Dying4desserts in Vietnam, Saigon

Hello! Or should I say CHAO for all the Vietnamese in us of all. I am dying to share with you my 2 weeks trip to Vietnam. I spent a few days relaxing in Saigon, followed by sightseeing in Phu Quoc (an island in the South) and DaLat. These posts are going to be in random order and are all about the food. Food is delicious in Vietnam and I ate heaps! I'm surprised I haven't gained any weight during this trip, however unfortunately my Personal Trainer had said I have added a few centimetres to my waist line. O wells, she will just have to train me harder in the upcoming months before Europe. But that's another story.

I arrive in the afternoon on the 24th December into the heart of Saigon. The weather is great, the happiness I feel seeing my parents again is overwhelming and of course I was HUNGRY!!! haha

First stop..

Quan An Ngon (Ngon Restaurant)

Popular to many tourists, the idea of this restaurant is fantastic!! In the middle of the restaurant are where all the guests sit and dine. On the edges of the perimeter, there are food stalls of many types of food. Each food stall will have say one type of dish such as rice paper rolls, noodle soups, vietnamese pancakes, sweet desserts etc. 

Rice paper stall

Vietnamese savoury rice noodle / dumplings / cakes

Sweet desserts

Mini pancakes

Noodles Station

A different noodle station

Fried Spring rolls

Snail station

After walking around and seeing what I felt like, I ordered the..

Bun man Vit (Vermicelli duck noodle soup with bamboo shoots)

Spring rolls with fresh vermicelli and herbs

Che (A sweet soup containing peanuts, lotus seeds, seaweed, tapioca and coconut milk)

Banh Duc (A glutinous coconut pandan cake with palm sugar syrup and sesame seeds)

Bun xao Ghe (Clear noodle crab in clay pot)

Banh Duc man (Savoury coconut glutinous cake with nuoc mam, meat loaf and powdered shrimp)

Sweet tofu in coconut syrup and ginger

The restaurant is like every Vietnamese hawker food you can think on the street put together under one roof. The idea is amazing and the place is always busy. I'm also pretty sure most taxi drivers will know where it is so it is a must eat!!

Another eatery...

You can't visit Vietnam without eating their Pho.

Special beef noodle soup (73000 dong = approx. $3.50)

Vegetarian stir fry with rice

The menu consists of Pho the rice noodle soup or rice dishes, so whatever you prefer!! Pho 24 is a franchise, they are on most corners, however there are many different Pho restaurants and they are everywhere!!! With the money exchange rate at the moment, Vietnam is a bargain place to holiday! Eat on the street for approximately $1 a meal or go into an air conditioned restaurant with service for $2.

Mon Hue Restaurant

Mon Hue restaurant provides dishes specialised in Central Vietnam, Hue. Vietnam is divided into 3 parts, the North, Central and South. There are differences in dialect, accents and definitely in food. The South tends to use more sugar in their diet having a balance of sweet, tang and salty. Whereas, the North (Ha Noi) and Central tends to eat more Salty flavours. There are a few dishes which are signature to those parts, and Mon Hue Restaurant specialises in Central Vietnamese Cuisine. 

They start by offering these parcels at the table. If you eat it, then they charge you. I don't know what it's called but it is savoury and made of glutinous rice flour with shredded coconut filled with mashed mung bean.

Selection of Hue style 'dumplings'

Eaten with the Nuoc mam (fish dipping sauce), all these savouries have diffeent tastes and textures and also cooked differently. Right at the back is a dish with shrimp and it was cooked in banana leaf. The ones in the ramekin, banh beo are coconut rice flour steamed with powdered shrimp and pork crackle. Banh bot loc is the glutinous chewy 'dumpling' filled with baby shrimp and there is a cold meatloaf on the corner. 

Peacock spring rolls

These spring rolls are fried and tooth picked on this dragon fruit (which becomes our dessert after). Loved the presentation and vegetable carving! hehe

Fried/steamed cakes with shrimp and pork

This is the same glutinous rice cake. One is fried and one is steamed. It has a light spring onion oil on top with crispy pork and shredded shrimp.

Pork mince stir fry with crispy cracker

The pork is wok fried with bean shoots, mung bean and onion laced with coriander. You spoon it onto the thinly fried rice cracker and with the nuoc mam dipping sauce.

Hue style noodles

Hue style noodles with prawn dumplings

Special Hue style noodles

Hue style beef noodle soup is one of the most famous noodles of the Hue region. With a pho base, the addition of spices and herbs such as lemongrass, chilli, star anise, cinnamon etc. It is delicious and one of my favourite cooked with ox tail and beef bones.

