Vietnam: Food Part 2

So this is one of the famous tourist restaurants in Saigon. I know that because a) this is the only place where I saw white people eating and b) that's what all the cabbies told us. 

It's called Quan An Ngon. Quan An = Restaurant. Ngon = Delicious or Good. So, Good Restaurant or Delicious Restaurant is the literal translation.

There are two in Saigon, same owner. As you can see--beautiful French Colonial style building. And that little lady in front is Asian Grandma. Surprise!

Inside, at least a dozen different stands with attendants serving traditional street food, made to order. You can either go from stand to stand and point to what you want eat, or, if you're traveling with a squirmy 2 year old who wants to play in the fountain, you can simply sit and order from the menu.

This is a pork noodle station.

Here's sugarcane wrapped in ham ready to be grilled.

A dessert station. Those are not lima beans, that much I do know. But yes those are several types of gelatin cubes and a sugary syrup and yellow mung bean paste. I think the green and white things are coconut flakes.

Vietnamese desserts are something you appreciate more if you've grown up around them. Just ask The Good Doctor after my aunt has served him a giant mystery dough ball dunked in a gingery spiced syrup with mysterious black seeds floating in the liquid. He's such a good sport about it. "Mmm. Thanks! Oh what, oh no need for seconds. I'm stuffed. But that first bowl was great!"

One of my favorite breakfast meals, although you can eat it anytime, com tam. It's broken rice with grilled pork, nuoc mam and a few pickled veggies. This is com tam bi, which comes with those chewy pork strands dusted with some sort of toasty powder. The half yellow muffin is like a pork and cellophane rice noodle casserole. Except casseroles aren't technically part of Vietnamese cuisine. 

And, one of the BEST drinks you will ever drink. Fresh. Squeezed. Strawberry. Juice. People inappropriately overuse periods for emphasis all. the. time. This was not one of those times. Supremely refreshing and perfectly sweet. The straw wrapped around the straw was a bit much but Emmy liked it.

 

Finally, some familiar faces enjoying themselves at the Good Restaurant.

Super Kawaii Mittens

Too bad I can't get Emmy to put her hands in them. She took one look at these and ran the other way. Bought them from Nest Maternity in San Francisco during our story on the Belly Armor blankets. I didn't protect her from radiation in the womb but I'll be damned if her fingers get frostbitten. 

ESPN

A lucky surprise. We watched the tournament replay on ESPN and slo-moed this shot about 20 times so I could get a screenshot of our family on ESPN!

Do you see us? 

The guy bending over is Trent Dilfer. And no, I am not looking at his bottom. 

Ooh Ooh Ooh, A Bear, A Bear, A Bear

So we're all enjoying a fine morning in Tahoe when we hear a bird? A squirrel? Some small animal shrieking in the trees loudly.

SHRIEEEEEEK!

A few seconds...

SHRIEEEEEEK!

...

SHRIEEEEEEK!

...

SHRIEEEEEEK!

I'm still rubbing the sleep from my eyes because everyone else is so WIDE AWAKE in The Good Doctor's family at the crack of dawn. I like my ZZZZZZ's.

At that random moment, White Grandma decides to peek out and see what little critter is making that SHRIEEEEEEKing noise.

Suddenly she whips around to the rest of us, points out the window and whispers excitedly, "Ooh ooh ooh, a bear, a bear, a bear!"

God Bless America, The Good Doctor happened to be fumbling around with my camera, when does he EVER have my camera, so we're locked and loaded as we run over to the window. He snapped this shot through the screen.

And then of course I gently snatched the camera from his slender fingers and we followed the bear to the next window and I shot this video.

That voice you hear in the background saying, "It's not THAT big. I could totally wrestle that bear" is Emmy's Uncle Mike. Who, by the way, is usually quite mentally sound and an excellent recommender of books. ("The Passage." OMG READ IT NOW. So. Good.) Sure he could wrestle that 500 pound bear. Meanwhile, we've stopped making fun of White Grandpa for carrying bear pepper spray that comes in a cute mini fire extinguisher bottle, perfect for accessorizing with on long hikes!

Good job Panasonic Lumix! HD video with a wicked zoom lens got the job done. My first bear sighting in the wild! And he walked right by my Prius. To think, had that bear ambled along in that area just an hour before, he would've come upon three bite sized dogs and a small Asian woman who would've just crapped her pajama pants.

Next time we hear SHRIEEEEEEK! we're running to the windows. It's Squirrelese for "There's motherf***ing bears in the motherf***ing yard!"

Bamboo Plate

Again with the UncleOwly. Saw this lovely handcrafted Japanese bamboo plate and had to have it for Emmy. Ordered it from the lovely people at We Are 1976 who iPhoned over pics of all the FunFam plateware so I could choose. Natural, durable, and made of untreated material. Because everything else seems to cause baby cancers and other toxic horrors.

A good mother would feed Emmy out of her palm like a little bird but it's too hard to play Scramble2 on the iPad with just one hand. Damn it, Rachelle. New addiction and of course I'm getting schooled by The Good Doctor. High score: 97! Again with the weel! And weels! And 8 pointers like "rattlers."

Emmy eats off this plate daily now. Occasionally so does Romeo, despite his many ass whuppins. That dog is a rule breaker fo' sho'. His new hobby: follow Emmy's bagel clutching fist... wait for it... SNATCH! It's payback for all the times she slams Dolly's face into his body when he's sleeping. The sibling rivalry has begun.