An Authentic Experience

I wanted to walk the streets of Saigon like Anthony Bourdain or the fat, bald guy who salivates over fermented deer penis and grubs. I daydreamed of confidently strolling into the dirtiest back alley noodle stall and ordering the city's best pho in perfect Vietnamese. The locals would gape in awe at my expert chopstick usage and clamber over each other for the privilege of purchasing my first beer.

Of course, our Travel Channel heroes are undoubtedly chaperoned by bi-lingual experts in their city's culture and cuisine, and I soon found out that it is not so easy to eat like the locals. At least not without making a fool out of myself.

The first handicap in my quest for authenticity was my dear wife, who would just as rather lick the floor of a rest stop men's room than order anything from a food stall. I am convinced that she has created an equation for the perfect dining experience wherein points are awarded for a restaurant's cleanliness, brightness, size (the bigger the better) menu posted outside in English (prices included), and above all, the presence of other tourists.

We settled into a routine of eating at an establishment of her choosing, but I strategically ordered light fare, and left plenty of room to dash off to a back alley food stall afterward. In all honesty, all of the food we ate in Saigon was incredible, and some of the most memorable were from Sami's restaurant choices. Including these two:

Chicken wings with fish sauce. Wings just like I like 'em- crispy. I was worried that they would be too salty, but no way. Just perfect.

Crepe filled with pork, shrimp and bean sprouts served with a sweet dipping sauce. I believe this is called a Bahn xeo, but I call it a B-O-M-B xeo.

Still, despite all of the stellar restaurant food, I was dead set on getting my authentic fix. Right from the start, I had noticed many Vietnamese eating what appeared to be a sort of salad out of a plastic bag. I saw many women sitting on the sidewalk selling some variation on the same thing. I approached one random salad selling squatter and grunted out my order. She seemed dead set on not giving me the salad I craved, but quail eggs instead. This incensed me. I thought for sure that she was just trying to pawn off the more expensive order on the white tourists. I made my intentions clear with another grunt. No one else was eating the quail eggs, why should I? When it finally dawned on the vendor that I could not be deterred, she gave a giddy giggle. And her competitors nearby gave the same giggle and the look of a shared inside joke. The salad was of a crunchy vegetable similar daikon shavings. It was delicious, but mainly because of the squirt of vinegar chili sauce, which she was also reluctant to give.

The approach

Victory! (Although I must say I was displeased by the apparent necessity of the plastic bag that I just know will one day end up stuck in an endangered whale's blowhole.)

I had a similar experience to this on our first night in Saigon. Every local I saw walking around seemed to be carrying and munching from a plastic bag lightly filled with multiple, thumb-sized, salmon-colored squares. I placed an order by pointing and received the customary chuckles. She filled a fruit roll-up like rice paper with chopped quail eggs, bacon, onion sprig and a squirt of honey-mustard type sauce before rolling it and cutting it into pieces. It was so good that it haunted me for a full day after and I knew I must re-visit. However, the second time I went a young Vietnamese man nearby seemed completely overjoyed and intrigued by my purchase and would not leave us alone. He kept asking me if I liked it and tried to get Sami to take a piece. Being as the dirty street and plastic bag met none of the criteria in her restaurant equation, she politely declined. The man followed us all the way to the crosswalk, and passersby looked on equally intrigued- by me or our new friend's passionate admiration, I could not tell. It wasn't until we began crossing the road that I understood. It was then that an ex-pat holding hands with a giggling Vietnamese woman turned to me and said, "By eating that you are going to grow large breasts."


Oh. Yes, it's true. Eating like the locals isn't as easy as it is on Bizarre Foods. But, if I can't eat like Andrew Zimmern in Saigon, at least I can grow matching man boobs.

This is delicious street food and may or may not enlarge your bust.