Is this Vietnam? Strawberry Fields and Communist (Beach) Parties

Jordan was beside himself, in a lather over the broccoli. We were walking through the market in Dalat, spying fruits and veggies we hadn’t seen in months. Hello artichokes, beets, apricots, and grapes. And so many strawberries. Piled up fresh or sold in the form of juices, jams and wine. Dalat is an old French hill station up in the highlands of south-central Vietnam, and so the scenery here is less rice paddies and more misty pine mountains.

 

For us, that meant two exciting things: wine and cool weather. On top of getting out into the countryside, Dalat’s attractions are wacky and corny: swan boats on the lake, carriage rides through flower gardens, an Eiffel Tower lookalike cell phone tower, and the “Crazy House” — an Architectural Digest experiment, somewhere between Middle Earth and a nightmare.

 

Our main complaint:  If you’re not interested in taking a motorbike tour into the countryside (offered by every Easy Rider and Joe Schmoe on the street), there’s not much to do in Dalat.  It was a great rest period for us, and we loved the break from the heat, but people with less time in Vietnam could easily skip it.  As always, though, we consider time hunting down good eats time well spent …

Stand out snacks in Dalat

Bahn Trang Nuong:

One night, we spotted an old lady wedged into an alley cooking some sort of cracker over a charcoal grill, with lots of customers chowing down around her.  We sat down and watched her whip one up for us, too:  She toasted a big rice cracker over the flame, added scallions, quail eggs, red peppers, and dried pork, folded it up and cut it into bite-size pieces.  It tasted like nachos!  A great example of how eating in Southeast Asia can actually be really simple (and delicious) — she made just the one item.  We sat down, held up two fingers, and we were set.

Bahn Mi:

Lien Hoa Bakery first drew us in with their gorgeous cakes on display.  We never did try their sweets, but we had their bahn mi two days in a row.  They stuff the bread (baked on premises we assume) with a pâté-like substance, meats, veggies, and what I can only describe as meat floss, or as Jordan called it, “umami cotton candy.”  Whatever it was, it was delicious on the sandwich.

Just four hours from Dalat is Nha Trang, a fancy beach resort completely overrun by the Russians and (to a lesser degree) the Chinese. We were constantly handed menus and brochures in Cyrillic script. (“It’s the beard,” advised the friendly coffee guy/hotel clerk at our guesthouse, referring to Jordan, who hasn’t shaved in two months).

 

Nha Trang has gorgeous beaches, crystal blue water, and green mountains — an Indochinese version of Maui. We highly recommend taking a boat trip out to the surrounding islands. For about $6-7 US, you can snorkel, jump off the top deck of the ship, drink mulberry wine during the floating happy hour, and sing karaoke with master of ceremonies “Guido.”

Of course, along with one other American girl, we were they only people on the boat who did any of this. The other tourists — all Asian — stayed in their clothes and on the boat, but took plenty of pictures of us splashing around like idiots. Kids, look at those capitalist pig-dogs cavorting nearly naked!  Jordan even got molested by a Vietnamese grandma who kept giggling and pinching his nipples!  Maybe she wanted him to put his shirt on?

Our day at sea worked up an appetite — there’s plenty of seafood and bad Western/Russian/Chinese tourist oriented spots in Nha Trang, as you would expect.  We were especially intrigued by the people grilling up whole lobsters, crabs, and shrimp over little charcoal grills right on the sidewalk!  We were going to sample the sidewalk seafood, but a couple of places caught our eye first:

Lau De (hotpot)

A popular local place where you get a big pot full of boiling meat (we found out later we’d ordered goat, quite good), veggies and noodles.  You dish it up into little bowls, order some beers from the tarted-up waitresses and dig in.  I noticed after we ordered that I was the only woman at the restaurant … Maybe we’d stumbled upon the Vietnamese version of Hooters?

Com Tam

 

The guy running this little stall just two blocks off the main drag is a marketing genius:  He put a fan behind his grill and blew that delicious-smelling smoke into the street.  It drew us in.  Com Tam is simple but so good: broken rice, grilled marinated pork chops, vegetables, and chili sauce, all topped with a fried egg.  Two orders cost us $3 USD!

 

This part of Vietnam was full of surprises and packs a punch into a small space.  Imagine the Great Smoky Mountains and Waikiki Beach within four hours, connected by a stunning highway — and killer com tam and banh mi in easy reach.