Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
raw leaves and herbs, usually including lettuce, mint and coriander. Flavouring the broth is
pretty much up to you: containers of chilli, sugar, vinegar and fish sauce (and sometimes lime
wedges and MSG) are on the tables of every noodle shop, allowing you to find the perfect
balance of spicy, sweet, sour and salty. Also on offer at many noodle shops is
mi
, a yellow
wheat noodle served in broth with slices of meat and a few vegetables. It's also common to
eat
fõe
and
mi
softened in broth but served without it (
hàeng
), and at times fried (
khùa
).
Many other types of noodle soup are dished up at street stalls.
Khào biak sèn
is another soup
popular in the morning, consisting of soft, round rice noodles, slices of chicken and fresh
ginger and served in a chicken broth, though it's hard to find outside bigger towns. More
widely available, and a favourite at family gatherings during festivals, is
khào pûn
, a dish of
round, white, translucent flour noodles, onto which is scooped one of any number of sweet,
spicy coconut-milk based sauces. These noodles also find their way into several Vietnamese
dishes, such as barbecued pork meatballs (
nâm néuang
) and spring rolls (
yáw
), in which they
are served cold with several condiments and a sauce. There's also a Lao incarnation of
khào
soi
, the spicy noodle curry eaten throughout northern Thailand and the Shan States of My-
anmar (Burma); the version common in Laos (in Luang Prabang and certain northwestern
towns) consists of rice noodles served in almost clear broth and topped with a spicy meat
curry.
Fruits and desserts
The best way to round off a meal or fill your stomach on a long bus ride is with
fresh fruit
(
màk mâi
), as the country offers a wide variety, from the more commonly known bananas,
papayas, mangoes, pineapples, watermelons and green apples imported from China to more
exotic options: crisp green guavas; burgundy lychees, with tart, sweet white fruit hidden in a
coat of thin leather; wild-haired, red rambutans, milder and cheaper than lychees; dark purple
mangosteen, tough-skinned treasures with a velvety smooth inside divided into succulent
sweet segments; airy, bell-shaped green rose apples; pomelos, gigantic citruses whose thick
rinds yield a grapefruit without the tartness; fuzzy, brown sapodillas, oval in shape and almost
honey-sweet; large, spiky durian, notoriously stinky yet divinely creamy; oblong jackfruit,
with sweet, yellow flesh possessing the texture of soft leather; and rare Xieng Khuang avoca-
dos, three times the size of those available in the West, with a subtle perfumed flavour. Res-
taurants occasionally serve fruit to end a meal, and, throughout the country, handcart-pushing
hawkers patrol the streets with ready-peeled segments.
Desserts
don't really figure on many restaurant menus, although some tourist restaurants
usually have a few featuring
coconut milk
or cream, notably banana in coconut milk (
nâm
wãn màk kûay
). Markets often have a food stall specializing in inexpensive coconut-milk
desserts, generally called
nâm wãn
. Look for a stall displaying a dozen bowls, containing
everything from water chestnuts to corn to fluorescent green and pink jellies, from which one
or two items are selected and then added to a sweet mixture of crushed ice, slabs of young
