Gastronomy Blog by Cathy Chaplin

Restaurant Review

10 Sep 2007

Wonder – Da Nang

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August 25, 2007
Cuisine: Vietnamese

160 Le Loi Street
Hai Chau District, Da Nang

Phone: (0511) 824134
Website: none

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“Mango Yogurt”

Trung Opla – eggs sunnyside up with baguette

Banh Mi Bo Kho – beef stew with baguette

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Our first meal in Da Nang was at Wonder, a trendy cafe around the corner from East Meets West headquarters. Our colleague Craig from Oakland highly recommended the place and joined us for a quick breakfast before we headed off on our staff retreat.

The atmosphere at Wonder is quite Western—complete with high tables and chairs, loud music, and multiple flat screen televisions playing an Eagles concert. I think The Eagles are Vietnam’s favorite rock band. If it weren’t for the food and service, we would have thought we were dining back in the states at a Hard Rock Cafe.

Not in the mood for anything too heavy, I ordered a mango yogurt. What arrived resembled a smoothie and tasted like a fruity and frothy cream cheese. The “yogurt” was a huge letdown. Luckily, The Astronomer found it pleasant and drank most of it.

For my second attempt at breakfast, I decided to go with a more traditional offering, trung opla. The egg whites were deliciously crisp around the edges, while the yolks were runny and perfect for dipping my baguette. After a disappointing start, the trung opla more than made up for the weird yogurt rendition.

The Astronomer’s banh mi bo kho was executed superbly as well. The stew’s deep, meaty flavor really perked him up early in the morning.

The food and ambiance at Wonder is festive, but I’d much rather scour the streets for eats than return here again even though prices were fairly reasonable. Who wants to be hip and cool in Vietnam? Certainly not me.

Airplane Food

06 Sep 2007

Vietnam Airlines

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Airplane Food

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Remember the mean things I said about United Airline’s food offerings? Well, I take them all back. I would have eaten their humble cuisine any day over the nastiness served up by Vietnam Airlines on our short flights to and from Da Nang.

From Saigon to Da Nang, the snack box contained a pre-fabbed cha lua sandwich, a package of snack mix, and water. The sandwich was smothered in mayonnaise, which grossed The Astronomer and I out completely. To be fair, the bread was sorta kinda whole-wheat-y, which was a nice touch. The snack mix contained savory Captain Crunch, dehydrated peas, and cashews.

While it’s hard to fathom, the food on our flight home was actually worse. We received a pate sandwich with a slice of cucumber and wilted lettuce leaf on a white bun. The Astronomer thought the pate resembled dog food. Neither of us could bring ourselves to take a bite.

Hue

05 Sep 2007

Vegetation Profile: Jackfruit

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Jackfruit is the largest tree-borne fruit in the world, reaching 80 pounds in weight and up to 36 inches long and 20 inches in diameter. The exterior of the compound fruit is green or yellow when ripe. The interior consists of large edible bulbs of yellow, banana-flavored flesh that encloses a smooth, oval, light-brown seed.

There are two main varieties. In one, the fruits have small, fibrous, soft, mushy, but very sweet carpels with a texture somewhat akin to a raw oysters. The other variety is crisp and almost crunchy though not quite as sweet. This form is the more important commercially and is more palatable to western tastes.

While strolling around Cho Dong Ba (Dong Ba Market) in Hue this weekend, The Astronomer and I spied a woman selling jackfruit and immediately bought 10,000 dongs worth. Both varieties (mushy and crunchy) were available for purchase; I prefer the crunchy kind. We received two good-sized chunks of jackfruit with the outer peel removed.

I’ve been eating jackfruit all my life, but always the canned, syrupy version with seeds removed and pre-sectioned. Eating the fresh stuff was a tastier, albeit messier, experience. I found the flavor of fresh jackfruit perfectly sweet and the texture stringier than its canned counterpart. The seeds were huge and slippery, but not burdensome like watermelon seeds.

Although we were hoping to bring our fruit back to Saigon, Da Nang airport security made us down ’em before our flight home. Hopefully we’ll be able to procure some jackfruit in our neck of the woods.