Eating Saigon

Beware: extreme food porn to follow.

My only real contact with true Vietnamese culture has been through food. In the late 1980s, as a young graduate architect in Orange County, California, I had befriended several Vietnamese émigrés who steered me through the culinary mysteries of restaurants of ‘Little Saigon’, a loosely defined community in Westminster and Garden Grove. Lots of soups, wonderful crunchy deep fried stuff using rice in a myriad of forms: straight up, noodles, broken, flour. Fresh and pungent herbs.

And that ubiquitous and iconic Vietnamese condiment, nước mắm, fish sauce. Mixed with lime and/or sugar, chilies, herbs it is a classic example of umami and you want to put it on everything, Whatever you order here in Saigon, a bowl of fish sauce accompanies. To simply call it a condiment like ketchup is insufficient; it is a catalyst to the amazing flavors of this cuisine.

My brief visit to Saigon on the simple task of finding great examples of just two classic staples of Vietnamese cuisine, pho and banh mi. These are actually relatively new dishes in the history of this ancient culture, but are wildly popular here and abroad.

Pho

I hope this whole internet thing catches on. Prior to arriving here, I did some research online to find where to get the best pho, mainly in Saigon District 1, preferably a short taxi ride away. Apparently defining who makes the best pho is like deciding what kind of Protestant you want to be- at the core its basically the same, just what kind of frills do you want.

I decided on Pho Hoa at the very north end of Louis Pasteur Boulevard. In the south, they usually eat pho in the morning, so I left the hotel after a somewhat staid continental breakfast, visited a dark, incense-fogged Taoist temple full of oversized scary god/men statues and walked the mile over to Pho Hoa. The sidewalk full of parked motorbikes was a good sign, and waiting for a table at ten in the morning on a Saturday also boded well. Simple and clean with stools and folding tables, this place is not about atmosphere. A stainless steel-surfaced box right off the sidewalk housed the small kitchen like a precious jewel and indeed this was the simple hearth from which the one product of this place sprung, soup.

Fortunately for us tourists, there is a picture menu of the varieties of pho. I point and grunt. In three minutes, a huge bowl of steaming rice noodles and beef in broth was plopped in front of me. Fine chopped green onions covered the surface like the North Pacific trash gyre. The customary bowls of bean sprouts, lime segments and fresh chilies were dropped as well. An enormous pile of fresh herbs as well, including my favorite, holy basil, with its slight anise flavor. Piling all that in, along with Hoisin and chili sauce, my bowl was filled to the top.

For me, soup is all about the broth. Screw that up and the dish fails. The broth of pho is a very long, slow process, working every bit of flavor from beef bones, beef pieces and oxtails. Roasted onions and roasted spices like ginger, cinnamon, star anise and cardamom part their wonderful tastes. The result is a perfumed rich liquid that stimulates the olfactories as much as the taste senses. I could taste the experience of the cook, focused as she was on basically doing one thing. And doing it well.

Eating pho is never elegant, involving much slurping. But doing as the locals, I hunched over and devoured.

Banh Mi

The classic Saigon sandwich can be found everywhere in the City. By triangulating a couple of local foodie blogs and TripAdvisor, I found the very close Bánh Mì Huỳnh Hoa. The store is so small it is basically just like a food cart with a fixed address. Cars and motorbikes stop and park illegally right in front to grab a sandwich. This is the closest to drive-thru fast food in the heart of Saigon yow will find, but serving something far beyond Mickey D’s.

Just as pho depends on a good broth, Banh mi relies, as do all sandwiches in my mind, on the quality of the bread. French colonialism taught the Vietnamese how to make exquisite breads and pastries, often- quelle horreur!- better than France herself. The baguette used by Bánh Mì Huỳnh Hoa differs subtlely from the French original. The crust is crunchy but thinner, prone to cracking under gentle pressure, like the vitreous sugar veneer of a crème brulee. The light fluffy mie inside has just enough body to support the sandwich innards, but with no real substance otherwise.

