Cafe Hanoi

This was to be my last outing before having Charlie but, because he came two weeks early, we had to wait over a month before making a visit to Cafe Hanoi. Despite having visited before, we walked straight past the bright red front doors of Cafe Hanoi. 

I hadn't taken an infant to a restaurant before so I called ahead to make sure it was OK. The staff on the phone were very accommodating and made a booking for five people and a pram. 

The staff helped us with getting the stroller up the stairs and led us into a spacious room that was filled with natural light. Despite bring right next to a busy road, we felt miles away from the big city.

The Virgins: The Herbalist - $9.00, Sweet Spiced Mule - $9.00

We started with a few mocktails while we perused the menu. I ordered The Herbalist because I love Chi (the drink). It came infused with thai basil, coriander, lime, and passion fruit which gave it a very Asian feel. I wish it came with more Chi as the passion fruit syrup was too sweet for me - it tasted better once the ice had melted a bit. 

Ashley ordered the sweet spiced mule, a variation of the Moscow Mule with the addition of cinnamon and other sweet spies. The drink was refreshing yet warming. 

Pho bo- $6.00 per individual serve

We started with individual servings of pho. Although the menu item is "pho bo", we got pieces of chicken instead of beef. Nevertheless, the chicken was juicy and the noodles had a great bite. Tying it all together is the light, yet flavoursome broth. The addition of lime and pickled chili made the whole dish sing. 

Master stock chicken with green papaya - $10.50

The fresh papaya salad was wonderfully light while packing a big flavour punch. I thought there was a great ratio of tender master stock poached chicken to papaya, and crushed peanuts added a great nuttiness to the dish.

Hanoi Style Grilled Pork - $27.00

I thought that the Bún Chà was a very harmonious dish. The fatty pork had a delicious char on the outside and was balanced by the pickled vegetables and fresh herbs. The nuoc cham sauce had a lovely flavour which tied all the ingredients together into the rice noodles (the left over sauce was also nice mixed into our rice).

Caramelised Pork Belly Hotpot - $27.00

We could smell the fragrant dish before it even arrived at our table. Each piece of pork belly was incredibly tender and beautifully caramalised. The sweet sticky sauce had a hint of coconut and was also a great sauce for spooning on our rice.

Soft Shell Crab with Spicy Tamarind Sauce - $28.00

My eyes gravitated toward this dish as soon as I opened the menu and I was not disappointed. Each piece of crab was coated in a light crunchy batter and came with a delicious tangy sauce that made my salivate. This was my favourite dish.

Lime Curd with Soft Meringue - $12.50

The Lime Curd and Meringue sounded nice on the menu but I felt that the dessert was overall quite sickly sweet. There was simply not enough tangy lime curd to balance out the sweet sticky meringue and the meringue ice cream. The delicate tuille provided a nice texture change but, again, there was not enough of it to counter the meringue.

Sage Pudding with Mango Sorbet - $12.50

This dessert was a nice modernisation of the traditional sago pudding, with a mango sorbet and fresh pieces of mango and coconut. The warm and cool elements of the dish balanced each other out nicely and the palm sugar drizzle was delicious.

Báhn trôi Tàu - $12.00

Báhn trôi Tàu is the Vietnamese equivalent of the Japanese Mochi or the Chinese Tang Yuan. The giant glutinous rice flour dumplings were filled with a sweet black sesame paste and sat in a coconut scented broth. The sandy sesame contrasted well with the soft chewy pastry and I thoroughly enjoyed having a warm dessert to follow our mains.

Hot Soy Milk Doughnut - $2.50

We ordered a number of the Hot Soy Milk Doughnuts for the table. Dusted with cinnamon sugar, the doughnuts were very generous in size and came with an equally generous bowl of caramel sauce (the sauce was so good that each bowl was licked clean!). I was not able to taste any soy milk flavours from the doughnut, but that didn't detract from the deliciousness at all. At a mere $2.50 each, we all agreed that this would make an inexpensive treat.


Our first outing turned out to be very successful - little Charlie slept through the whole meal and we were able to enjoy every dish to the fullest. The staff were super attentive and every dish was delicious.

Cafe Hanoi can be found at the Excelsior Building, corner of Galway Street & Commerce Street, Britomart, Auckland 1010

Sapa

Leap years were always something that confused me - it's a strange thought that someone could be aged 72 but have only had 18 birthdays. For those of you that may have lived under a rock for your whole life, a leap year contains an additional day and occurs only once every 4 years which is why the Gregorian calendar (the one we all use), has 29 days in February this year.

