Spicy!

Before arriving in Hue, I was told that the food here was delicious but spicy. I'm no stranger to spicy food (though in my family I'm known as the wimp, among my friends I can hold my own), so I wasn't too worried. I had survived in spicy Malaysia after all! Plus, so far my experience with Vietnamese food never approached the too spicy range. However, upon my arrival, Mr. Phuoc (my boss) brought me to breakfast and taught my first Vietnamese words in Hue: không cay, meaning not spicy... which made me a little more nervous. When our breakfast arrived, the famous bún bò hue (spicy beef noodle soup), I realized that there was no exaggeration in the description of Hue food: the broth was rich, tasty, and even this "non spicy" version that Mr. Phuoc had ordered for me made my eyes water and my lips tingle. 

After almost two months of living here and sampling the local cuisine everyday, I never forget those two precious words: không cay! The locals find me hilarious, my friends tease me and say that I have the mouth of a baby, and I can't argue with that. This week I was invited by Mr. Loan's wife to eat bánh canh cá lóc (fish noodle soup), which has recently taken up the spot of my favorite Vietnamese soup (that's right, it's beaten out phở which I've loved forever!).  Also usual, I politely tried to explain that I couldn't deal with spice and asked for the kid's non-spicy version. She accommodated me with a smile and I received one of the best bowls of fish soup I'd ever had:

Despite being the kids' version, when I drank the broth carelessly I was still attacked by spice-induced coughing and teary eyes. The pain is completely worth it though, the fish is incredibly tender, the noodles are some kind of extra-chewy rice noodle perfection and the broth is crazy rich tasting. Then I glanced at my friend Yen's bowl:

She obviously didn't get the kids version! She then added even more chilli to her soup! I don't think it would even be physically possible for me to eat that... Though the extra color does look good!

And now, a completely frivolous addition: a picture of our cook with the best vintage glasses I've ever seen (this is an authentic Vietnamese hipster ladies and gents):

Bánh anyone?

This one is for all the foodies out there! Since most of you are my friends and family, that means there's a lot of you!! Here is my Bánh saga. First off, I just wanted to put out there that I first had the idea for this post at least a month ago and my over-ambitious idea was to take a picture of every single type of bánh available in Hue to share with you... it quickly became clear that this would never happen, so here are the ones that I did get a picture of, really the tip of the iceberg.

Bánh Mì

My next comment is my personal journey to translate the word bánh. Literally meaning "cake" when used alone, it means a whole lot of other things when combined with other words. The first bánh I discovered was on my first morning in Saigon when I learned that my favorite cheap lunch -- Vietnamese sandwiches -- are called Bánh Mì.

Nothing is ever simple in Vietnamese, so Bánh Mi also means baguette, and if you add "op la" to it you get a omelet sandwich (which is very tasty!). So ordering one from a bakery is never completely straight-forward. So my first definition of Bánh was "some type of cake/bread/whatever made from wheat". Makes sense no? Supporting this theory, in Saigon I got familiar with Bánh Bao (steamed bun with a surprise mix of eggs/veggies/meat inside that resembles Chinese steam buns), Bánh Xèo (a fried pancake type deal that you wrap in rice paper), Bánh Bò (small little spongy cakes that taste vaguely like coconut), Bánh Tien (deep fried dough pockets with lots of sesame seeds on them and surprisingly nothing inside)... and I'm sure I'm missing some. I lived on in blissful unawareness of the other dozens of types of Bánh that have nothing to do with wheat. And then one morning at Thuc's mom's restaurant I came face to face with Bánh Bèo, made from rice flour! Oh no... I then remembered that my favorite breakfast ever was in Dalat, and it was called Bánh Cuốn, definitely no wheat going on here:

Ok new definition! Bánh means dumpling! My mom has a theory that every single culinary culture has a type of dumpling, with the definition of carbs wrapped around some type of protein being our working definition of dumpling. In a stretch I could even include Bánh Mì in this category because after all the bread is the outside carbs and the ham (or egg, in the case of Bánh mì ốp la) the inside yummy-ness. This new definition worked very well during my discovery of many, many, rice-flour and tapioca-flour based Bánh in Hue:

Bánh ít, that's a deep fried dough with a chewy tapioca type boiled dough
on top, garnished with a mix of shredded fish and shrimps. Minh's favorite!

Bánh Nậm, my personal favorite among Hue's offerings!
Sticky, gooey, wrapped in a palm leaf, what's not to love!?

Bánh Sắn, tapioca starch with yummyred beans inside which makes it nice and sweet!

Bánh Lọc with palm leave wrapper

Bánh Lọc without the wrapper, the ones on
the left are boiled and the right ones are fried.

Bánh Ép, tiny tapioca-flour pancakes that you wrap around yummy
veggies and herbs, dunked in peanut sauce.

Bánh Khoai, very similar to Saigon's Bánh Xèo. This time no rice paper wrapper
and instead of fish sauce more peanut sauce that seems very popular in Hue.
Garnished with young mango and the ever present herbs.

Bánh Ram, a specialty from the city where Hao's older sister lives.
During Tết holiday I learned to make these and was then
promptly recruited to make a couple hundred!

Another version of Bánh Ram

So after another few months of blissful unawareness, thinking that bánh referred to a general dumpling type of food, I discovered Bánh Can, which for all intents and purposes is noodle soup! Oh well, I've given up!

Bánh Canh, made with Hao.

Good thing I gave up because I have since discovered that this huge chip thingny is also part of the bánh family. Forgot it's whole name though...

My conclusion? Bánh = yummy!