restaurant specializing in Sapa cuisine. My grandma makes a similarly simple stir-fry using bits of minced pork and shrimp and of course, fish sauce. Other than these two dishes, I’m all tapped out of Vietnamese culinary uses.

In terms of western eats, my good friends at Epicurious.com have some very intriguing uses for chayote including recipes for chayote and hearts of palm salad, chayote soup with lemongrass and ginger, sauteed chayote with garlic and herbs and creamed chayote with chives!

My, my these little guys are versatile. How do you like your chayote? With a coyote?