Boots in the Oven

The Fattest Duck of All.

Who set my dinner on fire?

Well, we went to the Fat Duck. The burgers were good, but the fries were a little soggy. The soda machine was broken so we just had water and WHY CAN’T I STOP LYING?!

The fries were perfectly golden brown and crispy and ok so there weren’t fries, but if there were I’m sure they would have been perfectly golden brown and crispy, it’s just that kind of place.

For those of you who don’t know, the Fat Duck is a small restaurant in Bray, England, just a few dozen kilometers outside of London. The little village is so small the restaurant doesn’t even give an address; they just say “continue past the bottleneck and The Fat Duck can be found on the right hand side.” Perfect.

The chef and owner’s name is Heston Blumenthal. He’s an amazing self taught food freak who pretty much hones the cutting edge of the modern culinary experience. His little project started out as a modest pub and now is consistently tossed around in that best-five-restaurants-in-the-world category. Go him.

Just before I left for culinary school in Italy, I decided that eating at the Fat Duck was pretty much a mandatory experience if you really want to know what haute cuisine and fine dining is all about. Turns out I do and luckily for me, so does my wonderfully understanding wife.

Sneakily, I called and got a gift certificate for the tasting menu for two and the wine pairings that go with it. I slipped it to Mme. Pants as a combination birthday present/anniversary present/graduation, Christmas and Hanukah present/in lieu of a first house/car/higher education for our future children, but hey, you only live once right?

Enough backstory. Fast forward about 13 months. We’d just had an amazing year in Florence and we were ready for dinner. We hopped a flight to England as nervous as two school girls in a room full of rocking chairs or whatever that saying is.

We killed a day or so in London doing some stuff and things, but in no time at all, our appointed eating slot was upon us. We had 8 o’clock reservations on Tuesday, May 15th.

That afternoon, we took a few hours getting into our sexy pants and grooming to a state of extreme attractiveness. This is probably a good time to mention that unlike most places of fine dining The Fat Duck has no dress code. Zero, absolutely none. (When we showed up, there was actually a young Asian man in a dirty t-shirt and shorts. Who are these people?!)

Primped and fabulous, we boarded the train from Paddington Station to Maidenhead, about a forty-five minute ride. When we disembarked we emerged into some sort of British monsoon. It was pouring. We had gotten in early because we had planned to take a leisurely stroll from Maidenhead to Bray. Since we didn’t feel like swimming, we wasted a bit of time and then took a taxi.

Five minutes later, we pulled up in front of a modest building that was unmarked except for a small metal sign hanging high over-head. It didn’t even have the name, just their patented duckified knife, fork, and spoon.

When we walked in the door, I got a bit of an Eyes Wide Shut vibe. Me: “Yes, my wife and I have reservations for tonight.” Lovely Hostess: “Good evening Mr. Cooper. So glad to have you. If you and Mrs. Cooper will come right this way…”

Spooky.

The walk from the door to the table wasn’t exactly a scene from Cheers, but every member of the service staff we passed, everyone, either smiled and nodded or smiled and said hello or smiled and waved. But nicely, not in that creepy way. We certainly felt welcomed.

Now before I start with the ass kissing and swooning praise, I would like to kick this story off with a bit of bitching. Pretty much as soon as we’re seated the sommelier wheels over a fabulous cart with about five types of champagne/sparkling beverages. He immediately and expertly gives us the run down of what he’s got and asks if we would care for a glass of any of his bubblies.

Well of course we would. The problem is that we had no idea if this was complementary or a set price or if each of the bottles had a different price etc, etc… I’m sure you’re thinking, “Come on man! Use your words. Ask how much and get it over with.”

(Aside from girlie – I felt exactly the same way! We were likely the only people this sommelier saw the whole month of May who cared how much things cost.)

That’s all well and good, but the fact of the matter was that I was already feeling a little on the Jed Clampett side and I really didn’t want the first words out of my mouth to be, “So just how much is y’all chargin’ for this here fizzy juice?” Like a possum in a flood light I froze.

Luckily, I have had the good sense to marry up, so my lovely wife stepped in seamlessly and ordered us two glasses of Taittinger Non-vintage Brut Reserve. She said she knew that it wasn’t outrageously expensive and that she had wanted to try it for a while. It was a really good choice. The nose was fresh and a little yeasty and each sip was bubbly and creamy with bright, sweet citrus flavors. Nice work girlie. (If you’re curious, they ended up charging us about 22 bucks a glass. Not enough for me to choke on it, but come on, they could at least give you a ball park number before pouncing with their irresistible cart.)

With the drinks also came an adorable little ramekin of picholine olives. They were a little nutty and a little anisey and it never hurts to start a good meal with yummy olives. Oh, and fresh butter. Lots and lots of fresh butter and homemade bread. Yeah, I knew I was going to be eating for the next four hours but that didn’t stop me from cramming several pieces of warm crusty bread into my cheek pouches. I mean, come on, they had white and wheat as well as salted and unsalted butter. As if I’m not supposed to try every combination.

After we had a few briny/buttery treats, our waiter showed up pushing a small cart. He greeted us and then explained that he was going to dunk a large dollop of lime-vodka green tea mousse into a pot of liquid nitrogen. Ok, he caught my attention. He further explained that we were to eat it immediately and in one bite. If we hesitated, or god forbid, waited long enough to take a picture, the whole effect would be totally ruined and Mr. Blumenthal would be deeply and personally wounded. I get it. No picture.

Here's one of the a la carte menu to help soothe the wounds.

He made one for Mme. Pants first and quickly followed with one for me. It was quite cool and firmer than I was imagining. The flavors were subtle but intriguing and the whole thing dissolved on your tongue practically before your mouth could close. It was a nice little amuse bouche.

Our waiter in action

The mousse was trailed by two small trays bearing two squares each; one a garnet red and one a deep yellow. The waiter explained that we would be eating orange and beet root jellies. This opening dish is the perfect example of the Fat Duck dining philosophy. Heston and his team don’t just want you to have an awesome eating experience; they want to fuck with your head.

(SPOILER ALERT! If you care about these things, you might not want to read the next paragraph.) Per the recommendation, I started with the orange jelly. The first thing I noticed was the smooth texture and the next was the strong and savory taste of beets. Huh? I moved on to the red jelly. Blood orange of course, blood orange and golden beet. That sneaky bastard.

