weekend in hanoi part ii

Food
Ok, I shall skip to my favourite section. One of the top items on the travel agenda was eating well, and we wanted to sample food across various budgets. Hanoi is of course famous for Pho, and we tried two Pho restaurants. We also tried a variety of other cuisines.

Pho Truang
We picked up a brochure for this restaurant from the tourist info centre, which boasted as having the best authentic Hanoi-style pho. Overall the pho was cheap and good, no complaints. We had our great first bowl of pho here.

Pho 24
Located near the Temple of Literature, we recognised this from some of the travel guide recommendations and popped in to try it. Prices were comparable to Pho Truang (about 28,000VND-39,000 VND for a bowl of Pho), but Pho 24 also had meatballs which were missing from Pho Truang menu. We also felt the broth was superior, although the noodles were slightly less flavoursome. Overall, this was our preferred pho joint. (An interesting note, apparently Pho 24 is actually Southern Vietnamese style, which explains why they provided the accompanying dish of beansprouts and lime wear familiar with in Singapore, whereas Pho Truang did not.)

Bobby Chinn Restaurant
We passed by this restaurant on the way in from the airport, and recognised the name from cooking show fame. We came back the next day to try it for dinner, and had an excellent meal. The food was mainly western style, although they used many Asian spices. Bobby Chinn's quirky humour added to the overall great ambience, which also included red hanging drapes, lovely lighting and two complimentary morsels from the chef. Those certainly added to the experience! Overall the main courses were pretty good, desserts were chocolaty superb, the presentation was excellence par none, and the experience was one of the best I have ever had. (Of course, the great company helped too.) Total cost came up to about 30USD per person.

Scallop on Shell Green Tea Duck
Crab Trio (Soub, Cake, Salad)
Chocolate Mousse
Assorted Brulees (Vanilla, Lemon, Chocolate)

Bobby Chinn's Irreverant Menu

Emperor aka Club De L'Oriental
Emperor was the only Vietnamese restaurant in Hanoi given a 3-star rating by Frommers, so we had to hunt it down. And it was quite a hunt, because the restaurant had relocated to 27 Tong Dan St., Hoan Kiem District (Tel: +84 4-826-8801) as of early 2008. This just goes to show the pace of change in Hanoi now, because the 2007 Frommers review said it was under renovation at the time of writing!
The food there was excellent, with variations on familiar dishes such as chicken in lemon leaves, fried codfish and grilled squid in lemongrass. One interesting dish was the beef wrapped in the local equivalent of betal nut. Another superb dish were the summer rolls, supposedly rated "Best Summer Rolls" by the NYTimes. The best part was the price, which came up to only about USD20 per person, for probably the most delicious meal we had on the trip. The decor and ambience was also lovely, living up to the old name of Emperor with a very old majestic feel, although it didn't quite project the unique experience of Bobby Chinn.

Prawn Summer Rolls

Emperor Salad

Grilled Squid in Lemongrass

Fried Cod Fish

Beef in Betel Leaves

There has been much raving about Fanny Mae Ice Cream on the web. I just thought I'd state for the record that it was ok, but I didn't find it particularly outstanding.

to be continued ...

photos will be updated as travel partners' pictures become available

weekend in hanoi part i

The weekend in Hanoi was filled with memorable food ventures, although other explorations were slightly dampened by the city sauna. To pre-empt the inevitable "how was Hanoi" questions, as well as "what is good in Hanoi", I am putting down all my travel tips and recommendations here for posterity.

Flight and Lodging
We flew to Hanoi via Tiger Airways at a bargain price of about $200 per person, even though the oil price at that time was practically at its peak (Jul 08). We stayed at the Somerset Grand Hanoi, which is a serviced apartment under the Ascott group. It was an excellent apartment with three bedrooms, living room and kitchen, perfect for five people to live in luxury. The price came up to about S$60 per person per night.

