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…

Unexpected Beaujolais Nouveau 2009

When he handed me the bread, and I realized that it was warm, I thought, “this is too good to be true”. How can you have a Beaujolais nouveau day without a glass (or three) of Beaujolais? Someone with some power at SNCF (French national railroad) must have been thinking about this, or else it…

Sqala: the ultimate Moroccan breakfast

I asked the waiter to explain what some of the choices were. A lot of the words and names of dishes were things I had never heard of. I was trying to make sense of it all… “Or you can have the breakfast assortment.” My eyes widened as he told me all the things that…

Recipes for Port: Pork bellies (Rillons) and potatoes with strawberry/beetroot sauce and coconut milk

  Rillons are a Loire Valley specialty but resemble some of the pork dishes that the Portuguese seem very fond of.  We bought a cooked (boiled, not fried) chunk (2 inches long, 2 inches tall, 1,5 inches wide) and cut it into small pieces. In retrospect, we thought it would be even better to use lardons-smoked…

Domaine Sauvète “Méli-Mélo” Rosé de Touraine 2007

From a very obscure grape variety called Pinot d’Aunis, this Rosé is very pale in color. It is extremely mineral like the terroir it comes from, giving it pepper, and chalk dust. Low alcohol and its chalk dust make it digestable and quafable.  What do I mean by digestable? It is not heavy. You can happily drink…