On the heels of this came an oyster shooter with horseradish, passion fruit, lavender and sugar flakes. It was a total giggle dish. It just makes you feel good and kinda silly. It was sweet, hot, fresh, salty sea and you couldn’t help but smile.

Shortly after the oysters were dispatched, two white bowls appeared, holding pommery grain mustard ice cream and red cabbage gazpacho. Now you might think that you don’t like mustard ice cream, but you are mistaken. This stuff was mild and delicious; perfectly complimenting the aggressive cruciferous spice of the soup. And the color was totally cool.

Next in the line up came a quail jelly with asparagus, langoustine cream, and a parfait of foie gras. Besides being a touch too salty, I could have eaten several dozen bowls of the stuff. It was silky and intense. The quails had been roasted to achieve a deeply rich flavor not unlike a good beef demi glace. The foie gras was fluffy and the asparagus provided the requisite vegetable note. The langoustine cream was sweet, but really almost disappeared. It was probably a case of I wouldn’t have missed it unless it was gone though.

The last in the starters’ roster was oak moss and truffle toast. In addition to being a great idea, this dish also introduced a little more of the Fat Duck’s technological bent. Mr. Blumenthal has figured out how they make those nifty little Listerine Breath Strips and has co-opted the process to make oak moss strips. See, it turns out that while oak moss may not initially sound delicious, it actually shares several key flavor compounds with black truffles. According to Heston then, this should make them very complimentary. I’m going to go out on a limb and agree.

The fun part of this dish is he doesn’t just want you to taste things; he wants to get all of the senses involved. It starts with the moss breath strip dissolving with a light astringency on your tongue. Then warm water(?) is poured over fresh oak moss that you have previously been encouraged to touch and poke. This sets off some sort of seriously smoky reaction that bathes the whole table in eau de oak moss.

As the last of the vapor dissipated, we shoved the truffle toasts (with tiny slices of radish) into our mouths. Truffleness exploded on our tongues and mossy fragrance ran down the back of our olfactory sensors. The similarity was clear. Wow. It’s neat to be shown things that you almost certainly wouldn’t have discovered for yourself.

Wherez ma feedins?

This marked the end of the food they serve to make you hungry before they serve the real food. I was beginning to wonder if there weren’t more chefs than diners.

The first “real” dish was snail porridge with Joselito ham and shaved fennel. The snails were perfectly cooked and served on a bed of parsley garlic butter puree. The dish was enjoyable, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that it tasted an awful lot like Stouffer's Stuffing or maybe Cup o’ Noodles. Not necessarily in a bad way, but it’s just how I felt. (Girlie: I agree. There was a strong flavor of boullion here (the ham maybe?), though it was still well incorporated, somehow.)

After the snails came a roast foie gras with almond gel, cherry and chamomile. This was possibly one of the best things I’ve ever eaten. The liver, cherry and almond combinations were just amazing. The chamomile powder added a great floral note but also a real richness of flavor. The chives and shaved almond really added to the texture spectrum, highlighting just how creamy smooth the foie gras and gels were. More please.

The Fat Duck is a small place and fully packed it’s a little on the loud side. It didn’t help that at this point in the meal, some very intoxicated woman a few tables away started yelling things like, “You’re mean! Shhhh! We need more champagne! Shut up!” It wasn’t totally distracting, but I found myself quickly wishing that she would take her own advice.

I’m sure it was complete coincidence, but right then the waiter came out bearing the next dish, enigmatically titled “Sound of the Sea.” It started with two large conch shells that each appeared to have a set of headphones emerging from their depths. As we donned our headphones, restaurant babble quickly faded to soothing sea sounds. Neat. It was kind of like the audile equivalent of the sorbet palette cleanser. (No the shells didn’t play the music. They had tucked a little iPod shuffle up in there somewhere. Those guys.)

Along with the shells came a long box with a glass top covering sand. On top of this was a huge mess that was unidentifiable but indescribably delicious. This is what the waiter said was in it: four types of seaweed- dulse, hijiki, wakame, and sapphire. Cockles, abalone, fried baby eels, sea beans, and a shellfish foam. All this was mixed with some kind of off white powder that melted in your mouth but was also a little crunchy. The waiter guy swore it was just tapioca, but from the taste and texture I’d bet another dinner at the Fat Duck that it was good old fashioned potato chips blended with tapioca maltodextrin. Seriously. Call Heston and ask.

Fried Baby Eel.

Regardless, it was amazing. It didn’t go with any of the other food and it really seemed out of place. But with the combination of the sound and the unusual Asian flavors – and the non-traditional sake pairing - it was more like a hiatus than a miscue in the meal’s progression.

Next up was an item that was probably the weakest of the evening. It was salmon poached in liquorice with pertuis asparagus and pink grapefruit. It also had Tuscan olive oil, coriander, and a vanilla mayonnaise. Yeah. When the waiter brought it out he “musically grated” some additional liquorice over the food. Why not?

The whole dish gave me the sense that at some point it had become an engineering feat to the guys back in the kitchen. The preparation was a tricky problem that they were sure they could solve, but along the way they forgot that it just wasn’t that tasty.

Don’t get me wrong. Individually, the components of the dish were each quite yummy. The salmon was soft, moist and buttery, a preparation that paid a true compliment to the fish. The problem was that it was encased in some sort of liquorice rubber. The texture was just all off. It’s not that the flavors of everything didn’t go together; it’s just that there were so many I felt like I was licking a Jackson Pollock painting.

Amends were made with the next offering, titled Best End of Lamb. I asked the waiter what the exact cut was. He stared back at me wide eyed and in all seriousness said, “Why it’s the best end of lamb sir.” After recovering from my many and varied blows, he went on to explain that it was a super tender cut from just behind the neck.

The lamb was served with roasted onions, an onion and thyme fluid gel, and a little napoleon made up of a fennel and potato mash, lamb sweetbreads and crispy potato rounds. Everything was doused in some sort of lamb jus and wow, it was seriously scrumptious. The meat was fork-cuttingly soft and Heston and his boys didn’t hesitate to leave on a nice encasement of succulent lamb fat. After all it is the best end of lamb, not the sissy-dieters slice.

