Taste of Saigon

Clayton found a tasting tour for us to do while in Vietnam and lightly explained it to Robert and I while we were in the office. I have to admit I was half listening as I agreed to it. I mean, it sounds like fun—you go around the city and try different foods and beers, what could go wrong? I guess nothing technically went ‘wrong’ but the tour certainly had some unexpected turns.

We had just finished our motorcycle tour with Adam, showered, and headed back down for a coffee before the next tour. The tour started at five and right on the dot we headed to the front door. I could see the girls through the large glass windows before we got to the sliding glass door. Three small women dressed in traditional white and light blue Vietnamese gowns were just getting off their motorbikes as we strolled up.

After spending the day being shuffled around by ugly middle-aged men, it was certainly a shock to be confronted by three young Vietnamese girls who were going to drive us three sweaty Americans around to gorge ourselves on food and beer. I never actually got their ages but I would have to assume they were in the 20-25 years old range. The fact that they were all very short—and Asian—made them seem even younger on first impression. One girl immediately took the lead, introducing everyone and explaining the tour to us.

She group us together simply based on who was standing closest to each other, or maybe that she fancied Robert, who knows. She was clearly the more experienced of the group and will now be referred to as Robert’s girl. My girl, whose name is Nyung or something of the sort insisted on putting the helmet on my head and clipping it under my chin—I felt like a child. We sat on the behind them on the bike and were off.

One of the rules Robert’s girl had told us (apart from the fact that we were not allowed to hold onto them as they drove) was to stay centered on the bike and not lean side to side. Sounds like a fair rule. As we pull to the first traffic light, Clayton reaches over to pinch the back of my arm, almost making his girl lose total control of her bike and crash. Obviously, some of us are not mature enough to go on bike tours with Asian girls drivers.

I was slightly uncomfortable due to the fact that all the other motorists were staring at us goofy Americans awkwardly on these motorbikes with traditionally dressed girls, and the fact that I had a totally different idea in mind for a food tasting tour of Ho Chi Minh. It was time for a beer.

We arrived at our first location and met Ben, the tour leader, who memorized our names right away. We sat at one of three tables with a guy who lives in Orlando (small world), a German couple that just got off the plane from Singapore, and two others from Singapore. We were fed Pho. Well, Ben and the tour girls insisted that it wasn’t Pho because it had a different broth and the noodles were shaped differently. It was Pho.

Ben talked for a little and we ate, then we were told to go back to our drivers for the next leg of the tour. We got up and were faced with a sea of Vietnamese girls; there were 15 people in the tour, each with a driver. Nyung managed to track me down, I am glad she remembered what I looked like (must be my devilishly handsome features). This time we took off as a pack, with male drivers acting as ‘body guards’ for the group. They helped keep us together and direct traffic around our awkward tour group.

The next location was a large, outside seating area full of Vietnamese people eating dinner. We were sat at a long bench with our drivers and served a variety of foods, all cooked and handled by the girls until they were placed in the bowl in front of us. The girls were expected to do everything apart from put the food in our mouths and chew it. It quickly became annoying. I can cut my own goat breast lady!

We soon began to catch on to the rhythm of the tour. Like clockwork, food would be delivered and Robert’s girl would demand our attention and give us an in depth explanation. I could hear the other girls around us reciting the same script, and Ben (the leader) and the bodyguards would patrol and keep an eye on everything the whole time. I had a suspicion that Ben was very two faced and strict with the girls. He and the bodyguards would speak quickly and quietly to the girls in Vietnamese as they were cooking and entertaining.

They served us goat breast and full-bodied prawns, which the girls peeled for us. They brought out frog, or jumping chicken as all the girls called it. Now, I had never eaten frog before was the first one to get a piece. I looked around and then shoved it into my mouth and began chewing. I immediately was taken aback by how crunchy the thing was, but kept chewing to be polite. It wasn’t until I looked over at Clayton’s plate and saw the bones from remains of his frog’s leg that I realized my mistake. So maybe I wanted to get at the frog bone marrow, get off my back.

As the professional looking Michael Jackson impersonator (Asian) finished dancing to Billy Jean, we got up to leave. I used the lavatory and came out to see Robert and Clayton on their bikes with their girls. Mine was no where to be found, she was in the bathroom. I waited a minute and she came out and we got on the bike, no problems. Robert’s girl immediately pulled up next to us and gave Nyung an earful under her breath. I can only imagine she was getting yelled at for not being ready. That was when I realized the full extent of Robert’s girl’s personality. Maybe in this case ‘bitch’ would be an appropriate word.

We were then toured around the city, then taken to our last place. Again we invaded a popular Vietnamese eating spot, getting pleasant looks from all the families around us. The tables and chairs we sat at seemed as though they were designed for children. The chairs bent slightly under our weight and our knees poked out over the edge of the table. We were served a variety of seafood and asked if we wanted to try their ‘special egg.’

I am going to go ahead and put a disclaimer here for the next part:

READER DISCRETION: DON’T READ THIS OUT LOUD TO CHILDREN OR HYPER-RELIGIOUS INDIVIDUALS

This special egg was delivered and just looked like a normal boiled chicken egg. Oh boy was I wrong. It was a duck egg. Yes, a duck egg, like a walking, quacking, poor little duck. I hadn’t eaten duck before, it was horrific.

Ok, so that’s not what the bad part was. Inside the boiled egg was not only duck egg, but also a two week old duck fetus. I don’t know whose demented idea it was to harvest and boil such a thing, but it was sitting right in front of me. The girls were peeling away the top portion and we were instructed to slurp away the excess liquid. So, doing as I was told, I slurped the liquid, which tasted like runny eggs. Nyung then dug her spoon in and gave me a big bite of white and dark grey streaked chunky egg. Yummy.

Now after forcing down the first bite, I was done. Not only was I full, but this specific dish wasn’t exactly appetizing in any way—it just tasted like a boiled egg. Nyung already had a second spoonful ready when I finished chewing, and I looked around for help. Robert had a look of disgust on his face as he was forcing down a bite and Clayton was digging in without much hesitation. I took the second bite and made the mistake of looking into the shell at the remains as I began chewing. I saw some feathers.

It was quite the challenge to get the second bite down, good thing I had some Vietnamese beer to swig around in my mouth. I had to give Nyung a relatively firm ‘no’ to stop the continual flow of underdeveloped duck fetus eggy bites.

Ok that’s all about the egg. We were driven back to our hotel shortly after and faced with the awkward situation of how much to tip the girls since we paid for the entire tour separately. We then headed in, thinking that was the end of the duck egg. Remember the friendly competition I mentioned earlier? We had a winner (loser) the next day..