A six-hour layover in Singapore, the airport so near the city, we decide to go into town for dinner and head to Maxwell’s hawker center in Chinatown. The place is the size of a large gymnasium, open on all sides with three rows of stalls, running down the length and tables spread out in between…
Category: Asia
What are we drinking in Vietnam?
Forget about wine. There is no wine here. Most people haven’t even heard of wine and wouldn’t know how to serve it if they did. Not that I hold it against them, they have other priorities. It used to be that you could buy bottles of Dalat wine from ambulant push cart merchants on street…
fresh spring rolls @ Ben Than Market
She makes it in front of my eyes within seconds. It looks so easy. Rice paper, noodles, shrimp, and a tiny slice of chicken. Roll, tuck et voila. Some herb that I have never seen sticks out of one end. You need the sauce; otherwise the roll is a little dry. The sauce is thick….
Big Ben Than Market Saigon
It’s a mistake to walk into Ben Than Market through the front. You’d never think there was anything BUT aisles and aisles of t-shirts and counterfeit bags of all big brand names you can imagine. Engulfed in sea of textile and trinket stalls, hands reaching out, grabbing my arms and back to draw me in…
that little market in Saigon
Its time for breakfast. And we are in the streets of Saigon with a mission: find the little street market we’d liked so much the last time we visited Saigon a couple of years ago. Even with a good sense of direction, in a constantly changing and developing country like Vietnam, finding the past is…
truck stop lunch in Phan Thiet
Just booking the car is an adventure. How long does it take to drive from Saigon to Nha Trang? Everyone we speak to has a different answer. “The roads are good, you can drive fast. 4hrs.” “The roads are only good part way. 8hrs”…. The little lady we finally book with seems to know her…
Vinh’s nem
One night in Nha Trang, Vinh took us home to his flat for some dinner. He’d made chicken and rice soup, but on the way home he stopped off to pick up an appetizer, as non-eventfully as we might stop off to pick up some bread. Once home, he sat us down in his living…
Laksa for breakfast
Empty street of Chinatown in Singapore Our flight out of Singapore is early on Sunday and Chinatown is virtually empty when we wander through looking for some breakfast. We stand at a cross roads thinking about our options: eat at that corner place that looked average? go back to the hotel? …. And then The…
Singapore Noodles
Just throw it all in there. Thin noodles. Bits of pork. A little bit of shrimp. Some egg. A few greens. And a little bit of spice, but nothing aggressive, just aromatic. This is snack in Chinatown after finally arriving in Singapore. A journey that should have taken about 15 hours ended up taking 45…
way before the crack of dawn…morning market Sanur
I wish I’d caught her name. Our little waitress of the night before. The one who had served our Balinese tasting menu at the Wantilan Café She could see that we were curious, so she spent a lot of time speaking to us. It was she who told us about the morning market at Sanur….
Street life Ubud
off of monkey forest road
Belated Vietnamese Postcard
Little lady selling sweet soy pudding My first trip to Vietnam was in December 2007 (less than a year ago). It was a trip that had a huge impact on many aspects of my life, but probably most importantly, my taste life. (That 1st trip was before I started this blog and it inspired the…
Chinese breakfast in Singapore early saturday morning
After a 13 hour flight, and a 7AM arrival in Singapore we wanted some exoticism. And we found it by going straight to the chinese quarter. Dim sum keeping hot on the heated cart. Pork and Shrimp dim sum. What did we have with it? Tiger. Because it was hot and our bodies had…
Salt Pepper Lime
Salt, pepper and lime is a sauce that they make in Vietnam to go with all sorts of fish dishes. It is so easy to do and makes any fish taste electric. Squeeze a quarter of a lime on top of ground salt and pepper (black pepper is necessary, but I like to use a…
Saltpepperlime 