Tuesday Night in Ho Chi Minh

Are you tired of hearing about the food? Maybe. Well, on a work trip, the food is definitely a perk. My local colleauges took me to a "traditional" restaurant. I'm skeptical about how traditional the restaurant itself really is, but I don't doubt that the food is traditional. I have no idea what I ate; I never looked at a menu, but it was all pretty tasty. There are a couple of flavors that I have come across that hit me wrong and remind me that things are not necessarily refrigerated here (not every place has electricity or a generator) and definitely reminds me of the "cooking" qualities of things like lemon/lime juice and vinegar, and the smell requires that I muster up some courage but keep in mind the lesson learned in China: If it doesn't smell good, it's not going to taste better.

Dinner was delightfully refreshing; chicken salad (looked a lot like the cole slaw made by Scrunch for Monday's dinner) with shredded cabbage, carrots, red & yellow onion, and chicken breast in a sort of sweet sauce, similar to a dipping sauce that might be used for a fresh viet namese spring roll and topped with roasted then crushed peanuts. It was served with super crunchy rice crackers that I have only had with heavy duty shrimp flavoring; these were plain and perfect little scoops for the chicken salad.

I spent a lot of time in traffic today. It was raining and rush hour and I was a little bit motion sick and craning my neck to see as much as possible. We traveled all the way from District 1 to near the port area. Hot, dirty, raining. Here's picture of a honda; a bit blurry, but I am hoping that the raincoat over the front of the bike can be made out in this photo. The raincoat is covering his rear view mirrors.

Well, I have an early start tomorrow and it's our first BIG day, so I am off to bed at 8pm and happy to have a good excuse to do so.

Sweet dreams.