Local Transport
Taxis in Hanoi are really cheap, so much so that the exact location of your hotel doesn't really matter. We could get to most places within the Old Quarter for less than 3 SGD, provided we took one important precaution. Ensure that the taxi's meter is encased by tamper-proof acrylic, otherwise a short ride that should be less than 2SGD could quickly become 6SGD. That is probably the most practical travel tip I can give anyone travelling to Hanoi, I'm surprised it wasn't stated in any of our guidebooks.

to be continued...

fat lament

I'm missing the biggest slimming event of the year.

While other Singaporeans are shedding pounts running 21km, I'll be gorging myself on pho and other yummy food in Vietnam, packing on the pounds. This is the great conservation of fats theory.

I felt guilty about not running the marathon, so yesterday I decided to go run on the treadmill. That's when I realised that for the first time, I can feel my belly flopping up and down with each step. Over the years I've watched my belly go from 8-pack to 6-pack to 2-pack to family pack and now, officially, spare tyre! I must be hitting middle age early :(

The problem is that no marathon means no reason to train, which means no motivation to run; which means get fatter and fatter. And I'm not particularly the most self-disciplined person when it comes to running either.

A casual observer would probably have wondered why yesterday, almost in mid-stride, I hit the stop button and abandoned the treadmill. I hadn't even hit 4km yet. But the truth was, I was just overwhelmed by the thoughts of the pork chop I was going to have after the run, and after a while I just lost patience with the run. Running is boring.

But to be fair to the pork chop, that was at least half my motivation for going to the gym anyway, so I shouldn't really blame him. And he totally lived up to my expectations. I should go to the gym more often!

i miss spontaneous

In a rare moment of rumination, I reflected back on some of my fond memories of spontaneous, care-free school days. One particularly memorable time was my final year spring break.

I can't remember why I had no plans that year, but at the last minute I joined a group of schoolmates travelling down to Daytona Beach and the Florida Keys. My university friends are by far the craziest and most fun group, and we tried everything from exploring old towns, sampling delicious food, and even sampled the MTV spring break experience complete with beach parties and crazy sorority girls getting body-painted for the cameras. What lingers most is the taste of the exquisite Key Lime Pie at Key West.

After a week in Florida, we still had a weekend, so a friend and I drove out to the countryside to ride horses for a day. That was pretty random, and lots of fun. That night, having nothing to do (Masters students do not care about homework), I ended up chatting with a friend in Yale over ICQ. She was rushing to finish a paper due early the next morning. Since I had never been to Yale, and she had no plans for the weeked, I decided it was time to visit. So I left at 11pm and reached about 5am, and spent the weekend exploring New Haven.

Fast forward a few years to working life, I can't decide to stay in bed if I feel lazy, I seldom make appointments in the evening because I don't know when work will end, and between work, family and wedding commitments, my weekends are booked out a month in advance. Life is so crowded these days, I miss spontaneous.

best ndp ever

Since I seem to have a tradition of blogging about NDP every year, it seems fitting to end a long silence with another NDP post. I would never voluntarily attend NDP, but this year I was compelled to go, and fortunately I was lucky enough to get one of the best seats in the house.
I must say I thoroughly enjoyed the show. Perhaps it may be because I've avoided NDP for the last few years, so I don't have NDP fatigue. The Black Knights were spectacularly, especially when they dived down on the crowd, and it was really cool how the entire stage backdrop became a huge psychedelic screen. I particularly liked the shadow Silat performance, and the singers were all really good. I liked the dancing as well, probably because they chose to showcase some individual performances rather than relying purely on the standard mass dance routines. Even the parade was great, especially hearing the gun salute in stereo for the first time. And of course, the fireworks were probably the most beautiful even, set against a lovely combination of the city skyline and the water.
It was only when it came to the singing of the national anthem that I realised, with a twinge of guilt, that I did not feel particularly proud to be Singaporean, or on some patriotic high. I felt bad, because I figured it was just cynical me.
But talking to many other people since, the main comment seems to be "no feeling". Some people attributed it to the jaded Singaporeans around them who refused to participate. Another said it was too artsy and the common person couldn't appreciate it. "They even took everybody's favourite song 'Home' and translated it into Tamil, how to sing along?? Why they do that??" So I guess it's not just cynical me then.
But despite all that, this was still the best NDP ever!