Chicken rice Dong nguyen

Ma po tofu

Lotus soup

Dong Nguyen Restaurant is known for their Chicken. They are a cheap eat which locals and foreigners know about. Situated in Cho Lon (10 - 15 minute taxi ride out of the city), this is the area where most Chinese born in Vietnam live. You may refer to this area as 'Chinatown' hehe. The dishes are very simple, rice with fried, grilled or poached chicken. They also have a selection of healthy soups made from pork stock and chinese herbs. This lotus soup is just amazing and refreshing. They also sell BBQ pork or ma po tofu, a pork mince with chilli and silken tofu to name a couple.

Banh Khoc - Vietnamese mini pancake

This place is a little treasure in the hidden streets of Cho Lon. We would not know this place unless we had family friends. The locals know it, and it is known for their Banh khoc, the vietnamese mini pancakes. Crispy on the base and soft above, this delicious dish is made of rice flour mixed with coconut flavours and prawns. They are garnished with dried shrimp powder, spring onion oil and eaten with nuoc mam. You can eat it on it's own, or wrap in lettuce leaves with shiso leaves, mint and vietnamese mint.

Fish vermicelli noodle soup

This was just delicious. The soup was sweet and tangy made from fresh tamarind, tomato and the fish which I'm not familiar with the English term, but in vietnamese it's called Ca Loc. This soup came with a side dish fill with fish sauce and chilli. Dipping the fish into the sauce creates this delicious sweet flavour from the fish, salty from the fish sauce and the chilli flavour to make you salivate.

Deep fried squid

Somehow, deep fried squid is always on my mind no matter what. It is lightly battered then sprinkled with salt and pepper (maybe a little msg) hehehe

Banh cuon is Vietnamese Steamed rice noodle. It is served on it's own with meat loaf or you can choose a filled one. For breakfast one morning, my parents and I took a mini stroll a few stores down from the hotel we stayed at and had this banh cuon filled with pork mince and black fungus. Garnished with crispy shallots and the nuoc mam sauce.

I LOVE VIETNAM for it's massive selection of sweets!!! They sell desserts or anything sweet for breakfast, lunch and dinner!!! Grilled bananas, glutinous rice wrapped bananas, sweet glutinous rice, steamed cakes..too many to name. I ate so much, but forgot to take photos until I finished so it was too late. haha But at least I remembered on this occasion. We bought grilled bananas from this couple who sat at a particular spot behind Ben Thanh. Something so simple eaten with coconut milk and crushed peanuts with a slight sprinkle of salt can be so satisfying!

Dried swallows nest

Swallows nest and lotus seed sweet soup

Apparently, swallows nest is made of their spit and is hard to get. Asians believe there are healthy values to eating this. It's like strands of jelly that doesn't taste like much. It was AU$15 for a very small bowl. Good to experience once but WOW..I don't think it was worth it at all.

Macarons

I found a French patisserie who sold macarons. They were worth AU$1.50 each. I just had to try it, but unfortunately they didn't allow us to take photos. Boo.. ah wells...

So what do you think?? The food was yummy recapping what I ate. And finally, I have finally posted this post after 3 months. Slowly but surely, the next 2 parts are to come. Enjoy!!

Xx 

Autumn Desserts at CODA!

Good Morning all fellow Dying4desserts supporters!! Thank you for supporting my blog after a sad incident about the loss of my domain name ending with .com.  Please spread the word about the change and hopefully I can still post up more scrumptious looking pictures and you can all drool over them haha.

To start the sugar overload...



Eton Mess with fresh fruit and Mascarpone cream

A flat meringue is baked and placed as a base with the mascarpone cream piped in the middle. Poached rhubarb, vanilla syrup soaking pineapples, fresh kiwi, strawberry, blueberries and raspberries are mixed to top the dish. Lastly, it is garnished with shiso shoots. (Photo by Dominic Kim).

Pandan pillows

The chinese have this steam bun called the Mantou. It is usually eaten steamed and with savoury dishes, however CODA chef Matthew Lawdorn created this dish where we have steamed it, and fried it into a golden pillow. We then cut it in half and have filled it up with a warm caramelised banana in coconut with vanilla ice cream.

Pear Souffle with poached pear, cinnamon ice cream and warm chocolate sauce

This dessert is my take on the traditional french dessert Pear Belles Helene. It is originally with poached pear, vanilla bean ice cream and warm chocolate sauce. However, I decided to change it slightly and have this cinnamon infused ice cream and now serve it with red wine poached pear instead.