My Grandmother, however, was born on February 30th -something that has always managed to confuse our European friends (and various immigration officers). The following conversation would then entail an explanation of how the traditional Chinese calendar is still used widely in China and how many have their Chinese birthdays recorded on official documents. 


Hence, a lot of confusion ensues.

So, to avoid future confusion, her European birthday is now on the 29th while we continue to celebrate her birthday according to the Chinese calendar. I've recently found out that this is actually quite common among other Chinese people and many use it to their advantage by having two birthday celebrations -one for the Gregorian calendar and one for the traditional calendar! Pretty clever, if you ask me!


This year, my family celebrated grandma's birthday on March 21st, which is actually the 29th day of the second month according to the Chinese calendar. The menu for her birthday celebrations are usually the same every year -Peking Duck, Lobster Noodles and a few other Chinese dishes to go with them. By a few I mean at least 10. This family is big on food. 

Peking Duck -$48 for two courses

This year, instead of the local Hong Kong style restaurant we usually frequent, my mother booked a big table at a Vietnamese restaurant in the hopes we would all branch out -but not so much that we have to miss out on Peking Duck. Sapa doesn't actually have Peking Duck on their menu, but strings were pulled because it's my grandmother's all time favourite dish and, considering that it's not something they usually serve, the chef certainly did a fantastic job. The duck skin was sliced perfectly and the spring onions were bundled up in chili skins which we all thought was a neat touch.

Peking Duck - second course

Again, I feel the need to commend the chef on serving something that isn't even on the menu. The second course of the Peking Duck was perfectly seasoned and beautifully presented. The combination of duck meat, preserved vegetables and the addition of nuts was like a flavour explosion in my mouth -possibly even the best second course I've had!

Secret Pork Casserole

Vietnamese Style Prawns

Black Bean Beef

The next few dishes that came out were pretty average. There was nothing wrong with any of them, but none were spectacular. The secret pork casserole tasted strongly of cloves but the Black Bean Beef was very tender. On to the next..


Crispy Chicken

 Crispy Chicken is my grandmother's all time favourite dish which she orders at every chance and, luckily for her, was one of Sapa's specialties. The meat was  tender and moist while the thin layer of skin was made extra crispy -a feat that I have seen few Chinese restaurants achieve.


Stir fried fish pieces

Another dish that deserves special mention is the stir fried fish. As a family who usually orders a whole steamed blue cod, having our fish already cut up was a welcome change. The fish was very fresh and the flesh fell apart in your mouth (but miraculously stayed intact in between my chopsticks!).



Egg Foo Young

I'm not entirely sure how this ended up on our table, but it couldn't have been a mistake (we were the only ones dining in that night). To be perfectly honest, I didn't give it a good try because I had pigged out on the numerous other dishes that night and Egg Foo Young just never seemed like a restaurant dish to me. Like some of the previous dishes, this was average and slightly underseasoned.

Sapa had a few average dishes but some real highlights. Although we were the only ones dining that night, I noticed that they had many takeaway customers. The decor was brilliant and waitress was very friendly and attentive.
Sapa Vietnamese Restaurant can be found at  Unit 7, 357 Albany Highway, Albany.


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Vietnamese Noodle Salad

With the temperature picking up and the sun coming out, it's finally started feeling like summer -well.. whenever I'm at work, it seems. It must be some weird, unwritten law that it is always too wet to hang my clothes out to dry in the weekend but blindingly sunny when I go out to site..

..So now here I am, typing away while my wet clothes are hanging off the clothes horse next to my dehumidifier while I dream about the past two long weekends that us Aucklanders have just enjoyed -at the least the weather was good then!

The thing that amazes me about long weekends is how much more productive one can be with that one extra day -I would gladly work a few extra hours in the day just to have three day weekends! I would spend all of them cooking up beautiful salads for sunny days like the recent Auckland Anniversary Weekend.

Toss everything together!

I really enjoy the clean, fresh flavours of Vietnamese food and there's nothing better than sitting down to a nice serving of a cold noodle salad with refreshing cucumber and herbs and the slight kick of a chili pepper.

Gluten free too!

This one's a real goody -vegetarian and can be gluten free as well! 

