Back in Hanoi for work.
Arrived completely shattered after the long journey involving a very short connection in Singapore. Went straight to bed which possibly wasn’t the best idea. Then dragged myself out of bed and thought must keep myself awake for the rest of the day. Wandered around and went into Katinat, which is a fancy chain of coffee shops. But in hindsight, having an iced black coffee around 6pm wasn’t the greatest idea.
The small black iced coffee was 35k, which was fairly pricey in my opinion. I have never gotten to the bottom of what ‘cheese coffee’ is. No coffee shop employee and I have ever had enough mutual understanding good enough to explain the concept of cheese coffee and I don’t really feel brave enough to order one just to find out.
Anyway. I spent the next few hours wandering around looking for my ideal banh mi. Didn’t find it. First place seemed promising - little hole in the wall, can’t remember the name. But it soon came to light they used spring onions instead of coriander (WHY??? Is it because they think tourists may not like coriander? The bulk of their clientele seem to be Aussie tourists) - they only had insipid chilli sauce from a bottle, no pâté despite me asking twice (their menu implied they had it) and the pork didn’t have much flavour -at 25k I know I shouldn’t really complain. At least the baguette was very light and crispy and they toasted it lightly in a tiny oven before serving. The next place was Bami Bread with the subtitle Banh mi Hoi An. This was right in the middle of the tourist mayhem of the Old Quarter, the young people running the shop were more receptive to my questions, and made the banh mi more or less to my specifications - with what looked like a homemade chilli sauce, pâté, coriander, cucumber, carrot, some kind of dark sauce and grilled pork which was more caramelised than the other shop’s offering. They also toasted the sandwich, which they charged 40k for, but I guess the higher price is understandable in tourist central. No photos as I was so hungry I practically inhaled each sandwich as soon as I got my hands on it.
The following morning (after 3 hours sleep) I made a stop at Cong Coffee (another chain, perhaps slightly less fancy than Katinat) to pick up an iced black coffee. Katinat seems to attract the sort of dainty female influencer type who is blocking all the entrances while having umpteen photos taken in various poses holding a cup of coffee she clearly ain’t drinking (2 such young women and I irritated each other massively because I was a half crazed with jetlag middle-aged woman in search of caffeine while they were impossibly perfect-looking Gen Z recording Tiktoks). Cong has a more grungy pseudo-Communist sort of vibe. The coffee was slightly cheaper at Cong and just as good. No photo as I was rushing to my first session at the hospital across the road while trying not to get run over.
Lunch at the hospital. My white British vegetarian colleague had warned me that lunch at the hospital was ‘dire’. But I was pleasantly surprised. I think the vegetarian option might have been dire. The lunch came in a cute bento type container - I told them I ate everything, so I got a slightly soupy beef preparation with onions, carrots and a green stem like vegetable (water spinach? Morning glory?), stewed pork belly in a sauce that was slightly sweet and star anisey, steamed cabbage, boiled peanuts and steamed rice. The only thing I didn’t really care for was the bowl of clear soup which just tasted salty.