Sweet bite: "Summer Roll"

Just like the summer roll you have all known from the supermarket in the blue packet, my boss Mykal B suggested this soft nougat coated in chocolate and coconut would go great with this dessert wine we have to offer. Yummy yummy sugar in my mouth!! (Photo by Dominic Kim).



Easter sweet special

Baked lemon tart with a passionfruit marshmallow, chocolate soil, kataifi nest, chocolate egg, whipped cream, lemon curd and chocolate ice cream. This is on for this week only to celebrate Easter in a commercial way hahaha. I'm sorry I cannot make a chocolate coated baby Jesus. hahahaha

Anyway, enjoy the rest of this week and hopefully I have made you salivate enough to get you to come in and visit me at CODA. =)

Be safe and Happy Easter!!

Xx

Melbourne Food and Wine Festival 2012

The Melbourne Food and Wine Festival has been going on for 2 weeks and I'm one happy participant to experience a few things they had to offer.

Monday 5th March

Crawl and Bite. CODA was a part of this program and we had 6 lots of 40 people come in in the space of 4 hours. We fed the groups crispy pork with vietnamese coleslaw, crispy prawn betel leaves with soy vinegar and duck curry in paper noodle boxes. I was too busy to even take pictures. It was a very fun night though!!!

Friday 9th March

It was a great afternoon in Melbourne and what better way to spend the sunset evening than to watch a free foodie movie at Federation Square. The movie was Jiro dreams of sushi. It was awesome. More like a document and now just thinking of it..I'm craving sushi. haha

But before the movie started, I went to have a few snacks at GO GO BAR!!

Indonesian roti beef

These little parcels were tasty. They came with lightly pickled cucumber and sliced banana chillis

Pork Slider

Although the pork was kinda too salty, the texture of the bun and creaminess of the mayo was nice. 

Pickled papaya salad

The salad was very strong with the pickling liquid but it did cut the saltiness from the pork slider.

With a half filled stomach, I was off to see the movie. And the night ended with a friend from work and I at Moomba on 2 amazingly crazy rides. YAY!!!

Sunday 11th March

Two girlfriends and I dined at Number 8 for lunch. They had guest stars Thierry Marx and Stephane Bour from France cooking their own menu and it was such a beautiful day for this event!! We started off with...

Cucumber pate, sturgeon caviar and Granny Smith apple

This was amazing. Fresh and yummy, my palate was waking up to the dishes about to come. I'm salivating now just reminiscing about the dish.  

Sea bream - Japanese style

My friend who couldn't have the veal had this dish. Beautifully presented, the dressing was a light sweet soy with a radish parcel in the side and daikon salad on top.

Veal and truffle

The veal was rolled with truffle and cooked all the way. Steamed orange and purple carrots with lightly shaved truffle garnish the veal. The potato was also layered with truffle and cut into nice cubes and the little blob on the plate was an intense truffle flavour. The waiter pours the veal jus at the table. Delicious.

Passionfruit, coconut and transparent milk chocolate

This dish was truly beautiful to look at. The textures were wonderful and it was mousse on tempered chocolate, kataifi nest with passionfruit chocolate mousse. YUMMY!!!

Petit Fours Fresh Vegetables

These mini chocolate cups were filled with pineapple cubes and were garnished with rocquette leaves and beetroot shoots.

Our 3 course menu ended there, however we wanted more!!!  

Smoked pineapple and raspberries

Raspberry marshmallow, smoked pineapple with raspberry macaron bottom, raspberry gel and smoked pineapple sorbet. This came out with the waiter pulling the glass off the smoked pineapple. The smell was very smoky. He then poured lemonade into the glass and we smelt smoky lemonade which we drank between mouthfuls of our dessert. It was lovely, but I really liked the chocolate one!

Caramelised pear, spiced white chocolate ice cream, ginger bread crumble, salted caramel, almond meringues

This was part of the Number 8 menu, but this was all my friend wanted. Simple flavours for what we are used to. It was delicious!!

They were setting up for Stephane Bour's Afternoon High Tea, so we had to scat. Catching up on all the gossip, we continued to our next outlet in the SUN!!! 

We went to Greenhouse by Joost which is an awesome eco bar just appearing along the Queensbridge Road along the river. They have herbs growing out of recycled tins. We even drank out of jars and recycled beer bottles.

Even the toilets were in these containers, and if you flush, you can wash your hand at the same time. Interesting.

Cheese platter at Pure South

Feeling like a little nibble we moved along down the river to Southbank. All the restaurants were filling up fast, and finally we found a nice outside table to accommodate us and we could catch the sun setting..slowly. Kind river triple cream brie, Bruny Island C2 and Pyengana cheddar. Delicious Australian cheese paired with crackers, fruit bread, fresh and pickled fruits and paste. It was a great way to end the adventure.

