Feast Your Eyes

By far one of the most enjoyable aspects of my two months in Vietnam has been the food, it can both push you limits of comfort and expand your awareness of possibility.

I've been anything but cautious about where and what I ate, but I'm pleased to say I only got rocked by food poisoning once.   

I didn't always have camera to capture all the strange and scrumptious things I ingested but here's a taste...
  

Springrolls are synonymous with Vietnamese cuisine and come with an array of fillings, fried...  

...or fresh

It's common to get a pan and burner accompanied by plates stacked with raw meat and veggies to cook at the table 

Grilled Horse 

A spiritual food of much power...which I didn't try

Intestines (source unknown) cooked with turmeric and greens

Grilled squab--a lot of work for a little meat, but tasty

Developing eggs from within the chicken--novel but not recommended

Typical sidewalk cafe--sitting with your knees by your ears on the low plastic stools that are notorious for collapsing 

Breakfast: pork chop, fish cake, pickled veggies, fresh cucumber, vegetable broth, rice and of course coffee...all for about $2 dollars a head  

Floating seafood restaurant--pick your delight from the offerings in the baskets and pay by the kilo: shrimp, crabs, clams, oysters, scallops, snails and fish

Choose a fish, they net it, whack it on the ground in front of you and then prepare it to your liking 

Mantis shrimp fried in butter and garlic

I picked these guys out of the live-well five minutes prior--doesn't get much fresher

At $3 dollars a kilo you can gorge yourself on clams for next to nothing

Scallops

Thanks to the lingering influence of French colonization baguettes like this are everywhere

At all hours of the day little street carts like this whip out egg sandwiches to order: egg, grated carrot and cucumber, cilantro, soy sauce and pate if you please, in a baguette for about $0.50 cents    

At the other end of the spectrum--mango seafood salad in a bit more posh venue

Pomelo salad with shrimp  

With all the rice paddies escargot is a common dish, though I far prefer the smaller ocean snails 

Beef Five Ways

What can I say, I'm American--with an egg and bacon this more than scratched the itch