Eating Everything in Sight

Food is plentiful in Vietnam, and inexpensive - downright cheap, by our standards.

In the city, a breakfast of grilled beef and fried egg with a couple of fries, small slice of pate, glass of fresh juice and basket of crusty French bread costs about $2 in a nice neighborhood restaurant. Our favorite place was Hinh Nhu La, on Nguyen Dinh Chinh Street (ask for Nguyen; tell her Zach's mom sent you). In a place with less ambience, a hearty bowl of beef soup with rice noodles and fresh greens, or a plate lunch of pork chop and rice goes for about 50 cents.

At the other end of the dining spectrum are the buffets at the five-star hotels in the tourist district, which, by the way, aren't nearly as tasty as the simple fare found at the neighborhood noodle stands or sidewalk food carts.

Pho - pronounced like fun without the n and often referred to as the national dish of Vietnam - is a soup best consumed at one of literally thousands of hole-in-the-wall establishments all over Ho Chi Minh City. Although the Vietnamese aren't rigid about eating particular foods at certain meals, pho is especially popular for breakfast.

It's invariably accompanied by a plate of fresh leaves - cilantro, mint, basil, who knows what - placed in the middle of the table so each person can pick and choose the herbs they like. Diners select from any of several sauces - fiery hot sauce or fermented fish sauce being the two most popular - then dig in, chopsticks in one hand, spoon in the other.

Not only were the eating utensils different than what we're accustomed to here in eastern North Carolina, so were the ingredients.

Along with fruits we'd never heard of, such as longans, dragon fruit and rambutan, we tried three different kinds of snail, a soft drink made from winter melon (a type of squash), crunchy pigs' ears, grilled banana stuffed with rice and all manner of food wrapped in lettuce, rice paper or banana leaves.

After more than two weeks of delicious but unfamiliar foods, we were surprised when a bag of snacks brought along for a bus ride to the beach contained something we hadn't seen since we left home - boiled peanuts.