The festival is still going until tomorrow. There is a Thai festival at Federation Square and a Sweets exhibition at Immigration Museum. I can't wait!! 

Catch you next time!!

Xx

CODA desserts March 2012

Good Morning All!!

It is a beautiful morning and I'm still in bed..So I thought I'd update you on some delicious desserts to start our morning!!

First up we have the latest sweet special which is the...

Pavlova w passionfruit mousse and orange blossom persian fairy floss

Individual vanilla meringues filled with whipped cream, passionfruit mousse topped with orange blossom fairy floss. Blood orange syrup to stain the plate and fresh kiwis combined with vanilla soaked pineapple! A favourite amongst the diners.

CODA Chocolate bar: 'Snickers'

I did lie about the 'Rocky road' being the last Chocolate bar flavour but I couldnt resist the 'Snickers' flavour!! 

The bar was filled with salted caramel, peanut brittle, chocolate creme, chocolate mousse and served with almond ice cream on the side for more of that nutty flavour goodness! YUMMY!!! For those who got to try it  early this month..thank god you did, because it was only at CODA for 3 days.

Fig and Leatherwood honey Semifreddo

This dish is the most "autunmmy" dish of the season!!! Figs and honey semifreddo sandwiched in layers of almond dacquoise. It's like a macaron with a crisp top but chewy centre. The semifreddo is accommodated with fresh figs lightly caramelised on the surface and lightly toasted almonds to give a better crunch. The little dollops on the plate are spiced caramel which is TO DIE FOR!!!! This is my new favourite sauce at the moment, I can't stop sharing it!!! 

Orange blossom Marshmallow

Light and fluffy pillows of marshmallow, I can't say anymore.

Grand Manier Chocolate truffles

Boozy smooth bite size chocolate!!

To end today's blog on a 'Sweeter' note, I have a special friend which I'd like to wish happy birthday once again. It was great meeting you and getting to know such an amazing dancer!! Save me a dance for next time!!! 

This dessert contained all his favourite flavours planned out by our mutual friend Tara. It was a tower of layers  starting with flourless orange cake, chocolate mousse, peanut brittle, almond ice cream, caramelised figs and of course the spiced caramel.

It's time to get out of bed, so have a great day guys

Xx

The start of Autumn! (desserts at CODA)

I have neglected the site for a whole month and I would like to make up for it. Life just doesn't have enough hours in a day to do everything. However, warming up this cool weather, I have for you a few desserts!

"Rocky Road" Chocolate bar

The last flavour of chocolate bars for the summer is the "rocky road". Which one did you guys enjoy? Anyhow, this chocolate bar contains Valrhona chocolate creme, marshmallows, chocolate hazelnut mousse, roasted almonds and almond infused ice cream. It's delicious!! the marshmallow is such a treat with a light orange blossom scent and the texture of the dish as a whole is amazing!

HAPPY BELATED VALENTINE'S DAY to all you love birds out there!! This hot oozy chocolate was served with raspberry foam and vanilla ice cream garnished with fresh raspberries and rose petals. 

To make it less lovey dovey...

Chocolate fondant with vanilla bean ice cream and crispy caramel rice

Welcome to the first Autumn dish to be presented on the menu! Hot oozy chocolate teamed up with freshly churned vanilla bean ice cream and the caramel rice. The rice is a cereal you make refer to as "rice bubbles" but they're round =P All a dessert ever should be is on this plate! For me anyway! hehe YUM!!!

Mixed berry souffle with fresh berry salad and yoghurt sorbet

I slaved away cooking the berries, blitzing it to a puree and passing it through a fine sieve in order to get the beautiful smooth tasting souffle!! Please come and enjoy the last bites of summer!!! The berries are coated in a light vanilla sugar syrup and the whole dish is a refreshing one!!! 

Pistachio Honey Nougat

Nougat is so YUM YUM YUMMY!!! I love the nutty taste and the texture of this nougat. It sold so well, I made another softer nougat the next day but this time added dried cherries to the mix.

I would also like to congratulate a couple who shared a very special moment in their lives with us at CODA. Carrie had asked Brendan to marry her on the 29th February 2012. May you guys grow old together happy forever!! haha so, we are happy to cater to your special day with little details. =)

Again, thank you for taking the time to read Dying4desserts, there is just so little time to try and fit it all in when everything is happening in the world. I'm in the process of drafting Dying4desserts in Vietnam part 1. haha hopefully that will be posted up real soon!!! 

Take care

Xx