Our introduction to Vietnamese street food

Happy Wednesday! 

We have been incredibly blessed to have met Nonna Chong--she is another expat living in Ha Noi who runs a street food group on most Wednesdays. Tonight there was no club, but since she is a friend of a friend, she offered to meet up with us and take us on our own personal tour. Not only is she incredibly lovely to be around, she is an experience foodie with a wealth of knowledge! She schooled us on Vietnamese street food in our neighborhood and I could not think of a better introduction to 

Vietnamese food!

She took us on a three stop culinary experience...

Stop One: BIA HOI

Bia Hoi translates to "draft beer", there are Bia Hoi stands all over Ha Noi. They make the beer in the morning with little to no preservatives(therefore no hangover--so they say) and then they serve it all day until it's done. It's the equivalent of a 3.2 beer in the US, only it costs roughly 30 CENTS per glass!

This is a picture of a typical chair in a Bia Hoi stand--notice the ratio of butt to chair. The Hubs claims that his behind fell became numb more than once. If you ask him, he will tell you it was worth it!

Here's an image of the inside of a Bia Hoi stand, most people sit on the sidewalk, but we sat inside since all of the tables outside were taken. 

As you can see, it's smaller than most Pre-K tables in the USA!

In Ha Noi, we have been cautioned not to eat any ice that is shaved--this photo proves why: pictured above is a man attempting to pick up a slippery block of ice after shoving it across the floor of the restaurant. The ice pictured will probably be shaved and put into people's drinks soon. No thanks!

After the Bia Hoi stand, we went to a Seafood street food stand, I **really** wish I had written down the translation for everything, but luckily, I can just call Nonna Chong and ask her! 

We had a delicious meal for a small price: 

Vietnamese sweet potato fries with a ketchup/aioli sauce

Glass noodle stir fried rice with crab

Steamed clams in a spicy sweet lemongrass sauce

*this was so good that we ordered another round*

Grilled oysters with fried onions on top;

these were served to us fresh originally but Nonna shooed them away and asked them to be grilled. 

I am not an oyster fan, but Hubs said they were great.

After our second course, we headed to a dessert shoppe:

Coconut jelly, taro flan, durian custard and some medley of fruit and rice goodness

We were stuffed to the gills, but we managed to finish our dessert and roll ourselves back to our apartment. What a great introduction to Vietnamese food! I am SO looking forward to eating my way through the rest of the city! 

I asked Nonna; "do you think people lose weight when they move here or gain weight?" She replied "It appears that most women gain about 7 kilos while most men lose 7 kilos." 

7 kilos is roughly 15lbs....I better get on my yoga mat tomorrow!