I know I haven’t been talking about the wines that came with each dish, but this particular one deserves a special shout out. The sommelier paired the lamb plate with a 1999 Poderi Luigi Einaudi 'Nei Cannubi' Barolo. It’s big and deep and powerful, and paired with the lamb it really rocked.

It’s a yummy Barolo with rich stewed fruit and oak. Its structure and tannins did good things for the chocolate, tar, mint, and black cherry flavors. Having lived in Italy for the last year, so close to wines like this but so inhabiting another economic plane, it was a real treat to sample what the fuss is all about.

After wiping both glass and plate clean with my face, I realized that a bathroom break was not the worst of ideas. For all you die hard Fat Duck freaks out there, if you wanna see behind the scenes you’ll just have to go yourselves. Oh, I have pictures alright. I just don’t feel like sharing.

One interesting note though. While I was gone, the sommelier immediately came over to the table and started to converse with Mme. Pants. He lent her his company, insuring her non-loneliness practically until the moment of my return. Whether this is testament to the restaurant’s unimpeachable customer service or rather to girlie’s irresistible charm may forever remain unresolved. Either way, it was kinda cool.

Seconds after my return (they had been waiting patiently I’m sure) our waiter arrived bearing two small insulated glasses containing what he described as hot and cold iced tea. As he handed them to us, he explained that we must drink them instantly without delay. Any hesitation on our part may force the kitchen staff to resign en masse. Clear as a bell, gov. We each quickly downed our offerings and as promised it was both hot and cold. Quite a strange sensation.

Evidence after the fact.

I’m not sure how he did it, but I can tell you that the cold side was noticeably more viscous than the hot side. If I had to guess, I’d say he made some sort of chilled tea jelly and let it set while the glass was tilted on its side and then right before serving poured in a hot version of the same concoction minus the gelatin. Or something entirely different. (We’ve also heard that a gel sheet of some sort is used to separate the hot and the cold teas and keep them from mixing.)

After the tea came Mrs. Marshall’s Margaret Cornet. It turns out that Heston is quite a food historian. He not only seeks out the science, but also the history of gastronomy. Agnes Bertha Marshall, almost forgotten today, wrote some of the finest books on ice cream ever written. Her recipe for the ice cream cone predates the supposed first at the St. Louis World Fair of 1904 by some 16 years.

One of the last of her original machines still in existence was recently tested and turned out a liter of ice cream in an impressive 3 minutes. You’d think modern machinery could top that, but it’s still the fastest in the world by far. Apparently, she was quite the bad ass.

Homage was paid with a tiny cone filled with orange granita and topped with apple ice cream. The cone was so thin you could practically see through it. This wasn’t no 31 flavors baby. My one note would be that the crisp sugar shell had a distinct and not all together pleasant fried flavor. The filling was stellar, but the cone could have been a touch less greasy.

After ice cream time came one of the more playful dishes of the evening- the pine sherbet fountain. I don’t care what they call it, this thing was a gourmet lik-m-aid. I can’t tell you how cool it was. The flavor was sweet and tangy and packed with piney goodness. Again, a definite giggle dish, bringing great forest flavors right into dinner.

Our pine theme continued with a mango and Douglas fir puree. Accompanying that was a black current sorbet with cashews and a beet crisp. This dish was complicated and had a lot of different things going on. To start with, the sorbet was fantastic. It was tart and had a very satisfying mouth feel. The beet crisp was a great earthy compliment.

The mango and Douglas fir jiggle box was ok. It was sweet and interesting but not particularly delicious. What was awesome though, and totally made the dish for me were the little jello cubes. Those tiny guys were spicy! It was an excellent counterpoint to the agrodolce and coniferous notes. (Well, isn’t someone all fancy pants with their unique and successful flavor pairings?)

Next, Mr. Blumenthal opened up his candy store. Our waiter paraded out two adorable carrot and orange tuiles and two sugar coated little beet root jellies. The tuiles were yummy and the vivid orange color was so bright it looked almost like an ember fresh from the fire. A tasty, tasty ember that you shove into your mouth and suck on until it dissolves into a sticky, carroty orange puddle. Slurp…

The beetroot jellies were so enjoyable that I have vowed to swear off beets in any application except desserts. These little bastards were goooood! They were beety and tangy with the perfect amount of sweetness. They were amazingly soft with a light and pleasant chew. These should come in giant sacks.

The little confections pretty much wrapped up dinner, but since Heston and his boys weren’t quite finished with us we agreed to stay overnight for a bit of hanky-panky if they promised to cook us breakfast. (We’re very open minded.)

First up, individual boxes of breakfast cereal. Too cute. In typical Fat Duck style though, these weren’t your usual Kellogg’s Frosted Golden Fruity Puffs. No, these were pure parsnip flakes. Served with what else? Parsnip milk of course.

The presentation was the whole show here. The packaging and theater of it took something extremely simple and changed it into a great dish. It was so basic but it really made you think about the whole concept of fine dining. How important it is to not only draw the customer into the experience but to fiddle with their preconceptions. Very Warhol really; take a common mass produced food stuff and co-opt it for art.

For the last course, all stops were pulled out. It had a little bit of everything: performance, novelty, humor, presentation, deliciousness… you name it. It started with a lady bringing over a carton holding a half dozen eggs, each bearing the Fat Duck stamp. After we selected our egg, she prepared the anti-pot, a copper apparatus that “cooks” with cold instead of heat.

She cracked our egg into the pot and added a little liquid nitrogen while stirring vigorously with a wooden spoon. We soon discovered that the eggy insides had been replaced with a bacon flavored gelato mix. I’m also fairly certain that during the initial preparation of the base, it was taken to a higher temperature than normal so that more of the egg proteins set, giving it a distinct egg flavor.

When the gelato was done, it was carefully served on top of bruleed French toast with a paper thin slice of candied bacon that had been coated with a shellac of sucrose. On the bottom, there was a dab of tomato jam and on the side came a glass of chilled tea jelly. See, an entire breakfast!

I know I said that the foie gras was one of the best things I’ve ever eaten but it would just be wrong to not put this dish on the list too. It was sweet, salty, creamy, crispy and hilarious. The tea jelly was a perfectly complimentary tannic-sweet and herby. Playful yet masterful. These guys are rockstars.

After the last plate disappeared, girlie and I decided that a nice espresso or two was in order. The coffee was solid, but not as good as say that cup we had in Siracusa. You can’t beat the glassware though. Heston has all of his stuff custom made just for the Fat Duck and somebody in the design process has some seriously good taste.

Along with coffee, we were presented with the very, very last things that would go in our mouths. I swear. Really. Just a few more things. This was it. They didn’t bring out anything else. Hang in there.

First came a plate with whisky jellies and violet tartlets. The whisky jellies had a really good Irish whisky flavor and a nice chewy texture. Not quite as good as the beet ones, but that’s a high freakin’ bar.

The violet dealies had a runny gooey middle that was nice, but they didn’t have much violet taste. They came off mainly as sweet. Also, the shell was fried like the tiny ice cream cones and the weird oily flavor didn’t really do it for me. On the plus side, the rich deep purple color was all pretty and stuff.

Finally, they brought out a half a cocoa pod half filled with some kind of cocoa shavings. Nestled inside were two types of chocolates. The first was filled with a rich mint and dark chocolate ganache. The mint tasted like the real deal, vegetably and pungent. The center was satiny with a coating mouthfeel.

The second one was an orange honeycomb. It was light, crisp and entirely lovely. The cool gold leaf on the bottom had some sort of rainbow oil slick appearance and was a nice touch. The whole candy was surprisingly light; it almost felt like you weren’t holding anything. I’m not the biggest chocolate fan, but I could appreciate that this was one impressive sweet. Yum.

Well, that about wraps it up. We pretty much shut the restaurant down. We paid and went outside where five or six extremely expensive vehicles sat idling as drivers sat stoically awaiting their patrons’ emergence. We hopped in the cab that the hostess had called for us and made the short trip back to Maidenhead. That was it. We boarded our train and rehashed the evening as we wound our way slowly back into London.

If any of you out there have the desire to sponsor a nice young couple for a bit of continuing research we would be more than happy to entertain your proposals. Why eat it yourself when you can have a fabulous full-on virtual meal with the Pants family?

Want to see our sardine impression?

Another early start, so we wouldn't combust in the midday sun.

We still aren't fans of the early morning.

The crepe-style banana pancake from our hotel helped, with its tasty coffee and condensed milk sauce.  But the iced coffee helped even more, though I think Husbear could have used a double espresso.

Then, we all piled back into our small SUV for the ride to Sam Mountain just outside of town.  Our guide told us there was no room for him to sit, so we'd be riding to the temple, seeing the floating village, and then going straight back to HCMC without the promised stop at an incense factory.  He'd be taking the bus.

How stupid is that?  Because the tour company underprovided transportation, we'd be missing out on part of the tour we paid for?  And our tour guide would have to take a bus the six hours back to HCMC?

We insisted that we'd squeeze.

Husbear got to sit in the front seat, while I shared the middle bench seat with three other people and our new long-legged Kiwi friends, freshly arrived from Cambodia, sat three across in the back.  It was worth it to get actual information about the places we'd be seeing, though!

Our first stop was Sam Mountain, about 20 minutes or so outside of town, and Chua Hang, the cave pagoda.  Here's where we were happy we started early.

Those stairs might have killed me at high noon.

Climbing them is worth it, though, since you get a great view of the Cambodian border.  It was as close as we'd get.

Chua Hang was very nice, though it's not the most famous of the temples on Sam Mountain.  All the way inside was a small cave surrounded by fake snakes (it was too dark to get a good picture!), and the outside was all airy porches and painted detail.

Sweating like, well, us, we got back into the SUV and drove several cramped miles down to the river, where we paired up to get in small boats rowed by local ladies.  We would be bobbing by a floating village, where fish are raised in pens under each house and dried for sale on racks behind the house.

Oh, was it hot out on the water.  I though it would be a good idea to get some sun on my legs (it wasn't, I burned both of them), but the Kiwis had a better idea.  Lacking hats, they used what came to hand.

We progressed slowly through the floating village, watching people tend their schools of fish (perhaps "herds of fish" would be more appropriate here?).

There were even some fish out drying behind one of the houses.  I'm sure this sun produces dried fish in seventeen minutes or so.

It was still strange to us to see the water really being used as a thoroughfare!  There still aren't roads in to a lot of these towns, and I imagine this may have been what the Mississippi was like a hundred years ago or more. 

The floating village wasn't what I was expecting.  I had been thinking houseboats, easily portable units, but these were actual homes built on boats and pontoons and plastic barrels.  Most of them had TV antennae!  I don't think they could have been easily moved.

At the other end of the floating village was a rickety dock, where we disembarked.

The dock led into a Cham minority village.  The Cham are Muslim and are famous for their weaving.  We had a weaving demonstration and I bought, oh, eleventy-three beautiful silk scarves for people at home.

Then, we had a little free time to check out the village.  Almost immediately, we were surrounded by very young children selling snack cakes.

We were in the village at the end of the dry season.  Had we been there now, after it's been raining for a couple of months, things would have looked quite different - here's a support where the high-water mark is recorded every year.

We climbed some stairs and walked along a raised sidewalk towards the main road. 

If you walk the fifty yards or so through town, you'll reach a two-lane main road that seems pretty well-traveled.  Motorcycles whizzed by us and women pushed carts overflowing with vegetables and fruits.  Across the street was the Mubarak Mosque, a light, airy structure.

Note the girls selling cakes down at the bottom - they stayed with us the whole way!

We couldn't pass up taking a picture of these beautiful girls standing by the door to the mosque.  Don't worry, we did ask!

After visiting the mosque and the town, we were shuttled on our little boats back to our big main stormy boat from the day before.  This time, the novelty of the top deck having worn off, we stayed in the blessed shade underneath.  That's Husbear in the back, trying to catch a cross-breeze to dry his clothes.

As we chugged along back up the river, luxuriating in all the room we had to stretch our legs (for now), we noticed something new.  Water-based bird farms!

At least they have room to move around, I suppose.

There were a few people out on the river, though not nearly in the numbers we saw the previous day around dusk.  This kid saw us and executed a perfect flip, but I'm not sure his friend was too impressed.

