The bagel and croissant were a bit bready, but with good flavor. The coffee was decent, but it was no Trí Dũng!
We kicked around the lake, went into the Buddhist temple, cut through some more streets of Old Town, then sprang for dinner at Quán ăn Ngon. This place was my choice and I had been chomping at the bit to eat here.
My best bud Stu gave me a list of foods he wants me to try. I had been informed that this place was a traditional Vietnamese restaurant that had many of the items on the menu. We arrived and the place was jammin'! The set up is an open courtyard dining area, encompassed by several different cooking stations around the perimeter. A handful of the coveted fares were on the menu, sadly however, they all had meat and none could be made in a vegetarian version. Alas, it wasn't meant to be.
The nộm lạc (green papaya salad) was pretty good. The papaya is cut into noodle-like slivers. It doesn't have much flavor in and of itself, but provides a crisp bite and cooling properties. The broth it sits in has very nice heat that works its way around the entire mouth, rather than resting solely on the tongue. The crushed peanuts offer meatiness to the chew and the mint brightens the entire dish.
Wanting to give the local beer a shot, I ordered a bottle of Bia Hà Nội. It's your standard mass-produced beer - light, thin, and mediocre, but with an interesting flavor of straw.
Oh yeah, I saw a lady selling doughnuts two days in a row. She was smiling and waving at me for several minutes yesterday while we were having lunch. We recognized each other today and I figured it a sign to try her baked goods. Boy, were they terrible. I'm not certain if it was simply that they weren't fresh, but they each were super chewy with little to bad flavor. Buyer beware!
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