Restaurant Reviews

Over the next several weeks, I will write some reviews of restaurants in Tra Vinh. I will also make audio files and videos about these restaurants and post them to share with others.

I have two main goals in doing this. The first is to give Vietnamese people who are learning English some useful language that can help them. Most Vietnamese people will already know the things that I will write about (com tam, ca phe sua da, banh mi, banh xeo, sinh to), but this isn't a problem. Because they will already know about this things, it will help them guess the meaning of what I'm writing. Because all of these restaurant blogs will be about familiar topics (ideas, things), Vietnamese people will find them easier to understand. And because these are all very Vietnamese kinds of foods, I think that Vietnamese people will find these blogs useful when they try to explain these foods to foreigners.

The second group of people I want to help are foreigners coming to Tra Vinh or to other places in Vietnam. I will try to describe some of the different foods and also some of the different rules for getting and eating food in restaurants. For Vietnamese people, it might seem strange that I am writing about rules. For Vietnamese, it is obvious (clear) how to get food or eat food in different kinds of businesses, but this is not obvious for foreigners. I hope that these reviews will help foreigners explore (go, see, and learn new things) Vietnam more easily.

Here is the list of restaurants (and other eating or drinking places) that I want to write about.

1. Bay Loan--a com tam restaurant.
2. Nguyet Anh--a WiFi cafe
3. Huu Nghi--a pho restaurant
4. a sinh to place
5. Bay Mon Bo--a great place to get many different kinds of beef
6. a place to buy banh mi and other French breads
7. a banh xeo place not far from Uncle Ho Temple
8. a restaurant in the Tra Vinh Market
9. To Nga--a com tam place near the university
10. the canteen at Campus One
11. a banh mi vendor
12. a banh bao vendor
13. a garden cafe near the main gate
14. a garden cafe outside the city to the south
15. a vegetarian meal at a Buddhist temple for ram
16. a bakery on Dien Bien Phu street
17. a place selling sweets in Tra Vinh Market
18. 999 Cafe near Campus One

Restaurant Review: Com Tam Bay Loan

This is the restaurant where I eat most often. I went their my first full day in Tra Vinh, and I've eaten there at least five times a week since then. Why do I keep going back so often? Well, I guess there are two obvious reasons: the food tastes good and the prices are low. But there is at least one more important reason. The people who work there are friendly and always make me feel welcome, so when I eat there, it's a bit like eating with family or friends.

Because this is a com tam restaurant, it has food very similar to other com tam places. Vietnamese people will immediately know what is offered at a com tam restaurant, but foreigners might not know. Com tam means "broken rice" and it refers to the plate of rice that one gets with every meal. At a com tam restaurant there are several dishes (kinds of food) that you can choose from. A com tam place is good for foreigners since the customers can always see the choices of the food. It is not necessary to order from a menu. Usually it is not even possible to order from a menu. The customers just look and then either say what they want or point to what they want.

In this kind of restaurant, you will usually get rice, a meat dish and a small amount of vegetables. There will almost always be a small dish of fish sauce (nuoc mam) and maybe some chilis and maybe some limes. Usually Vietnamese people don't use chopsticks to eat com tam. The grains (pieces) of rice are smaller than average, and it's hard to use chopsticks. Instead people use a spoon and fork. They take these from a small box on the table and then clean them with a napkin. They pour some fish sauce (just a little since it's very salty!) on the rice, and then start to eat. In most restaurants, you will get iced tea (cha da) for free. And near the end of the meal, they will bring you a small bowl of soup.

That's the general way a com tam restaurant works, and Bay Loan is similar. There is always rice available, and also several different dishes. There is usually at least one fish dish, one chicken dish, and one pork dish. My favorite is the fish, maybe because they have different kinds of seafood and the recipes (the instructions or the ways to cook food) for the fish change every day. I like fish with big bones. I really don't like to eat fish with small bones because it is too much work to remove the many bones, and I also worry that I'll get a bone stuck in my throat (the part of the body inside the neck, between the mouth and the stomach). As for river fish or ocean fish, like both, but ocean fish sometimes has bigger bones and more meat, so I like that.