Sorry about the short post, sweeties, I have a work report to write (so I can graduate!) and will be a tad scarce in the next 2 to 3 weeks. But I will be back in full form very very soon!

Vietnamese Noodle Salad (Serves 4)

Ingredients:


200g packet of dried thin rice noodles
1/2 cucumber, roughly chopped
100g snow peas, roughly sliced
1 long red chili, sliced into strips
1 cup mint leaves
1 cup coriander leaves
1/4 cup peanuts, roughly chopped
Fried onion bits as garnish


For the Dressing:


Juice of 2 limes and the zest of 1
1/4 cup fish sauce
2 Tablespoons grated palm sugar
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 Tablespoon sesame oil


Method:


1. Cook the noodles according to the packet, plunge into cold water and drain.
2. Toss the noodles with the cucumber, peas, chili and herbs in a large bowl.
3. In a separate bowl, mix together the fish sauce, sugar, oil, lime juice and zest.
4. Pour over the salad and toss to combine.
5. Garnish with chopped peanuts and fried onion bits before serving.

I'll Saig On your Van in a minute

I swear it hasn't stopped raining since we got back to Auckland. It is a miserable day outside and all I can think about is the food at Saigon Van. 

Located somewhere in Dunedin (we didn't walk there so I didn't pay attention to where we were) Saigon Van, I am told, is the best Vietnamese restaurant uncle Donald has ever had. 

Saigon Van -somewhere in Dunedin..

Now I've had my fair share of Vietnamese cuisine before, but nothing like this. This seemed more authentic -but as I type this, I realise that I have no idea what AUTHENTIC Vietnamese food is like (note to self: go to Vietnam).

The atmosphere inside was warm, the staff very friendly and there was nice music in the background. The only downside was the noisy children at the next table being allowed, by their parents, to roam the restaurant. We are reminded that Grace hates kids. 

There was so much food we wanted to try so we got a little of everything and shared it around.

Saigon Van Salad

 The Saigon Van salad was strongly recommended by Kate and was full of strange ingredients that Grace and Ben had never seen before. I, being Asian, have eaten these on many occasions and took it upon myself to educate them.

Deconstructed salad

The dish consisted of: shredded chicken, prawn, cloud ear fungus (don't let the "fungus" part scare you), cabbage (green and red), carrot and peanuts covered in a light tamarind sauce. The result was a lovely crunchy salad with just the right amount of sauce.

Transparent Spring Rolls

The Transparent Spring Rolls were filled with shredded pork, rice noodles and fresh veggies which complimented each other quite well. I was very glad that I was on the end of the table where I only had to share with one other person.

Crispy Spring Rolls

Food is nice. But deep fried food is better. Always.
The spring rolls were coated in tempura batter and lightly fried. I, being the polite guest, didn't have the last one (even though I really really wanted to!)

Braised Chicken with Ginger

Even though I don't like onion, this, out of the mains, was my favourite. The chicken was very tender and cooked in a sweet, peppery sauce. The added rice wine complimented the flavours really well and I went about drowning my rice in the delicious sauce. 

Crispy Fried Fillet of Fish with Tamarind Sauce (Grace's favourite)

I come from a family of seafood eaters and I have been taught, from a very early age, to tell the difference between good quality fish and fish that's been in the freezer for a few days. This was good quality fish. Each bite was melt in your mouth and had just the right amount of batter to fish meat ratio.

Braised Pork and Egg -Vietnamese Style

This was served to the opposite end of the table first. This photograph is a testament to how appealing it was -by the time I even made it to the opposite side, half of it had disappeared! Again, the meat was very tender and I found myself wishing the portion sizes were a little bigger.



I'm not going to lie. Dessert came as a surprise. 

When I think banana cake, I think: 

Banana Cake

Not:

Steamed Banana Cake with Coconut Cream

I love trying new food but this was a little too weird for my taste. The dessert resembled a pudding rather than a cake and tasted very "banana-ry" (which, I suppose is to be expected). The coconut cream was a nice accompaniment to the banana flavour but I couldn't get past the slimy texture of the "cake." Luckily, I had enough foresight to share it with Grace but we couldn't even finish it between the two of us. 


As I looked around the table, I noticed that everyone else's plates were empty so I quickly gobble up the rest so we don't look ungrateful.


Verdict? I love Vietnamese food. I love it even more now. But maybe I'll stick to the vanilla ice cream next time..