HAWN FAWN

Virginia Woolf said it best if you ask me! And in Vietnam, we dined like kings, only better: we dined like gluttons with two stomaches and an endless appetite.  Vietnamese mornings start at 5am, and breakfast is officially over at 10am.  The next meal, lunch, starts up again at 2pm, so if you want some breakfast (usually noodles like pho, bun, or vermicelli; as well as banh beo, banh xeo, all that banh crap), you will wake up early so you can walk over to your neighbor's or your neighbor's neighbor and grab a bowl of whatever they specialize in.  Every morning, we'd wake at 6am, walk down the street, or motoped a few blocks from home and dine on the cheapest, but most delicious breakfasts.  Some meals, for six people, cost us less than $2, while the rarer ones cost us roughly $5-7, but those rare meals also included seconds, sometimes thirds.  Did I mention how delicious these foods were? After a huge breakfast, which I would never do back in the states because I just hate American foods, especially breakfast foods, we would relax for an hour, then head outside to see if anyone was peddling fruits like logan, lychee, rambutan(!!!!!!), coconuts, etc.  We'd usually buy two pounds of each and end up snacking until lunch.  At lunch, we'd journey to some far away place and eat great seafood.  The freshest of octopus, crabs, snails, mussels, oysters, fish, scallop, and opihi can be found at almost any seafood restaurant in the provinces of Hue or Hanoi; you usually see boats and fishermen catching these delicate morsels and bring them by the basket-load to the restaurant.  It's remarkable and such an experience to eat seafood that's barely been caught and delivered fresh.  You just don't get that in California.  After that, we gorge on more fruits, go to the beach, or walk around, and then head to dinner, which were my least favourite meals because that's when prices normalize and the food gets worse.  The meals after dinner, though, are to die for.  In Vietnamese, the word used for such a meal has the literal translation of "cheers" in English.  And I guess it makes sense.  People usually set up shop on street corners with chests full of cold beers, and endless pots full of snails and baskets full of duck eggs.  This is raw and dirty and not for everyone, especially if you have never experienced these foods.  We'd go out every night and sit for a few hours over beers (Tiger, preferably because that's the staple of Vietnam, apparently) and these fantastic finger foods.  We'll have thirds and fourths and only pay around $5.  My sister ended up getting a terrible stomach ache that lasted two days and resulted in her having to take shelter in the restroom all night.  But if you're ever planning on visiting, I suggest you try it, anyway.  Because street food is where all the great and flavourful foods are.  And never go where the white people go; the foods at those restaurants are all terrible.

Lunch: