Cooking With Our Vietnamese Girl Crush
We’ve been eating every meal out for the last two months. So when we were deciding on a cooking class to take in Hoi An, Vietnam, we wanted it to be something homey and uncomplicated. Green Bamboo Cooking Class was just the ticket. Here’s the deal: You join up with a small group of people (normally no more than 8) to cook a traditional Vietnamese dish of your choice at the owner, Van’s, house.
Our day started with a trip to the market where Van bought everything we would need for the dishes we would cook later that afternoon. She patiently answered all of our questions (“What is that hairy red fruit? What are in those odd little bamboo packets?”) and, better yet, would buy a round of the mystery food for everyone to try. One standout was something called Troi Nuoc, a local dessert consisting of balls of mung bean paste floating in a ginger syrupy soup. Van told us the lady at the Central Market is the only lady in town who makes it. She also explained how to pick out fresh shrimp (translucent shells) and fresh squid (clear eyes, not cloudy). How bad could the day’s meal be when we bought everything fresh off the farm or boat that morning?
After a coffee break, we went back to Van’s open and breezy house to start cooking. The way Green Bamboo works is that everybody picks one dish from an extensive selection provided in advance, and then you cook and eat everything together. We loved this, as we got a chance to try so many dishes! We were amazed that Van knew how to cook so many things by heart!
Jordan picked banh xeo as his dish, a crispy rice flour pancake stuffed with shrimp, sprouts and greens. This seemed tricky and easy to burn, but Van is an excellent teacher and everyone in the class successfully made at least one banh xeo — even me!
Every single dish our group made that afternoon was delicious — some of the best food we’ve had in Vietnam! And it really tasted like home cooking — nothing too greasy or complicated, just good, honest food. Which makes sense as Van said many of these recipes have been in her family for years.
This was one of our favorite days in Vietnam, and it was all because of Van. She made us feel like we were new friends she’d invited over for a dinner party, handing out beers, giving tips on food prep, asking about our lives, even sending us home with a goodie bag that included recipes for everything we had made. Our group was great too. Like-minded eaters, travelers, even a pair of IT consultants like Jordan, we had plenty to talk about. We learned a ton, and left stuffed and happy. What more could you ask for?