A rich paté was generously slathered along the bottom half. BBQ pork, a pork cold cut and dried shredded pork followed. Then pickled carrots and daikon radish, green onions, fresh herbs, a squirt of something like fish sauce or soy, some little but effing hot chili fragments. In one movement he wraps it in paper, bags it and ties a rubber band around it. He gives it to me as I handed over the 30,000 dong to him. Yeah. A dollar eighty for this sandwich I travelled 20 hours to enjoy.

A mouthful of this sandwich simply has everything going. Sweet, salty, bitter, spicy, herbaceous, crunchy, smooth, umami. Heaven.

  

I also had Bánh xèo, a fried rice flour pancake 

stuffed with shrimp and pork.

A Brief Paris Trip

Sometimes you Embark on a Journey. Other times you take a trip. This was a trip.

In for the Kill

One of the most anticipated moments of the Nicaragua journey would concern the Big Feast marking the end of the coordinated efforts at Playa Gigante, before the Rotary/Rotaract group would disperse; either back to the States or elsewhere in the country.

Mind you the anticipation was not for the evening feast that would bring forth a hundred rugrats from every nearby village.

All the baited expectancy was for the slaughter of the pig that would be roasted for the Feast.

For the locals, as well as for most rural subsistence cultures, this is a fairly routine, albeit infrequent, event. Diets do not often include proteins like pigs or cows; rice and beans are the staples here, sometimes accompanied by chicken or freshly-caught fish. For us, the prissy American suburbanites, the sole hazard of obtaining meat is encountering depressed temperatures at the supermarket refrigerated section.

The Killing Crew and Victim: David, Greg, Mario and Charlotte

 I have heard for months how Mario and Greg were to slay the little oinker, that it would be Greg himself who would plunge the final knife blow directly into that little porcine heart. But in the past few days, David had also expressed wanting to participate in the offing. Thereupon a plan of sorts was hatched: David would stun the beast by clubbing it on the head; Mario would help hold the animal down and Greg would deliver the final stab. Theoretically, it would all work so swiftly, humanely. Theoretically.

The morning of, I arrived at our hosts’ home to find the Rotaractors sorting clothing, sports equipment, toiletries and school supplies for door-to-door distribution that morning to the people of Playa Gigante. This would be accompanied by Rotaractors’ assistance in water treatment in the form of spiking domestic water wells and tanks with a purifying powder.

Unfortunately, the medical team did not arrive at the appointed 8:00 a.m. Nor at 9:00 a.m. Nor 10:00. The ensuing idle time invariably refocused on the impending slaughter. Plans of attack were offered up; roles were checked and rechecked; the group was divided into participants and spectators who would watch the swelling scene from a safe distance. High Noon would commence the ritual (which we have come to learn in Nicaraguan time actually is around 1:00, but more likely 3:00).

Charlotte (that is Dale Jaedtke’s nom de porc) arrived about 11:00 a.m., protesting noisily. With Charlotte tied to a tree, Mario spent time charming and relaxing the pig, as Mario is apt to do. David prepared his role by repeatedly hitting a tree stump with a mallet. Over and over again. Much to the amusement of us spectators. Then more waiting.

The arrival of the local slaughter crew signaled: Time to Kill.

The rapidity of what next occurred stood in sharp contrast to the lounge languid morning. Dale and I scrambled closer to the surf to video and photograph respectively. David, in his green Rotaract shirt, stood briefly and muttered a prayer, while next to him Greg fashioned a bandanna into a quasi-warrior’s headband (the overall incongruous effect, however, was more that of a stubble-faced sushi chef). The tropical sun glinted off his butcher knife. David walked down to the pig, quietly ensconced by the large shade tree that roofed our beach patio. Alongside and facing surfward in the same direction as the pig, David again took practice swings, striking air some two feet above the head of the cowering Charlotte. Then he dropped his shoulder and delivered the blow, square to the broad forehead. Charlotte recoiled back on all fours and launched a guttural scream that broke the sedate surf-serenaded scene; a wrenching pig howl of fear and surprise; a veritable ‘WTF!” of Pig Latin pissoffedness. The pig reacted swiftly, trotting south a few feet, still tethered. Mario grabbed the mallet from David and delivered another glancing strike, again sending Charlotte running until restrained by the limit of her ever-tightening noose. David, having collected himself ,again took the mallet and delivered the effective blow: down she went to her right flank, her body convulsing in rolling spasms not unlike bacon jumping and sizzling in a hot pan.

