Hạ Long Bay, Vietnam

It’s winter, but Hanoi hasn’t gotten the memo. The weather’s mild enough to put on jeans if you want to, but even that’s not strictly essential. And you wouldn’t need, say, a cardigan or a jacket.

What you do need is gumption and nerves of steel in order to thread your way through the city amongst the cars, vans and scooters that come in every direction, traffic lights and pedestrians be damned. Hanoi’s busy as ever; We saw a few accidents during our visit. We stayed in the Old Quarter on our first night, which sounds peaceful but is in fact not. It’s incredibly chaotic, with swatches of frantic motorbikes and hectic delivery trucks running through the district as soon as day breaks. But if it sounded like Hanoi should smell of exhaust and dirt, it doesn’t either. There’s a florist on near-every street. We can smell the fragrance of the flowers several storefronts away. They’re a welcome sight, but I’ve got to ask: who’s buying all these flowers? 

Cafe Dinh, Hanoi

Bai Tu Long Bay, in dusk

We also visited Mua Cave, where after about 20 minutes of intense steep climbing, we reached the scenic lookout point, with the fields and town laid out beyond us.

Bún Chà - our favourite Vietnamese food. It’s grilled chicken and vermicelli served in an addictively fragrant broth with the obligatory deep-fried spring rolls. Tuvêt Bún Chà 34 and Bún Chả Hàng Quạt are our favourite places.

In a cramped alleyway, the cooks of Bún Chả Hàng Quạt were grilling meat patties over white-hot charcoal. This humble setup served me one of the best food of my life.

 

Phö ranks up there along my favourite foods, and the northern regions make the Phö broth lighter than the ones that I’m used to. This one is from Phö 10 Ly Qude Su.

A bowl of Chè is the traditional Vietnamese dessert - it’s a glutinous sticky concoction drizzled with coconut milk and ice. Our favourite dessert place was from a small place called Little Bowls. The sweetness level was more muted, and the other flavours came through better. We had both the caramel mixed bowl, a bowl of soft flan with coconut ice cream which really was not sweet, and prompted us to also order traditional mixed bowl. It was so good, we went back for one last fix on our second last day.

Little Bowls

Chả Cá. it’s one of those dishes that I’ve not heard of before coming, but it’s now one of my favourite dishes in Vietnam. It’s fried fish that is then pan-fried with lots of greens and served with vermicelli. It’s incredibly delicious, and Chả Cá Thăng Long is a multi-storied restaurant that is hugely popular with the locals, and serves only this dish.

The grandest meal we had was at Senté, a contemporary Vietnamese restaurant that incorporates lotus into all their dishes.

We had minced snail patties rolled in piper lolot leaves and then grilled, to be served with fresh lotus leaves (a play on the traditional dish, where the snail meat was packed in rice paper rolls). My favourite was with their take on Xôi Yến, the local version of glutinous rice. Here, it’s tender beef short ribs with black rice baked in lotus leaves, and served with onsen tamago quail eggs.

Unagi black rice sushi, with grilled lotus root. My friend didn't like it, which left more for me. I thought this dish was just swell.

The best drink I’ve had in Hanoi was found here: coconut and lotus water served in a grilled coconut.

Lotus Seed Ice Cream, Crème Brûlée with lotus purée and silk tofu in lotus juice.

Six months before we came, the Michelin guide published their first-ever recommendations for the country, awarding several restaurants in Hanoi the coveted Michelin stars. We had lunch at Tầm Vị on our last day, which specialises in traditional Vietnamese fare. It may not bold, or transformative, or whatever else online commenters think a Michelin star should represent, but I like it: it’s simply Vietnamese traditional cooking done well.

Tầm Vị

The traditional version of snail meat patty, wrapped in rice paper rolls together with lettuce and vermicelli

Cau Go was a recommended restaurant in the Old Quarter. It’s cunningly hidden, but eventually we found that taking the lift located in the middle of a Cantonese restaurant Fu Rong Hua would bring you to Cau Go on the sixth floor. The restaurant’s full of old-world charm, and overlooks Hoàn Kiếm Lake. My favourite dish here is the lotus root and pig ears salad, which was well-crafted - the crunch of the toasted peanut, and fresh vegetables and the sweet unami sauce. We also really like the grilled squids: the squid was served above a small charcoal stove, and the meat is delicate and not at all rubbery. There was a spicy mint sauce with a lot of kick. We will skip the hotpot the next time around, which was decent but not particularly noteworthy.

And the restaurant with the best presentation? Look no further than Bếp Prime, and order their Flambe Chicken. 