We were sort of coerced into ordering lunch from the boat, since there would be no other opportunities to eat anything until we got back to HCMC.  Luckily, lunch turned out to be delightful.  Of course, we were really hungry, but we're also always picky, and I thought they did a good job.

Pineapple, of course - nice as a refreshing palate-cleanser, but not quite as wonderfully fresh as the market lollipop-version we'd had previously.

Both of us chose the vegetarian lunch, which turned out to be a large pile of noodles topped with still crunchy, lightly stir-fried vegetables with a delicate sheen of oil, two generous pieces of flavorful, savory/salty glazed tofu that had a great chew (often a problem with tofu), and a generous pinch of delicious Vietnamese ground pepper.

We relaxed on the boat for another hour or so, drinking water and beer.  When we pulled to the shore and disembarked, somehow out trusty old tiny SUV was waiting for us again... so the 9 of us folded ourselves back into the car and drove a ways down the road to a small wooden house on a busy street.

Walking inside, we saw this:

We had arrived in a small-batch incense factory!  Our guide gave us a brief rundown of how this kind of incense is made.  Resins from a particular tree are mixed with a wet binder that aids in burning (I believe this is called makko), and then wrapped around a stick of prepared wood.  The incense then dries outside for several hours.

The whole street outside was lined with different kinds of incense, drying in the sun.

At this point, our guide took his leave of us.  He said that, were we to get pulled over, our driver and our guide would get a ticket for overloading the car, so he opted to take a bus back to HCMC.  We halfheartedly tried to argue with him, but he was insistent, so we tipped the man and piled back into the car - now only eight. 

Still pretty crowded, but a little better...

The ride back to HCMC was interminable.  We waited for two separate ferries, for at least an hour total.  We got stuck in traffic just as bad as that on Mount Etna, but this time we had no trusty guide to get things going again, so we had to turn around and wait for a ferry... again.

At least we got to check out the motorcycles.

We finally got back as far as Can Tho, where we stopped at a place billed as a bonsai garden.  It was more like a tourist center, selling admittedly beautiful purses and mosaics and paintings and clothing for well above the prices we'd been seeing.

They did have great coffee, though, and we had two.

We finally did get back to HCMC, where we were luckily dropped off right in front of our hotel.  We checked back in, dropped our bags, and walked back down the street to the Ben Thanh Market.  At night, the market itself is closed, but the streets just around it turn into a packed thoroughfare of restaurants and stands selling T-shirts and cheap bags.

We walked all the way around the market, comparing menus at all the restaurants and trying to ignore the touts.

There were two places that looked really great, and we settled on one called Huong Que. 

It's just amazing that all of these restaurants disappear by day.  They're full kitchens at night!  Here's the one at Huong Que:

First out were goi cuon, or the fresh summer rolls.  My favorite.  These were better than some we'd had, but they were still a little dry and tasted pre-made.

Next was something we'd been wanting to try.  The Vietnamese are big fans of all sorts of snails, and we picked out a likely specimen from the tanks in the front.

Meet Jumping Snail with Tamarind, or oc nhay rang me.

These were good, though I'm such a sucker for tamarind that's probably why.  They were prepared well, with a good texture - not overly chewy.  A little hard to get out of the shell, though, and with a hard thorn at the end that you really don't want to chew on.

Last, we opted for a sour shrimp soup.  With the tamarind being sour and the soup being sour, I think the balance of our selections was a bit off.  This soup could have used a little more flavorings, but it was nice and brothy.  Brothy soups were our best friends in Vietnam and Thailand.

We walked slowly back to our hotel, stretching out our legs with each step. 

I'd say the trip to the Mekong Delta was definitely worth $28.  We got to see an awful lot in three days, though I'm pretty sure that the only reason we went to Chau Doc on the border with Cambodia was to serve as a meeting node for people who bought trips to enter and leave Vietnam.  We spent a lot of time over those three days sitting in cars and boats, but we did have some great experiences and saw a lot of things we probably wouldn't have on our own. 

I'm not sure we'd do it again, but it was a good introduction.

Well, we almost made it to Cambodia.

I am one of the legions who are not early risers. 

In Southeast Asia, this really made me stick out.  Otherwise, I'm pretty sure I could have passed for native.

Many markets get going before the sun comes up and are dead and gone by 9, which to me is excessive.  But, if you want to see many of the markets, you better be out there early as well.  This is why our group was told to be down in the hotel lobby at 6:30.

Ante Meridian, folks.

But, was this particular market worth it? 

You betcha!  We met in the lobby and walked back over to our waiting boat, which we boarded gingerly.  Then we settled in for the ride to the market.

Life along the river:

We weren't on our way to just any, you know, dry-land market.  Nope.

We were going to a floating market!  In this area, where water is even today the most efficient roadway, it makes sense that there would be markets that would float. 

They've actually become quite the tourist attraction.  There is one, closer to HCMC, that pretty much only exists for the tourists these days - you don't buy food there, you buy wine holders and statuettes of Uncle Ho and the same generalized tourist gack you can pick up in a regular on-land market.

This market's a holdout.  The majority of the business done here seems to be in wholesale fruit and vegetables.  Oh, you can buy a kilo of mangoes if you want, but that's not the way to get the best price.

Our guide pointed out a feature of the floating market.  Since you can't easily tell just what a boat has in its hold, vendors attach an example of whatever they're selling to a bamboo pole, which they stick up above the boat.  Sensible.

Some people had a huge array dangling overhead, while others would have only pineapples, or just a pumpkin swaying gently in the breeze.

A lot of these larger boats will come and spend several days, until they sell everything in the boat.  They sleep on the water and eat from the boats circulating, offering drinks and bowls of noodles.

Our large boat arrived on the edge of the market and tied on to a boat selling pineapples.  Half of us jumped out of the boat into a smaller canoe, where we got an up-close tour of the market.

People in equally small boats pulled up next to us, offering guava and pineapple and papaya and things we didn't recognize.  They made a couple of sales.

We stared at the business of the market and at just how at home people seemed on the water.  There were even some semi-permanent structures built on boats right in the middle of the river.

Some families appeared to be taking a break from sales, escaping the already oppresive sun.

