This shall be the first of some short posts in an endeavour to get through a backlog that has developed. Just a few words on a couple of tasty street foods in Hanoi - nem (spring rolls) and a salad whose name evades me.
Nem are fresh spring rolls, which I believe go by another name down south. Here in Hanoi they're filled with grated green papaya, herbs, crushed peanuts, shredded pork skin and a fermented pork paste that is cooked in banana leaves and often served as a beer snack. Dipped in fiery nuoc cham (the ubiquitous Vietnamese sauce made from fish sauce, rice vinegar, sugar, chili and garlic) they're a perfect nibble after a day avoiding the annoying tourist touts of Hanoi.
The salad is very similar as we still have the papaya, peanuts and herbs. The fish sauce and chili heavy dressing also adds flavours familiar to the nem's nuoc cham dip. Here we lose the fermented pork paste though, gaining in its place roast pork and a chewy, almost hard, jerky.
If you're ever in Hanoi I suggest you give them both a go but be careful what you pay for them though. There's a strong them and us culture when it comes to tourist prices in Vietnam. This isn't something I'm particularly against, they're very poor and we're not, plus a price is as much what the buyer's happy to pay as what the seller offers and plenty of tourists are happy to pay the inflated prices. Having not worked for 6 months I still like to pay as little as possible though (and am reasonably well versed in asian haggling) and the aforementioned spring rolls were bought by us for as little as 5,000 dong each (probably less if you're a local) but some folk will charge you 20,000 dong each if you're not careful - I think the salad is 15,000. As with everything in 'Nam ask the price before buying as you can get stung with a nasty surprise if you don't and it's harder to walk away from the price offered if you've already eaten it.
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