We remained well-caffeinated throughout our trip: we start every day with a cup of Vietnamese coffee (cà phê), and continued drinking until well into the afternoon. The local specialty is the egg coffee, which was created in response to the wartime shortage of fresh milk and condensed milk. The egg is sweetened and then beaten until well-frothed, and tastes like a dessert. We tried the original version at Cafe Giang, and also the heavily spiced version at Loading T Cafe, where the coffee beans are roasted with cinnamon sticks, and each cup had a hint of nutmeg. Perfect for Christmas, if it hadn't only been so hot.

 

Loading T Cafe - both their hot and their iced coffee were excellent. The egg portion of their hot coffee is silkier, and the coffee is more cinnamon forward and with a hint of nutmeg. The iced one is foamier but perfect for this warm winter. Your choice.

 

My favourite coffee shop is the Hidden Gem Coffee, not only was their egg coffee terrific, they also have a wonderfully-crafted concoction called salted coffee with an addictive mildly-salted savoury foam.

One morning, we also sat down at a coffee shop next to the railway track, and boy, that was an experience. Both of the warmth of the Vietnamese grandma running the store, and the exhilaration/fear of having a train barrel thisclose towards you at full force. I stepped back involuntarily. 

Our hotel manager recommended Kem Trang Tien, an ice cream shop that is popular with the locals. Both the pink guava stick ice cream and the green bean ice cream were pretty delicious. The storefront is gigantic, with a capital G. It looks like a Parisian boulevard, entirely indoors, with mini streets. Patrons on motorbikes drive into the store, park their bikes next to an empty table, and purchase ice cream.

Can you spot the rows of parked bikes on the right side of the picture?

We took in a few local attractions over our stay. I’d been to the mausoleum before, and my friends weren’t keen on going, so we gave it a miss. We did go to Hoa Lo, which translates to fiery furnace. It was a prison first used to house political prisoners, and during the Vietnam war, housed American POWs, earning itself the nickname ‘Hotel Hanoi’. (The site has photo-documentation of its rather gory past, and our hotel manager was rather taken aback when he first heard that we wanted to go to it. We concurred afterwards - it is a local attraction, but perhaps isn’t the most conventional tourist thing to do.) We walked around the West Lake, and then the French Quarter and the Old Quarter. The traditional water puppet show... wasn’t half-bad. This is a small auditorium and music and singing was live. Was it also because we had been walking around the entire day and I was glad to be sitting down? Absolutely. We walked by Maison Marou, a bean-to-bar chocolatier in the area, and 1 month later, as I'm digging into their chocolate bars and daubing their cacao spread onto bread, I'm reminded how terrific chocolate products can be produced from all over the world.

Street carts hawking fruits are a common sight on the roads of Hanoi.

Over the week, I fell in love with the cuisine all over again. The wonderfully fresh coffee. The Bún Chà in the mornings and the Chả Cá late at night. The abundance of greens with every meal. Our tailored clothes from Văn Hùng Tailor (even though they took a month instead of the 3 days which is the standard of Bangkok's Alex Fashion or Paul's Fashion. But the quality was undeniable.) Hanoi, it’s been an absolutely incredible trip.

Mid Valley Southkey Mall is a relatively new shopping establishment, and we spent the bulk of our day here. We wandered around the mall, picking up things to purchase here and there. Shopping in a mall isn’t exactly the most exciting thing around, but my heart was pounding as I saw that the department store Sogo was having a terrific sale on wine glasses. I picked out a dozen gorgeous-looking glassware. We stopped at the Oriental Kopi, another recommendation from a friend that we reached just before they opened. And it was lucky that we did, as a formidable queue started right behind us. At first glance, it seemed like the usual soft boiled eggs-toast-coffee store, but we were roundly impressed by their iced mocha, which was one of the best thing that I’ve tasted in a long time. It was whipped til well-frothed, and I couldn’t have enough of that thick layer of luscious foam. We shared the toast: each slice of bread was buttered and grilled, and then sandwiched with thick slices of butter and kaya. One probably couldn’t (shouldn’t) eat the entire set by oneself. We love the kaya, and bought several bottles on our way out. The food definitely falls under the “Once in a While” category, and ditto for their famous egg tarts, which I find too buttery. 

And I bought the guiling gao, a truly incongruent dessert to sell (and for me to buy) in a toast-and-egg place. But it was good.

I honestly couldn’t remember what we did in the mall; it was a blur of bright lights and things to try on and to eat. (Anyone tried the Eureka sour cream flavoured popcorn? I’m a huge fan.) And we had lunch at Dragon-I, a dim sum outlet chain. But because we were absent-minded, we didn’t make an appointment for the massage parlours when we first arrived at the mall at 8am (!!!!), and the day’s slots had all been filled up by the time we realised our mistake. Rookie error. We also made a not-so-quick-after-all stop at the nearby KSL mall, and came to the realisation that other than a few niche things, there really wasn’t not much to do in KSL. 

