My Favourite Phở in Vietnam
And goodbye to Hội An
At this point you might be asking yourself.. How much food did I eat in Vietnam exactly? I keep posting photos of food. How much weight did I gain? While it's true that I could not stop eating on my trip, mainly due to how delicious it all was.. I actually ended up
losing a bit of weight (and wearing out the soles of the shoes I had bought specifically for this trip).
On my very last day in Hội An I got lucky and visited the restaurant which would serve me what I would in the end consider to be the best bowl of phở in Vietnam. There are likely better bowls of phở to be had elsewhere in the country, but this was my personal favourite, even beating out the $1.50 bowl of phở at the main market that Anthony Bourdain really liked (and I really liked as well)
This was the only restaurant in the whole country where I was served raw beef in my phở. You are told to never order such a thing when visiting Vietnam if you are coming from a western country, because your stomach might just not be able to handle such a thing here, due to the generally lower food standards. The waiter asked me specifically if I want the beef to be raw or not.. explaining that they handle all their ingredients, including the meat, with the highest possible standards in mind. He reassured me that ordering raw beef here would be perfectly fine and that the chef is very experienced and used to western food handling standards. Looking around the restaurant, this wasn't hard to believe.. The prices were a bit higher here, and everything around me seemed to be saying "elevated culinary experience".
When the phở arrived and I took a sip of the broth... I couldn't stop eating until everything was done. It was incredible, as if the chef had spent extra care to make sure that every single ingredient was perfect and that every single step of the process was followed without any shortcuts. You could taste the quality of the ingredients used, including the beef. This was the best bowl of phở I've ever had, anywhere. The waiter was also very attentive and spoke near perfect English, happy to walk me through any questions that I had about the menu. Overall an amazing experience. I really can't stop raving about it.
And remember those white rose dumplings that I said I would probably never order again? Well.. I did
What, more food? At this point in my trip Vietnam was making a very strong case for being the best culinary trip I'd ever been on - on the verge of beating out Thailand and Japan. In the end that's exactly what happened.. although thinking back it's very hard to say whether Japan or Vietnam had the better food. Thailand was definitely beaten out by Vietnam, which surprised me, as I was always a big fan of Thai food. Japan though.. It's a very tough call, but I really have to say that Vietnam was a tad better. If I had to pick one part of the world for food - it would have to be Vietnam. Central Vietnam specifically really impressed me when it comes to the cuisine.
I had more or less fallen in love with Hội An during my stay here and was sad it was coming to an end.. but like they say all good things do eventually come to an end.. The previous day I had booked a flight to Phú Quốc island using a local travel agent, who was able to get me a deal on a flight that beat out the prices I was seeing online. I was actually going to arrive a day early.. which means I could have stayed in Hội An an extra day.. but in the end everything ended up working out far better than I could have imagined.
My flight was very early the next morning. My homestay hosts arranged for a driver to pick me up in his relatively nice looking car and drive me to the airport at around 6am. Knowing that I'd have to wake up early I returned to the homestay early in the evening, with that delicious bowl of phở and those extra couple beers I had still happily sloshing around in my stomach.. As I slowly walked down the streets I looked around and tried to take everything in for the very last time...