Don’t give me any of that Banh Mi
Vietnamese food can be a challenge for the timid taste buds of children
Hoi An, Vietnam
October 2019 (4 min read)
In the old town of Hoi An, Madam Khanh sells the best pillowy baguettes stuffed with chicken, cucumber, pate, special sauce, and chilli on request. Our teenage daughter, Iris, scoffs every last crumb. Everyone on our tour loves them except for Banjo, my eight-year-old son. Our incredulous guide, Yen, looks at him: “You don’t want your banh mi?
It’s not the best start to our evening culinary cycle round Hoi An and its market gardens with Grasshopper Adventures, but there are plenty of dishes to come. He will surely try at least one of them.
I knew a week’s holiday in Vietnam would challenge my son’s timid taste buds. For a start, he has refused to eat fruit for the past six years. That goes for every other green and red vegetable except for beans, broccoli, peas and capsicum, which is also how Iris rolls. Just as well, then, that they tolerate garlic, ginger, coriander and soya sauce, as I’ve also booked us in to My Grandma’s Home Cooking class the day after next.
Edging out in to the chaos of Hoi An’s roads on a mountain bike requires faith. I suspect that the welcome share-tray of banh mi in the office gives Yen time to calm our fears and inspire trust. She is a pint-sized professional. And loves her job. We follow her like a trail of ducklings, a back-up gofer at the rear. But the Vietnamese patiently flow around all obstacles.
First stop is for cao lau, the noodle dish unique to Hoi An, which is served up on the terrace of a house amid the emerald fields that supply the town with its greens. Banjo refuses to taste the freshly-picked lemon basil, mint and mustard greens, but meekly takes his bowl of brown noodles in broth with pork and a bundle of herbs. He eats half of it. Delicious, yes? asks Yen, and he agrees.
The last of the sun splashes gold as we cycle the flat network of paths that crisscross the watery outskirts of Hoi An. I guess it makes sense that the 500-year-old port of Hoi An was built on an estuary. We pass small aqua farms, rice paddies and buffalo heading home for the night. A man wades thigh-deep through muddy water in the dusk. It’s dark by the time we circle back to town via a packed fluoro-lit banh xeo restaurant. These pancakes come with herbs and prawns, but luckily there are also pork skewers for my small carnivore.
We slip down an alley to a path on the Thu Bon River. This is where the savvy locals head at night for the cool breeze. Tables are dotted along the river bank and everyone is drinking and eating. We nip into U Café for a palate cleanser of cinnamon and cashew ice cream and Yen has to shout over the burping frogs in the pond outside. Banjo likes the cashew but finds the cinnamon overpowering. One out of two ain’t bad.
Our team of eight, including a glamorous couple from San Francisco and a pair of retirees from Perth, are getting full but we still demolish the charcuterie and cheese on a platter and the half glass of craft beer in a former French colonial mansion called the Hill Station Deli. Banjo is rewarded with a Sprite, a drink that he loves to boast contains shocking amounts of sugar.
Our final stop is Yen’s favourite, with good reason. We troop over the gangplank of a moored boat and sit on the upper deck to view the twinkly river bank. Here, the speciality is clams in a delicate lemon grass broth. We pick the tiny molluscs out with chopsticks and dip them into salt and pepper mixed with lime. It’s heavenly. I’d like to savour my chilled local Tiger beer, perhaps even have another, but cycling in Hoi An requires concentration.
We’ve enjoyed our tour with Yen so much, I sign us up for the morning countryside cycle at the end of the week, with Banjo’s agreement. At Grasshopper Adventures, the kids challenged their fearful palates to the max, but at My Grandma’s Home Cooking they’re soon wielding a large sharp knife and slicing lemongrass like professionals.
Young Vi, our guide for the day from My Grandma’s Home Cooking
The day begins with an early boat ride to Hoi An’s central market in the company of young Vi, an endearing, sharp-witted university graduate in English. The market ladies of Hoi An are fierce and don’t like tourists fondling their produce, but the stalls we visit have been buttered up and we’re allowed to not only touch but taste. The meat and fish stalls are confronting. “But it’s still alive”, says Banjo pointing at a large shiny crab escaping a bucket.
The cooking class is held on a tranquil island a 20-minute boat ride away. Grandma is tiny and frail and the oldest island resident at ninety-four, but can still squat on her haunches and sift the husk from rice. We crush that rice with water the old-fashioned way between two stone discs, and use the rice milk to make pancakes, vying to make the thinnest and roundest. Mine, of course, is the winner.
The pancakes are wrapped around the pork skewers we go on to cook. The kids are hungry by then and eat every bit of this Hoi An rice roll. They’re happy to prepare the green papaya salad, banh xeo and tuna in clay pot, but they barely eat anything else. As for me, I gobble the lot. It’s very good, could hardly be fresher and I don’t have to clear up. A bevy of friendly women bring all the ingredients in pretty bowls and tidy away after each dish.
Vi sits with the kids on the return boat. It’s much more fun to hang with them and play games on Iris’s phone. They’ve bonded over the cooking class and are, for the duration, the best of friends. It’s been an experience to savour. Banjo still refuses to eat banh mi, but is always happy to tackle a lemongrass pork skewer. That’s what I call progress.
EXTRA
Grasshopper Adventures operate in Cambodia, Myanmar and Thailand as well as Vietnam.
The evening culinary tour starts at 4pm from their office in Hoi An. See www.grasshopperadventures.com
There are many cooking schools in Hoi An, but My Grandma’s Home Cooking is probably the best for kids who have only a passing interest in kitchen skills.
See www.cooking-hoian.com
Stay: Almanity Wellness Resort has a gorgeous shady pool for kids, though the rooms tend to the small side. The adjacent dining area is a cool spot for relaxing buffet breakfasts; try the light and aromatic bánh canh noodles. For an adults only trip, I’d choose the Anantara.
Eat: for the best banh mi go no further than Madam Khanh; for an aperitif try The Hill Station for its old world charm, though I’d skip the cheese platter; at Streets restaurant the price of your meal goes towards training vulnerable kids for work in the hospitality industry, and the food is good, www.Streetsinternational.org; Little Faifo restaurant is very atmospheric, especially if you get a balcony table - the food is pricey but delicious. The restaurant boat with the lemongrass clams is called Sông Bien Xanh. Grab a cocktail at any one of the riverside bars to watch the parade of lantern boats on the riverbank. The night market has limited food stalls but do try the betel-wrapped beef and bbq octopus.
Tailor: Yaly Couture in the old town is very professional, if not the cheapest. They copied a pair of favourite trousers for me; made up an outfit for the teenager from an iphone photo and produced two pairs of linen trousers for the bloke. www.yalycouture.com
READ
Marguerite Duras’ The Lover is set in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh) in 1930’s Indochina and was made into a plush movie in 1992.
Anh Do’s The Happiest Refugee is a reminder of the Vietnam War and its aftermath. As young Vi told me, “We Vietnamese are famous for eating everything, even rats. We had no choice.”
Fishing for Tigers by Emily Maguire is a contemporary novel set in Hanoi among the expatriate community.