Of course it's only food but....

I had a feeling it's not going to be too long before food is the subject. I would not be me otherwise.
Food is everywhere in Ha Noi, perhaps you have seen photos of people sitting on itsy bisty stools eating away while thousands of mopeds puttered by.

Well, count me as one additional stool sitter-eater. Every morning so far I have eaten beef pho, chicken pho, noodles with grilled pork, noodles with pig feet and congealed blood (sounds icky but delicious to Asians), noodles with shredded stuff, noodles with ground crab patties, sheets of noodles and roasted pork.
As you can tell noodles and pho are everywhere, yet each one is different from the next.

As a side bar the last time Essie and I was in Ha Noi we followed our noses and trailed a wonderful aroma of pho broth down an alley one evening and found a number of large pots simmering away on a sidewalk and yes, every available space is use for something in the city.

Unfortunately for us the broth is for the next morning pho. Well I found it this time in the morning without looking for it. The broth was as delicious as we had imagined but to my chagrin the noodles were mealy after being overcooked and expensive to boot.
How expensive you may ask? A typical bowl of pho, noodle soup or what have you on the street usually cost 20,000 dong, the equivalent of about one dollar and five cents. This one cost 30,000, a whopping 50% costlier and adding insult to injury, an inferior bowl.

Today I moved to a long stay hotel provided by my company for the next two months leaving behind the intensely busy Cathedral neighborhood. This part of town, curiously, is filled with Japanese/Korean restaurants and Karaoke bars.

I found an upscale Vietnamese restaurant - Hoang Yen - Redefining  Tradition is their catch phrase. The decor is one of the most gorgeous so far in Ha Noi with quite a few private rooms where it seems the young "it" crowd have reserved. Redef...Trad...is nothing but a couple of words. The food was so poorly prepared that the cooking staff should be forced to apprenticed at one of the street food stalls to learn how to cook.
There were seven front of the house staff hoovering in the foyer working hard at looking busy, far from the actual concept of being gracious, the management can take serious lessons from other high-end restaurants.
The bo luc lac - shaking beef - was so tough to chew I wondered if it was in fact horse meat for a moment.

My version of this dish kick this restaurant's butt.

The sauteed cauliflower was prepared with so much cornstarch that I thought it came from a bad Chinese joint. It goes to show you that in a great food town there can be really bad food. On the other hand there may be something else going on in those private rooms that I am not privy to. Nah!

Ok, while the food has generally been excellent, there is not very much vegetables available at the food stalls which specialize in one specific dish each . To get my daily dose of fiber I have been eating plenty fruits and my addiction is custard apples, tree ripened and dripping with massive amount of deliciousness.

I can't get enough custard apples!!!! Don't worry, I will restrain myself.

Check out the photos and good eating y'all!

 Basket of ripe crunchy small persimmons - a specialty of the north.

 Yep, custard apples - yum yum yum.

 Noodle with fish chunks and turmeric - the yellow coloring.

 Vietnamese crepe filled with bean sprouts, pork and shrimp, notice the fresh herbs and rice paper for wrapping with.

And finally a bowl of pho with fresh hot chili. Yay!!!