Playing with food

The unofficial theme for today was food, and it was a good one.

After a quick breakfast it was off to one of the many kitchens here at Saigontourist Hospitality College where we joined a group of students in their regularly scheduled cooking class. This started off sort of awkwardly as 6 of us huddled together and tried to stay out of the way while the teacher moved swiftly around the kitchen, barking orders and explaining what she was doing very quickly and very much in Vietnamese. Our amazing and completely adorable guide from Green Lion, Anna, did her best to translate but just watching her proved mostly sufficient.

delish prawns and pork

After a lot of watching I suddenly found myself hand deep in a bowl of tapioca starch and water, which was eventually cooked and stirred into something the consistency of melted marshmallows. At one point the teacher just took the spoon (actually a bundle of about 6 chopsticks) out of my hand because I was clearly not doing an adequate job. I can only imagine there was some mention of ‘these scrawny foreigners’… my bad. This would eventually become the primary component of a dumpling filled with seasoned prawns and pork, wrapped in banana leaves and steamed. These tasted great but would have been better had the prawns been de-shelled, as this form resulted in my getting a mouthful of itty bitty feet… yum.

Filling up the dumplings

Anna with our dumplings, all wrapped and ready to steam

Part two of the day was a decorative vegetable carving, or what would better be described as an exercise in futility, featuring really sharp knives. Hand a bunch of inexperienced fools sharp knives and there will be blood. Our instructor was really nice but I have a feeling he didn’t know what he was in for because he seemed miffed that we were struggling to carve a rose out of a carrot. After telling us he had “easier” options (flower from a carrot, rose from a squash) and some sad attempts, we all threw in the towel and watched as he very swiftly carved the following out of a squash…

one eyed gorilla anyone?

And for the third and final act, the grocery store (otherwise known as the happiest place on earth). Unfortunately I don’t have any photos to share from this first trip, but picture a quasi mall, with an entire warehouse sized level of food and kitchen wares, and a mini mall upstairs… we’re going to be juust fine here. We quickly picked up some snacks, of which there was plenty to chose from, as well as basic necessities (dove shampoo here is sparkly, it’s like showering at a disco!). It is easy to find many western brand like oreos and Pringles, but there’s usually a cheaper Vietnamese version that it just as good. The only thing to be mindful of is expiry dates, because the stores certainly aren’t.

The rest of the day was spend lounging around and planning a trip for this coming weekend. While the rooms are spacious enough to hang out in, we’ve taken to spending our evenings in the hallway outside.

Look for another quick post soon and then a break for the weekend.