Drinking coffee is not recommendable as a cure for jetlag but not drinking coffee is almost impossible when in Vietnam, the second largest producer of coffee in the world, where it appears to be grown on almost every bit of spare land.Coffee is almost always served in one of these little phin filters. It has a small chamber for coffee and water and sits on top of a second filter. It is almost always served in a glass so you can watch the coffee drip down which can take anything up to 5 or 6 minutes, or as the Trung Nguyen descriptions explain at a rate of approximately 65 drops per minute (I havent tried counting).
Coffee in Vietnam is thick and strong and almost chocolatey in taste and texture when served alone. When served with condensed milk it becomes something almost magical as the sweetness and slightly caramelized flavour add to the depth and richness.
Mostly I drank the coffee with ice (ca phe sua da - something I learned how to say before I could say hello in Vietnamese!) which tastes not far off the best coffee ice-cream that you could imagine. It is however equally good without the ice. Strangely it was normally served with a glass of iced tea for you to enjoy while you wait for the coffee to drip.
Competition:
To win some very fantastic Trung Nguyen coffee and one of their stainless steel phin filters (much nicer than those pictured) you just need to leave a comment telling me about your favourite foodie holiday destination. Ill be chosing a winner at random on the first of November across the answers left here and on facebook.
This competition is now closed. Congratulations to Mair who entered over on facebook. The prize will be on its way to her within the next few days
San Francisco. As a vegan there are more choices of places to eat than I can ever visit. And Brighton in the UK, within the Lanes is a marvellous selection of niche and high quality food including a fully vegetarian pub which serves a veg Sunday lunch!
ReplyDeleteKeith
There are so many....but probably when it comes down to it, my favorite foodie destinaton has to be NYC because of the fact that you can virtually get every type of food there with the upmost authenticity since those who are preparing it have come from each distinctive country! There is simply not a genre of cuisine that you cannot get in NYC, you could go out 365 days of the year at eat amazing, authentic international dishes every night! Imen xx
ReplyDeleteI adore Thai food and would love to visit the country and attend a cooking class there one day.
ReplyDeleteSpain - love tapas and great wine while the owner tries to get you to date his son :)
ReplyDeleteHas to be Dubai for me, everything about the place screams food. Never mind the glitz and glamour, get yourself down to the river in the older part of Dubai for the spice souks or out and about for a meal.
ReplyDeleteI've been over for a few weeks the last two years running and if I could swing it (or if the credit union were nice to me), I'd be gone again.
For someone who thankfully has no real food intolerances, it's an absolute dream. I threw myself into Indian dishes, lebanese dishes, Thai, Chinese, French, Spanish, Italian and more but they all paled in comparison to a barbeque laid on in the dessert (you go on one of these overnight-type excursions).
The barbequed and roast meats and veg (all either local or from within the region) were real treat - out in the dessert, 7,000km from home, scorpions running up the hills but we're happy out sitting around the fire tucking into the real local food offerings. Would have ate there for the fortnight over any of the restaurants.