Vietnamese food: Hanoi and Hue

I really like Vietnamese food, or more precisely, I love the tanginess that seems to be part of much Vietnamese cuisine. There's a lot of lemongrass and the common lime-fish sauce dipping combination, both of which make my mouth no end of happy. But as anywhere, there is bad food as well as good, so Valerie and I did a little research before setting off on our merry voyage. My favorite recommendations tended to be Chowhound-endorsed, and this one was no exception. As you can see, this restaurant only serves one dish, its namesake: cha ca la vong. Although they have this handy laminated piece of paper for the non-Vietnamese, there were plenty of locals eating there with us, so it's not just a guidebook stop.
Cha ca la vong

Cha ca la vong is essentially pieces of turmeric-coated fish fried in a claypot (well, traditionally the pot is made of clay), with fresh dill tossed in as well. Ours was served with rice vermicelli and the delicious lime-sugar-fish sauce combo, which you mix all together in your bowl, and then attempt to restrain yourself from gobbling all at once. I stuffed myself silly, and added an oil-splatter stain to one of my t-shirts, but it was completely worth it. Between this and the food at my friends' house (they had a local woman who cooked most of their lunches and dinners), Hanoi was off the charts in terms of food happiness.
Shrimp snacks in Hue

I believe it was also Chowhound that directed us to this little gem. Doesn't look like much, right? But I'm no Tom Sietsema, so atmosphere has little bearing on my food preferences. This place was recommended by someone who had ordered one of everything (there are only 5-6 dishes) and enjoyed it all. We weren't quite as ambitious, but ordered the first three offerings to share. As it turned out, all of them were some variation on shrimp-with-rice-noodle.
Banh beo

First up was banh beo, described in the menu as "flat, made of rice powder, boiled in hot water" with a shrimp topping. They were pretty cute, served in these little bowls -- the rice powder is about the same consistency as custard or flan (but not sweet), and you just take a spoon and scoop the whole thing out and pop it in your mouth. We think the light-brown things on top were little rice puffs.
Banh ram it

Banh ram it was described as round and sticky with shrimp meat inside, sitting on a piece of crispy pork rind. I was pleasantly surprised to find that this dumpling-esque snack was not really all that sticky, and while I am usually indifferent to fried pork rind, I think the added texture was a nice touch -- as all three dishes were quite similar, it was good to throw in a little something extra.
Banh nam

The last plate to appear held what seemed like 10 of these banana-leaf envelopes. Inside we were supposed to find minced deep-fried shrimp and a long, flat rice noodle.
Banh nam - the insides

Which is pretty much what we got. The noodle tasted like what it said -- if you're familiar with the dimsum dish that is a long flat rice noodle with (your choice of beef/pork/shrimp) inside, this is not that far off. A little greasy, what with the deep frying, but the oil does make it easier to scrape the noodle off the leaf cleanly, and it was good going down. It does look better wrapped, though.
Hue crepe

This was supposed to be a crispy Hue-style crepe, stuffed with shrimp and bean sprouts. It was crispy, all right -- snappy-sharp. Now, I like crispy, but crackling alone does not a full dish make. And the rest of this crepe, as you can see, was a little anemic. Pretty disappointing for what was supposed to be a local specialty, especially since we later found a far superior version in Saigon.
Beef bun

Nah, it's not supposed to be bread; that's bun, not bun. It's a beef noodle soup -- not to be confused with pho, which is pretty much the national dish. The noodles here are thinner (vermicelli) and the beef stock richer and darker, and while this one did come with some veggies, it's not quite the assortment that you get with pho. The soup was a bit too heavy for me given how warm it was outside, but it was very tasty.
Snacks on a train

(Think about it... oh, c'mon, that was funny.)
Best bargain meal of the entire trip: hot snacks sold from a cart on the train. The spring rolls were, while not the absolute best we had, definitely in the top 3 (we ate a lot of spring rolls) -- hot, crispy, meat still moist and flavorful. The chicken was well-seasoned and juicy; I could have done with maybe a bit more zing, but given that I think all of it together cost about US$1.50, so absolutely no complaints.