This was Greg’s cue. He positioned himself astride the quivering Charlotte, towering as the Rhodian Colossus over his harbor. He positioned his knife flat to the plane of the ribs and deftly inserted at the site where he and Mario determined to be best: the heart. A squeal. Knife retracted and reinserted. One final, demur porcine protest, a spurt of blood, another plunge of the knife, this time alongside Mario’s dagger, and Charlotte lay still.

A poignant moment as pig became pork.

 David delivers the first blow.

 Mario delivers the second blow.

 

Greg stabs the first time.

 Mario stabs with his dagger..

Greg, triumphant.

 Dinner!

Los Niños de Playa Gigante

Ventura Rotaract adopted the Humberto Amador School in Playa Gigante. Besides giving out supplies and fixing up the school, we got to interact with the kids. Children are truly the same everywhere, even in poor remote communities.

Backpacks, Dentistry and Dignity

The first full day in Playa Gigante would have to happen on  very little sleep because of the travel mishaps the night before. The van had dropped Mario, Krystal and myself off at our lodge sometime after 2 a.m., but apparently hit another large and more problematic water hazard about a quarter mile further up the road. The remaining group, made up mainly of Rotaractors had to struggle to free the van, requiring a lot of mud, a flat tire and unloading of the ton of luggage on top. When finished the crew went to bed only after 5 a.m.

On the Road

So just a few hours later we were piling into vehicles to head out to the Escuela Humberto Amador about a kilometer inland, a school that serves the rural area north of Playa Gigante. The building is a simple rectangle of one classroom and two smaller auxiliary spaces; a barebones reinforced concrete framework infilled with brick, jalousie windows, and metal grates and roofed with corrugated sheet metal over lightweight metal trusses. Dangling cables from the roof belie a former lighting system, but the building stands powerless today. Two outbuildings stand nearby; one, a neglected two stall outhouse with broken doors; the other a non-functioning covered well structure.

The  major project of the Rotaractors was to help fix up the school; repair more than a dozen broken desks, bring the well and bathrooms to a decent state. We would return at another day to make the big repairs. This visit was mainly to interact with the kids. They also brought backpacks with school supplies and other goods to outfit the kids and teachers, took Polaroids of the kids to create an art project and helped the children to plant a new vegetable garden.

After the school, we packed fifteen of us into a Toyota Land Cruiser for a 15 kilometer hot, bumpy and dusty ride, most of us crammed in the cabin, but Eric and Dale hanging for dear life out the back. It was simultaneously comedic and painful.

We arrived in Tola where we Rotarians delivered a portable dental unit to the medical clinic there, which was our group’s big effort, spearheaded by Mario, who is our International Service Chair. This clinic serves a vast rural area, including Playa Gigante. Those needing medical attention must make the arduous overland trip here. It is our hope that the portable dental unit would allow the medical staff to deliver services out in the field, thereby improving access. The estimate is that close to 1200 people may be served annually this way.

Mario and Dale demonstrated the unit to the chief dentist there and the staff was effusive in their thanks. Hopefully this is an early step in a long term relationship with this community that can lead this area ultimately in a self-sustaining effort to improve their health and well being. A hand up rather than a hand out, it seems.

I am a Rotarian because of efforts like this, where we get the opportunity to do something as a collective to help others prosper in their lives as we have in ours. It is always wonderful to see the younger members of the group passionately involve themselves in the work.We have had some wonderful discussions already, among Rotarians and Rotaractors, about what exactly does it mean to do ‘good.’ How do we know if what we are doing for the Nicaraguans is good for them? How do we know if we are misapplying what we think is good for them, rather than resources that may prove more beneficial? We are a very different culture for certain. To some extent, Rotary does rely on local knowledge to help us plan the nature of our aid. How can I make this more about them than about assuaging my middle class guilt?

I have to believe that I can distill some basic notions that allow my life to have the dignity to which we are universally entitled. Access to education, access to clean water and safe food, available basic health care. Because when we have dignity, we will work for what we want, we will aspire, we will fight.