I can't imagine taking a boat to do your shopping, especially if you're going to buy in bulk.  Could you imagine people rowing a canoe to Sam's Club to buy a 48-count pack of toilet paper?

I was watching these guys closely, crossing my fingers against a big wave.

After fifteen or twenty minutes, we were returned to our boat and traded places with the waiting half of our group.  Husbear took his camera and sat on top of the boat, while I went underneath to bask in the shade.  It was hot, people!

People in our group came and went, and then I noticed that some of them were holding halves of pineapples like lollipops!  It turns out that the boat we had attached ourselves to was doing brisk business.

Not only were they selling whole pineapples, they were willing to cut them up for us as snacks!  For 5,000 dong, one of the women would select one of the beautifulo, stem-on specimens laying in her boat,

and commence chopping with a machete, cutting off the skin and slicing out the hard eyes in a beautiful spiral pattern.

(5,000 dong?  About 30 cents.  Just like here.)

She left the stem on for ease of snacking.  Her pineapples were delicious, and so ripe you could actually eat most of the core.  Here in the States, you'll often get a pineapple where only the outer inch or so are soft enough to eat.

Eventually, the other half of our group came back, and our boat made its way away from the market and down a little side canal.  We were on our way to see another family rice paper operation!

We'd already seen one with Hai a couple of days prior, so we tuned out a little when being told about the makings of the actual sheets.  The process was exactly the same, with the bucket of rice water and the steamer and the fire made from rice husks.

This operation was a little larger, though, and we admired their rice paper sheets drying on woven mats.

Apparently, this family uses most of their sheets to make rice noodles, which are made by putting these sheets through a machine that looks an awful lot like a shredder.  This picture shows only a small portion of what the family had out, and we were told additionally that during the rainy season (while we were there) the family dries less rice paper at a time so when it rains their product isn't ruined.

We also got to meet these guys and their mama.

They were part of a brief lesson in economics.  It's really common for Vietnamese farmers to keep their money in pigs, because piglets are cheap and full-grown pigs are expensive and can be sold to make money for the farm.  Plus, they eat farm scraps.

Keeping their money in pigs... you do realize that's a figure of speech, right?

The farm visit was brief.  We walked back to our boat, again.  It seemed we were spending much of this jaunt walking back and forth to boats.

On embarking, we were asked if we wanted to go to a factory or go relax in a hammock in the shade.  The group overwhelmingly voted hammock.

Our boatman also offered to drop us off a little way from the town bar, so we could have a bit of a walk through the jungle if we wanted.  We wanted.

I know I wore that head covering a lot when we were in Asia, and I'm not sorry, even if I do look a bit... sickly? in the picture above.  I felt so much cooler with it on.  Definitely not cooler as in "don't you wish your girlfriend was hot like me", cooler as in "not quite this/close to keeling over and smashing facefirst into the pavement".

We reached the promised beverages and enjoyed a little quiet time with a beer and then a Vietnamese coffee and then water.  Lots of water.  Lucky they had a bathroom.

Then, to the boat!  I know, you're shocked.  This time, we were going back to Can Tho for lunch.

The ride back was fairly short, a half-hour or so. 

When we arrived in Can Tho, our guide gave us a recommendation on a restaurant near the dock and told us where and when our next stops would be.  Yup - we were splitting again!  2-day people would go back to HCMC after lunch, but we would be heading for the Cambodian border, to a small town called Chau Doc.

It was about 700 degrees in Chau Doc, so Husbear and I decided to just go along with the lunch recommendation. 

The lunch was shite.  Hamburgers and fries were on the menu, along with some bizarre French dishes.  We  ordered from the Vietnamese side of the menu and hoped for the best.  Everything was watery (even the fried spring rolls) and nothing tasted of anything.  Lame.

So after lunch we bought a street banh mi to split.

This one was stuffed with pork floss, which is much much better than it sounds.  It's strongly meaty and a little sweet.  It's also fairly dry, but once you douse it with sauces it's a great addition to a sandwich.

We appreciated it in a little park right on the waterfront.  A huge, silver Ho looked down at us.  Approvingly?

We quickly approached combustion, so we walked back to the hotel.  I stayed in the lobby with a book while Husbear wandered the streets of Can Tho - he's much better at ignoring extremes of temperature than I am.

By the time he got back, a Ford Explorer-type vehicle had arrived to take us and six other people to Chau Doc.

No, I'm not kidding.  This car was the size of a Ford Explorer, and we fit eight people into it.  For three hours.  Luckily there were two rows of bench seats, but our luggage barely fit.

My knees and butt cramp up just thinking about it.  Or is that the new exercise video talking?

After three hours, we pulled up next to a break between some buildings and pretty much exploded out of the door. 

Next conveyance:

The boat was pretty nice inside, with mats on the hard wooden benches.  They sold pho and beer, even.

We spent most of the ride on top of the boat, where there was a little open-air platform.

This boat gave us one of the strangest experiences we had in Vietnam.  It was getting on towards the time of day for everyone to bathe in the river.  Whole families waded around, from very young babies held in their mothers' arms through the elderly, dangling their feet in the water from short piers.

And the kids' favorite pastime seemed to be waving at tourists. 

There were only six of us on the boat, but almost every child we passed tried to get our attention like we were visiting royalty.  They screamed, waved, did backflips off of docks, and generally acted like having us wave at them would be the highlight of their day.

It was really an odd feeling, being on point in case someone waved.  We felt like it would be rude not to acknowledge the theatrics.

This is not to give the impression that everyone waved at us.  Some people were still busy working.

As the sun started to go down, the wind picked up and soon we were in the middle of a huge storm.  On the water.  In an open-sided boat. 

The crew put mats down on the sides of the boat which kept some of the rain from getting in, and ran back and forth very busily trying to get things stowed away where they wouldn't fly off the boat. 

Soon, we had to stop and tie on to a thick branch a little ways off shore.  I was actually handling this pretty well, for once, figuring that the worst-case scenario would be the boat sinking, but since we were only a few feet from shore that wasn't terrifying.  So we used the time to read about Chau Doc, our eventual destination.

Soon enough, the storm quieted down to a drizzle and we were on our way.

We didn't arrive in Chau Doc until almost 8, having been traveling since 2:30.  This really seemed like a wasted day, and I was a little ticked when we arrived at our hotel.

