Hello!
My name is My
And today, I would like to have a pleasure to lead you to a food tour in Hanoi, which is my hometown.
And now I’m going to introduce you about a special dish with a special smelly purple sauce.
Can you guess what the sauce is?
If you are thinking it’s the shrimp paste.
Bingo!
You got the correct answer.
And the dish name is "Bun dau mam tom" in Vietnamese,
and I can translate it into English, which is vermicelli with fried tofu and shrimp paste.
Here I’m standing in the Sword Lake in Hanoi.
And now...
Let’s follow me inside a small lane in Hang Khay Street
and I’ll show you more about this dish.
Here
here I’m standing right in front of the restaurant named "Bun dau Viet"
which is Vietnamese vermicelli with fried tofu.
And this is at Number 27, Lane 29, Hang Khay Street.
And let’s go inside the restaurant with me.
So
here the food is arrived.
And before I start to dig in,
I would like to introduce you a little bit more about the shrimp paste,
which is the most special part of this dish.
Yeah,
the shrimp paste, you can see this, it has the purple color.
And sometimes they can mix it with the oil from fried tofu.
Somebody tells that this paste is the smelliest paste in the world.
And a foreigner told to me that this paste smells like hell but tastes like heaven.
Yeah,
I would say that this paste is an acquired taste because firstly,
you will not feel like it so much because it has a strong smell.
But gradually when you taste it and you feel like it and like it more, you’ll be addicted to it.
Yeah,
so here I got in this plate,
I got vermicelli cake,
and some slices of steamed pork,
and I have pork pie with green-rice flakes.
And I also have, yeah, this is fried tofu and some slices of cucumber and mixed herb.
So now I can’t wait any more,
I would try the dish right away.
But before it, I would show you how to eat it.
Firstly, I would put the vermicelli cake into the shrimp paste,
and then I would take a slice of pork into shrimp paste and I’ll mix them all inside my mouth.
So yeah, now I’ll try it right away.
Yeah, I can feel the smell, so strong.
You know what?
It’s extremely good, yeah.
Sometimes you can use some kumquat fruit to...
yeah you can add some kumquat juice into shrimp paste to neutralize the strong taste.
But I am a Vietnamese so I want to taste the original taste of this shrimp paste.
Now I would try the fried tofu.
You know what? Before…
This fried tofu is only, like fried halfway,
and after I order it, they would fry it to the fullest.
It feels like really crispy.
Yeah,
it’s melting in my mouth.
It’s crispy outside but it’s really soft inside.
Do you know what it is?
This is the pig’s tribes.
It’s really special in Vietnam.
I guess this kind of food is only in Southeast Asia, not in the Western countries.
Yeah, it’s so special.
Yeah,
it tastes so well.
And in these restaurants,
they also give us extra gums so that after we finish the lunch,
we can use the gum to eradicate the smell inside our mouth.
So we also have a fresh mouth after we taste the strong paste.
Yeah so finally I finish my dish.
Yeah I’m so full, I’m super full!
And can you think that I can eat another plate of vermicelli with fried tofu and shrimp paste?
I don’t think so.
I’ll let that dish to the next time I come here.
And yeah, thank you for today.
I think that that’s enough for today.
Thank you for following me.
And, see you in the next time in another food tour.
Goodbye!