This is not political or religious or cultural. It’s human. I want to look at one of these kids in the face here in Playa Gigante and show, in some way, that I respect him, that I respect his dignity. Sure, we are bringing him backpacks and books, a portable dental station, but I hope that can be the lasting effect of my brief time here.

Mr. Toad's Wild Ride

I made it to the airport in Managua with Rotarians, Rotaractors and friends. The excitement is palpable as we wade through a relatively easy customs. And out into the warm, humid Nicaraguan evening.

The van/bus stood tall in the airport parking lot, made even taller with the 800 lbs. of donated goods  stuffed into duffels lashed to the top rack. The van size was ideal to hold the entire crew inside, so I was looking forward to getting to know the rest of the group a little better. The fifteen of us settled in for a three hour overland journey to our coastal destination of Playa Gigante. We were told to expect roads of decreasing quality as we forged south from the sprawl of Managua towards the Pacific near the Costa Rican border.

It is somewhat unimpressive to travel in a new place in the dead of night. Nicaragua, after all, is prized for its natural beauty. The darkness here is thick and enveloping. Streetlights are not a priority in a poor country, as is any general illumination. Lit by a half moon, flashes of the countryside are revealed through broken clouds and spots of rain. Faint silhouettes of volcanoes are the only distant objects.

On the outskirts of Masaya, Dave Russian, our host, had set up a late dinner at a typical eatery, serving up platters of barbecued meats and vegetables. “What is this?” and “Have you tried these?” gave way to “Oh that’s good!” and “Damn I’m full” washed down by the national beer, Toña. Lots and lots of Toña.

First Dinner in Nicaragua

Back on the bus, true to expectation, the road began to degrade and narrow. The van hurtled down the road when possible making good time, the pronounced darkness broken by flashes of naked, cold, white halogen bulbs that seemed to illuminate only a few feet in any direction. But then a few doglegs in the town of Tola sent us down a dark dirt road for the last 18 km. stretch of the journey, “Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride,” someone insisted.

Prior to this, the mood in the bus was as to be expected after a big, well-lubricated meal. An arbitrary soundtrack of ‘80s synth-pop, Lionel Ritchie ballads and a karaoke-butchered Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger” buoyed the mood of the bus as did the continued presence of our newly-befriended acquaintance, Toña. Some succumbed to the weariness of a long day’s journey, while others continued boisterous conversations about travelling, food, our schedule; all tinged with anticipation. Well after midnight, as the bus began negotiating the dirt road, the mood began to sober a bit as we watched the driver begin to deftly ford washouts and ephemeral streams caused by a heavy rain some four days prior. Some were simple rivulets, some were more flowing, but the driver, in every case, would pause the van, assess and tack the bus accordingly, followed by our cheers for the driver’s bravado in the face of Mother Nature. Until we reached Il Lago Grande.

The next half hour is a comedy that will only someday be truly appreciated. Lit only by the van high beams, Dave, Greg and the driver waded into the lake to plot a path through the muddy water to the continuation of the road some thirty feet to the right. Eric and Zach stood lakeside to advise, while Mario, Dale, David, Rachel and I hung outside the van.  A bit of frustration crept in, no doubt propelled by being only about a mile from the end of our journey. Greg, standing in the middle of the lake, insisted we could make the crossing. The driver fretted about the low position of his alternator that would die in the deep water. Some suggested Dave head down to his house and pick up the four-wheeler and transport the group and all our goods down the road piece by piece. Dale wanted to highjack the damn bus and drive it across, come hell or high water. Literally.

The final solution? Lighten the load! All the menfolk off the bus! Off with shoes and socks. We waded through the muddy water and rocky lakebed as the van gunned, hesitated  and charged across successfully, the sound of the front bumper hitting a submerged rock giving the only concern. The cheers were more halfhearted this time. The triumph of fording Il Lago Grande, mixed with the fatigue of a long days travel and discomfort of muddy feet did me in. Within twenty minutes we were at our forest hacienda and I collapsed into the bed, lullabied by the insistence of the crickets and cicadas and the drone of the air conditioner.

I don’t recall dreaming last night. I was so tired. But I can’t imagine any dream more ridiculous than last night’s Wild Ride.

Morning in Playa Gigante