We made a stop at Keijometo in the afternoon. It’s a cafe, with a nondescript entrance amongst residential houses in a neighbourhood. The numerous parked cars crowding the side of the road was the only indication that something extraordinary was happening in the walls within. We couldn’t otherwise see a signboard or any indication that there’s a business from the outside. Nevertheless, it’s thriving somehow via word of mouth. The matcha was on the sweet side, and I’m glad to have shared the Mentaiko Tamago Sando, so full that we were from our multiple meals. 

We try to head back to Singapore in the early evening, as the causeway gets progressively crowded as people get off work. Our last stop of the day was to Siang Kee, a seafood zichar store by the roadside which Miss XS’s colleague swore by. We told the rest of our family that we were buying dinner back for them, plus we were much too sated from grazing the entire day to properly give the food the attention they deserved. So we got the food to go - perfectly fried cereal crawfishes, flavourful beer pork ribs and huge portions of their mee goreng - and then left for the causeway before the queue got worse. (The friend was right, by the way. Dinner was amazing.) 

While JB has a reputation for being a cheap destination, it’s not really true. It’s cheaper to stay at home in Singapore, after all, and one doesn’t go to all these trouble of crossing the borders to eat an unremarkable plate of noodles. It’s a place to spend a day hanging out with your loved ones and to indulge in the best of Chinese cuisine: seafood, herbal ducks and (whole) suckling pigs. 

This recipe is no less stunning. It's made in the same vein, using Guinness and bacon to amp up the flavours. If you haven't heard of Chef JP before, you're missing out on a great deal. I spent many evenings indulging in my ennui on his YouTube channel and watch him enthusiastically working in the kitchen. As testament to the fact that you don't have to be a jerk to be a great chef, this recipe creates one of the best, most flavourful stews that I've had. It's also more forgiving, and you can use whichever cheap cut of beef that you have on hand.

Chef Jean-Pierre's Guinness Beef Stew 

Original recipe from Chef Jean-Pierre. Video available here. 

This recipe calls for roux to thicken the stew up at the tail-end of the recipe. I had a miscalculation when I was experimenting with French onion soup recipes in April, and made far more roux than I knew what to do with. So I froze the excess, which 6 months later, I'm still going through. But if you hadn't been careless enough like me, it's easy enough to whip up on the side during the long downtime while the stew is in the oven. 

INGREDIENTS
1.6 kg Chuck Roast (or any cheap cuts), cut into 1-inch (2.5 cm) chunks
225 g Bacon, diced
1 large Onion, chopped
15 g Fresh Thyme Leaves, chopped
22 g Fresh Rosemary, chopped (or substitute with oregano)
4-5 Garlic cloves, thinly sliced
800 g (28 ounces) canned of peeled Italian Tomatoes, drained
440ml Guinness Beer
300g Leeks, thinly sliced, both white and light green parts
225 g Celery, diced
225 g Carrots, diced
600 ml Beef Stock or Broth
150 g Pitted Prunes
Salt and Black Pepper to taste
Roux, or all purpose flour, as required 

STEPS
1. Preheat Oven to 190°C (375°F). 

2. Heat vegetable oil in a large frying pan, then add the beef in batches and lightly season with pepper (you may lightly season with salt too, if your beef stock does not contain sodium.). Sear the beef until well-browned on the exterior. Frying in batches is tedious but necessary to ensure proper browning. Remove the seared beef and set aside.

3. In a large Dutch oven or in an oven-safe pot (I use a stainless steel pot), set over medium heat and sauté diced bacon until it starts to render. Add the chopped onion, stirring occasionally, until the onions are light golden brown. Add thyme, rosemary and sliced garlic and cook until the aromatics releases their fragrance. 

4. Add the drained tomatoes, Guinness beer, leeks, celery, and carrots, then the seared beef. Add the beef stock and then the prunes. Allow the stew to come to a simmer, then cover with a lid and place it in the oven to continue cooking for about 2.5 hours. (At the 1.5 hour mark, check on the level of liquid and top it up with boiling water if necessary.) 

5. Around 45 minutes before the stew is ready, remove it from the oven. The beef should start to be more tender but not yet fall apart when tested with a fork. Set a metal strainer into the stew, and add raw flour into the strainer. Using a whisk, stir the flour, which will begin to mix with the stew and then leak out of the strainer. (If you have roux, or if you’re feeling industrious enough to mix some up - it’s not that difficult! - you can add the roux to the stew using the strainer method as well). Add until the stew is thickened to your preference. Return the pot to the oven and continue cooking for another 45 minutes, until the meat is tender enough to be cut with the side of a fork.