One of the other guys we were now traveling with suggested a well-reviewed restaurant in town for dinner, and the guides actually offered us a ride back into town from the hotel. 

All six of us ended up going, and we had a really good time talking with our fellow travellers.  We ordered a sweet and sour chicken,

a much lighter version of the old standby.  This one included pineapple and lightly cooked tomato, for a nice tart punch.  The chicken was a little dry, unfortunately.

The problem of overcooked meat didn't stop there.  Our other dish was their specialty, a clay-pot cooked pork.  When it was set down between us everyone lifted their noses in the air appreciatively.  The hot pot gave off a strong smell of garlic and fish sauce, which has to be one of the most ideal flavor combinations!

Perhaps the pork was overcooked because of the clay pot itself.  The meat continued to cook in the bubbling liquid while we ate.  The flavors were strong and certainly delicious, but dang stupid dry pork!

Husbear added chilies that the restaurant really, really didn't want to give him.  I think it was because of our big white faces again, not because this dish shouldn't be spicy.

After dinner, our guides drove us back to the hotel again, where we fell over.  We had another early call in the morning.

I can't believe this post took me so long to write!  If I take too long next time, don't forget to check out our sidebar.  I've added a couple more blogs, two mothers who are intimidatingly wonderful bloggers (halushki, a little pregnant), a drop-dead amazing food photographer (Cook & Eat), and a like-minded though certainly more high-falutin' traveler and eater who liked Taverna Nikolas on Santorini just as much as we did (fifth flavor).

A word to the wise

Rangpur, that new(ish) gin from Tanqueray?

Basically, at $26 for a 750 mL bottle, it's a really expensive, and really concentrated, alcopop.  Tastes strongly of lime and not much else.  Broker's is much better and $10 cheaper per bottle.

Pictures have been uploaded over at Flickr and are waiting to be blogged.  Check back tomorrow, when hopefully I will have recovered from an attack of the aching why would you do a 30 minute Pilates ab workout when you haven't done a situp in a year... itis?  Oliosis?  Eh.

Into what used to be the mangroves of Nam

Before, say, the 1970s.

First.  Husbear is on a strange schedule where his weekends have become Thursdays and Fridays.  Luckily, I'm not working right now, so I couldn't give a grackle when his weekends are.  Yesterday was spent househunting - and a great place has been found and reserved for the next six weeks or so.  We move later today.  It should have wireless internet, so hopefully posts will be at their normal level of haphazardness rather than ceasing completely.

This is my too-long explanation of just why a bunch of pictures got uploaded last Wednesday and have not been put to the blog yet.

Back to our timeline!

We only had a grand total of seven days in Vietnam.  Not wanting to absolutely exhaust ourselves and end up not seeing anything, had already ruled out a trip up to Hanoi (40 hours on a train) or even an excursion to Hue, the Imperial capitol on the center coastline of the country.

We did want to get out of HCMC, though, so when we saw a travel agency offering a three-day Mekong Delta trip for $28 per person, lodging included, we jumped.

The day started out in a typically disorganized fashion.  Multiple tours leave each day from each travel agency (though they're pretty much all offered through government tour offices, as we found out later), so the one we chose was bustling with groups of people, none of whom had any real idea what was going on.  Buses arrived, orders were shouted, and they left - sometimes with new people, sometimes not.

Eventually, we were loaded into a large van with four other people.  We were the only ones who had brought all of our luggage (it seemed easier than leaving it behind.  Hindsight - we should have packed a small bag and left our packs at the hotel).  We stopped at a very ritzy hotel to pick up an Australian couple, and we were on our way!

We bounced along for an hour or so, then made a pit stop at a roadside stand complete with hammocks.  Rejuvenated, we rattled on for another hour before finally stopping in front of a modern plantation-style building in My Tho.

First item on the agenda - the seven of us clambered onto a small boat.

This was our boatmistress, who was with us most of the day.

We chugged across the fairly wide river behind the plantation.  People still very much live on the river in this part of Vietnam, which I suppose sounds nice enough until you see some of the reality.

Now, I've stupidly misplaced the brochure from this trip, but I do remember that the stops we made were on islands with names evocative of mythology - Unicorn Island, that sort of thing.  And since I'm probably the only one who cares at all about naming the islands we visited, and because all tours of this area go to pretty much the same islands, I'm just going to gloss over place names for the day. 

First stop on the boat?  I'm crazy coconut-head, gimme some CANDY!

We went to a small operation that makes coconut caramels.  It's very similar to the procedure for making sugar/milk caramels, except instead of using cow milk you use coconut milk.  Stir over fire until caramelization starts.

If you want to strive for true verisimilitude, make your fire from coconut shells, which you can see piled up in the background.

Then, take the coconut mix and pour into trenches for cooling.  Then cut and sell to tourists, buy 5 get one free!

We didn't buy five.  Those candies are HEAVY!  Each caramel is individually wrapped in edible rice paper and then again in wax paper, which led to a hilarious misunderstanding where some people in our group thought all of the wrappings were edible and popped wrapped candies into their mouths, to their eventual dismay.  ("This candy tastes like paper!")

We did buy some candy, along with a small bottle of ricewine with a small snake in it - just a little one, since we half-thought it would get taken away by customs - and some coconut-wood spoons.

Back onto the boat, and down a narrow canal.  On the way, we saw more coconut shells being gathered, presumably for fuel.  The husks are pretty thick and heavy, so I imagine dried out they'd make a wonderful fuel source.

Next stop?  Dangerous animals and insects R us!

Naw, actually, it was a honey farm.  We enjoyed tea with honey and a small orangey lemon, which was very good and simple.  And we met the bees.

Hopefully these folks aren't having the same bizarre unexplained bee die-off problems we're having in the US right now.

It was while we were draining the last of our tea that the environment turned a little strange.  We were the only people in a large roofed-over enclosure with tables.  Suddenly, our guide appears stage left lugging a boa constrictor!

"Anyone want to hold him?" the guide asked.  There was a definite glint in his eye. 

Of course, we had to take the challenge.  He was heavy, more than scary.  And he honestly kept trying to leap out of my hands, which is why I'm staring at him so strangely in this picture.  I'm thinking "Dude, you can't fly!"

