For me, the sticky rice in Laos is just that - simple, but one of the most memorable things I have eaten on our travels.
I am all for gourmet meals that take hours to prepare and look like they are straight out of the pages of Gourmet Traveller - but sometimes it is the most simplest of foods and dishes that are the most memorable.
For me, the sticky rice in Laos is just that - simple, but one of the most memorable things I have eaten on our travels.
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Like Cambodia, Laos hasn't wowed us with street food. The food we have tried on the streets hasn't been anything to write about, mainly consisting of noodle soups with chicken necks. Pretty uninspiring. I kept thinking what am I going to write about!
It took us travelling to a remote town in Laos called Tahkek for me to start getting excited about street food in Laos. True to what I have learnt on this trip – the simpler the street food, the better it is – and this was definitely the case as we stumbled upon a woman selling BBQ along the Mekong River. Until we arrived in Laos I used to associate Papaya Salads with a traditional Thai cuisine, but after eating my body weight of Papaya Salad since being in Laos I have realised I was misinformed.
Papaya Salad – in all its glory – is actually a traditional food of Laos. Because the countries are so close, the dish filtered through the border and was claimed by the Thai’s. Happy to have set the record straight I was also happy to start the eating portion of the Papaya Salad story. Due to an unfortunate incident in the hotel we we're staying in in Ho Chi Minh we had to pack our things and change locations mid way through our city stay.
The move actually ended up being the best thing that could have happened to us as we moved away from the tourist area and into a street that was filled with locals and not a tourist in sight. Moving away from the tourist area though does have one down side - no more English menus or English speaking locals. This makes ordering food a whole lot more adventurous. As we entered the French inspired town of Da Lat we were shocked to see people walking around in jumpers and long pants.
What was going on? That morning we sweated through 37 degree heat in Nha Trang and within a 5 hour bus ride we were now shivering in 17 degree weather. We grabbed our warmest clothing and hit the streets to find some food to warm us up on a cold and rainy night. There was one dish that I was desperate to try – Bo Kho – it looked like it would warm our miserable bones. In Malaysia, food courts ruled. The best ones are religiously spoken about on food blogs and getting a great meal at a food court in Malaysia is perfectly acceptable.
Since being in Vietnam we haven’t come across a lot of food courts but as we traversed the river of Da Nang at sunset we saw one and decided just to have a quick look before we went to a much more acceptable street side dinner. Along the journey we have vowed that we would always try and eat street food over going to restaurants – but sometimes that rule has to be broken.
I had read in an article about a famous dish that originated in Hanoi that I was dying to try – Cha Ca La Vong. The dish is named after the restaurant it was invented in over 100 years ago – it is so famous that they renamed the street after it and it is known as Cha Ca Street. The restaurant only serves that one dish. Due to the popularity copy cat restaurants have popped up over Hanoi and we went to one of them that was right around the corner of our hotel. Ca – means fish in Vietnamese so as you can guess the main element of this dish is fish. The fish is pre-cooked before arriving on your table to be finished off. It had been seasoned liberally with turmeric giving it a striking colour and unusual flavour. The fish is grilled over coals in a banana leaf to keep it moist. On the table was a burner that is needed as the dish needs to always remain hot. A frying pan with the fish came out – the server then added the biggest pile of spring onions and dill I have ever seen and stirred them around to caramelise the dish. After being so overly delighted with our late lunch on Bun Cha we wasted no time in tracking down our dinner.
I had been super keen to try another street food dish - Banh Cuon. Banh Cuon is a thin pancake made from a rice flour batter that is filled with pork mince and wood eared mushrooms. It is then served with deep fried shallots and herbs and comes with a fish sauce based dipping sauce. The place we found also had chicken and prawn varieties but we stuck with the original. Even though an earthquake had recently shaken Mount Kinabalu and its surrounds to its core we were still keen to head to the park to soak up the breath-taking atmosphere for a few days.
On arrival to our hotel (Mile 36 Lodge) we were quickly informed that the chef was not working this week meaning that the dinner we were counting on was not an option anymore. Once you are in the mountain there isn’t a huge variety of choices so we were concerned as the hungry travellers that we are where our next meal was coming from. The staff at reception in broken English talked us through our choices, which all seemed pretty dire but we were committed to finding the best meal that we could. Under the shadow of the mountain we set out on the road to find ourselves dinner. The road that joins Sandakan to Kota Kinabalu is busy and treacherous with buses, large trucks and cars all sharing this one road. As the trucks screamed passed us, we clung to each other as we crawled slowly along the make shift foot path hoping that one of them wouldn't take a corner to sharply and praying that the meal waiting for us was worth the death defying act. (Please note: I may be dramatizing the situation here for maximum impact. We were fine. Well until we had to walk back in the pitch black and torrential rain…but that’s another story) After a 10-minute walk we reached an adorable little restaurant named 89 Station. We headed inside to be greeted by a huge menu lovingly written on a blackboard and something inside us realised that we may have uncovered a hidden gem. After spending 4 days on a tour where we had no choice as to what we ate we were keen once we got back to Sandakan to get some good food.
Unfortunately for us, Sandakan isn’t quite the food capital we had hoped. Choices were pretty limited and what we had previously tried was pretty average. Jeff, myself and a couple of new friends we met along the way decided that the best bet was to ask a local. Thankfully there was a lot of helpful staff at the Borneo Sandakan Backpackers hostel that we were staying at willing to give us a recommendation. The guy at reception told us we needed to head up the hill to an all you can eat steamboat restaurant. The deal was you could eat as much as you wanted for 28 Ringgit ($10). I had literally been living on rice and vegetables so I was keen to stuff myself silly with some great food. Too far to walk, we negotiated with a friendly taxi driver who would drop us off and then send someone to fetch us once we could stand no more. When we arrived at the Steam Boat Restaurant the first thing that I saw was the view. Sandakan as a whole was a pretty unimpressive town but from up here it definitely looked magical. On being seated it was quickly realised between the 4 of us that none of us actually knew what a steam boat was. |
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About MeWelcome to Food Fuelled Travels where my partner Jeff and I will attempt to eat our way across SEA! The month by month journey |