Hoi An
November 13, 2024
We booked two back to back tours in Hoi An, right after we finished our brief historic tour of Hoi An, we started our food tour. Our first stop was White Rose restaurant where we learned how to make the white rose dumpling. You can white roses at a lot of restaurants in Hoi An and those dumplings all come the White Rose restaurant. The staff makes thousands of dumplings per day. We got a demonstration and then taught how to make our own. Let’s just saw our white rose dumplings were not as pretty as those being made by the staff, but we enjoyed eating them.
We then stopped at another ancient house. The owner was talking about the house and how it had been in his family for generations. He has a workshop and creates silver jewelry, unfortunately, neither of use were interested in buy any jewelry. We did find a nice set of chopsticks which we bought and Sophon bought a couple of souvenirs for his family.
It was then on to try Cao Lau, a regional dish made with noodles, pork, greens and broth. Although it sounds simple, it is delicious. This is a legendary dish, guides and guidebooks will talk about how the recipe of the noodles is closely guarded by a single family, that the ash in the noodle comes from a tree grown on nearby islands and the water used to make the noodles is from an ancient well. There are even stories about the name, cao lau means “high floor”, where the more successful merchants sat while eating the noodles while keeping an eye on the streets below. Who knows how much of this is real and how much is folk lore, cao lau is good!
It was then on to Banh Mi Phuong for a banh mi sandwich. Banh mi is made with a crusty baguette-style bread, introduced to Vietnam by the French colonists, it is filled with a variety of savory ingredients including cold cuts, picked vegetables and sauce. There was a line out front of Banh Mi Phuong’s to order but we went in, found a table and ordered immediately. I wondered why this banh mi stand/restaurant was so much busier than the other ones we saw on the street and when I looked at the menu, there was a picture of Anthony Bourdain biting into one of Madam Phuong’s sandwiches and declaring it the best banh mi sandwiches in Hoi An.
I cannot say if these were the best banh mi sandwiches in Hoi An but the ones we had were delicious. I also couldn’t help but notice the price, the most expensive sandwich was about $1.50 and everything else was about a dollar.
To finish the night, we stopped at a local coffee shop before heading back to our hotel. I was stuffed.
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