Next, back on the boat for a short slog, and then lunch.  (I think I washed my hands before eating, thank you.)

Lunch was sort of included in the price of our tour, if you count a few strips of pork and some rice as lunch.  You know, I didn't mind these add-ons, because we weren't paying much at all for the whole tour.  So, we spent 100,000 dong and got a half-kilo fried elephant ear fish and a couple of beers.

Elephant ear fish is supposed to be a local treat, so... why not?

The elephant ear fish was served deliciously with herbs and rice noodles and rice paper wrappers.  You wrap bits of fish in a wrapper with the noodles and herbs and dip in an accompanying sauce.  I think this would be another great idea for a party!

After lunch, which was very fun and more than a little delicious, we donned ridiculous headgear and eased our way very slowly into small canoes.

Yes, this hat did a great job of keeping the sun off our heads.  And it was also cooling, perhaps because it let some breeze through and had a space at the top to contain all of our headheat.  But we couldn't bring ourselves to buy one.  Because, I mean, look at me in this picture.  We cannot wear these hats without looking like pandering jackasses.

Lots of people in Vietnam still wear them, though, including the women who were working awfully hard to row the tourist boats to their next destination.

Our tourist-laden canoe caravan worked its way down the river.  We marveled at the amount of lush greenery and craned our necks for what we could see of life along the waterways.

We passed several people on our way to our next stop, some of whom waved at our boat.  Younger kids loved waving at us... the adults weren't always as animated.  Probably using too much energy with all the rowing.

Our canoes eventually pulled up at a small break in the foliage, where we stumbled uncertainly out of the boats and were met by a gauntlet of women selling little snackies.  Though we had just eaten, Husbear was curious about one of the offerings.

We walked along a narrow concrete path to another covered area with benches, where we were shown to tables covered in an assortment of tropical fruit.

Pineapple's still my favorite, and the pineapple they had in Asia... oh my.

We then listened to a presentation of traditional Vietnamese singing, including what sounded dead like "If You're Happy and You Know It Clap Your Hands".  Unfortunately, we didn't get that particular number on video, but we did take a clip for you:

And that, basically, was the end of the entertainment portion of our day.  We got on a larger boat back to the plantation house back in My Tho where we had started the boat rides, and were loaded back on our bus.

Then, things got a little strange.  Our bus left the parking lot, went around the corner, and stopped.  A man hopped on and said "Two or three day tour?"  We raised our hands, and he beckoned that we should come with him.  The rest of the occupants were to be taken back to HCMC, where they'd end their day trip.

So... we gathered our bags and walked around the corner, where another van filled with tourists was apparently waiting for us.  These people would be continuing on with us to Can Tho for the evening, but this wasn't explained - we asked the other people on the bus.

After driving for a little while, we pulled over by the side of the road in podunk town and picked up a further four people.  I don't have any idea where their tour had started out, but they were coming to Can Tho as well.  They good-naturedly told us that we were their fourth bus that day.

See, this is the thing.  When you buy a tour from a tour operator, you're basically buying the exact same package as a bunch of other people who leave on the same day as you from different parts of HCMC.  Each tour leaves each day, and at various points during the day tourists are shuffled so they remain on the tour they paid for.

But each tour's price can vary wildly.  We paid $28 pp, but some people paid upwards of $50.  It's always a better idea to book after you arrive, if you have a day's lead time, and shop around a little.

Anyway, our new configuration of two and three day people (and people going to Cambodia) was dropped off in front of a rice warehouse.  We came out the back door of the rice warehouse to find 1. our new boat and 2. a bunch of people taking their evening baths.

The group balanced itself out on tiny little benches for the ride to Can Tho.  I love that the boat is marked 'TOURIST" - reminded me fondly of being called farang all the time in Thailand.

Some shots of the river and life along it from our trip to Can Tho:

We saw people in these little stand-up boats all the time.

These are some pretty typical houses along the shore of the Mekong.

There was very dense development on the shore for the half-hour or so it took us to get to Can Tho.

When we arrived in Can Tho, we got off the boat and threaded our way along the streets behind our guide for a few minutes.  We took several turns and ended up walking down a not very inviting small alley, lined on both sides with open garages and living rooms containing whole families watching TV and eating.

Our hotel was pretty nondescript.  We paid an additional $5 to get airconditioning, because, well, sometimes you just have to splash out.

The bathroom was hilariously typical.  (Yes, my husband does occasionally leave the seat up.)

On the left, that's the toilet and the cleansing squirt gun.  This toilet actually has a flush, though.  The right has the water heater and the shower nozzle. 

We did catch the tail end of a spectacular sunset over the rooftops of Can Tho.

In person, we aren't really all that sociable... so we struck out on our own for dinner, to a restaurant we'd passed on our way to the hotel.

Sao Hom was right on the waterfront.  It was fairly schmancy, but the food wasn't too expensive and they offered some really interesting set menus.

Husbear's came with a light fish soup with pineapple and herbs.  I thought this was a nice start to the meal, with a bit of a twang and a restorative flavor combination.

He was also served adorable little spring rolls, stuffed with pork and contained in a really interesting web of a wrapper.

I ordered a seafood hotpot, which arrived as a giant plate of raw seafood.

Don't worry, it was followed quickly by a huge bubbling pot of tamarind and lemongrass scented broth.  I would have preferred the broth to be a little stronger, but that's just me.  Plus, not knowing what I was doing, I dumped all of the noodles and everything into the post, causing our young waiter to rush from across the restaurant, saying "NO!"  When he arrived, he was much calmer... "Normally... we do not do this."

Oops.

My dinner ended with flambeed bananas in rice alcohol, which would have been a great idea if all of the rice alcohol had burned off.  As it was, it was like eating deliciously caramelized bananas dunked in moonshine.

On our way back to our hotel for our 6 AM wakeup call, we walked past a couple of women selling a really strange-looking item off of blankets spread out on the street.  We inched our way over, and I guess we looked confused enough that one of the women showed us how to pop the seeds out of their strange bed and eat them.

Really vegetably.  I think it's a lotus, and I can't say it's one of the best things I've eaten.  I wonder if they cook the seeds and add them to stews, because that would definitely be better.  They're sort of astringent raw.

Day One of Three down!