At Bay Loan, they know that I often like to get bitter melon (kho qua) stuffed with pork. My favorite way to eat this is get this with a fried egg. The bitter melon stuffed with pork always comes as part of a soup, and I love to put a bowl of this on one side, and then take a fried egg and cut it up in the rice. I really like it when the yolk (the yellow part of the egg) isn't solid. That way, I can mix it with the rice. I then eat this rice-egg mixture with the bitter melon soup. It's fantastic!

I don't get the chicken very often. I like chicken, and the chicken dishes they have there look but, but most days I go for (choose) the fish. I used to have the pork a lot, but now don't have it very often. There's nothing wrong with the pork--it was actually very good--but I just prefer their fish. Sometimes I have tofu, and whenever possible I like to get extra vegetables.

In the beginning, I used to drink sugar cane juice (nuoc mia) but then stopped. I usually go to have iced milk coffee after eating there, and to have that with sugar cane juice meant I was eating far too much sugar.

Bay Loan actually is two restaurant, each on one side of the street. I like the one on the side of the street away from Dien Bien Phu because it has higher tables and chairs. In the other place, there are only stools (very short chairs), and it's a little hard for me to sit there. The manager is a lot of fun. He always likes to joke with me and tease me a little bit. His daughter is just about 6, and I also like to play with her. For the first few months, she was shy and wouldn't play with me. She'd just stay in a room and say "hello", but after some time she became braver (not shy) and now likes to play with me. She likes to hit me (but not too hard), play with my beard, and watch me eat or read.

So, since the food is good, the people friendly, and the prices low, I've become a real regular (a person who goes to a business many times). Sometimes I think I should try other places more often. I guess I have tried a number of other lunch places, but Bay Loan remains my favorite, and that's why I keep returning.

Going Skiing

When I was a child, my parents used to love going skiing. Every winter they would go to the mountains for a week or two and ski. Skiing is sport in which people put long pieces of wook or plastic on their feet and they they move across the snow. It is very popular in northern Europe and has also become popular in many other places in the world with a lot of snow.

I went skiing a few times with my parents and liked it a lot. It's a little difficult at first. The skis (the pieces of wood or plastic) are about 2 meters long, and the boots (special shoes) that people wear are very heavy, so it takes some time to get used to moving with these things on your feet.

There are several kinds of skiing, but the two most popular are downhill skiing and cross-country skiing. In downhill skiing, people go down the sides of hills and mountains. In cross-country skiing, they move mostly across flat land. Downhill skiing is a lot faster, but cross-country skiing is better exercise. Now, with for downhill skiing people usually go to ski resorts (places with hotels and restaurants that are for fun and tourism). With downhill skiing, you want to go fast down a hill. That's not easy because you must be careful not to fall down and get hurt. But the hardest part is getting up the hill in the first place.

In the past, people had to climb up the hill, which was slow and hard work. Nowadays, there are machines that carry people to the top. The simplest machine is a moving rope that goes from the bottom of the hill to the top. You grab this rope and it pulls you to the top of the hill. A more complex machine is the chair lift. This machine has chairs for people to sit on, and then it carries you over the snow and trees to the mountain top. Once you are at the mountain top, you are ready for the ski down the hill. Hills and mountains have different colors, and these tell you how easy or hard they are. It's very important to be careful with these colors and to only go to hills that are right for you. The more difficult hills are longer and steeper (not flat). Often with the difficult hills, you must change direction many times, and this can be difficult when you're going fast. Skiing is fun, but it is a dangerous sport. Some people break their bones, especially their legs, because they did not have good control. And the sport forces you to use muscles that maybe you haven't been using much. You need to have strong thighs (the muscles in the leg above the knee) and shoulders for this sport.

One surprise for people visiting a ski resort is that the snow is very deep. In most resorts the snow is more than 2 meters deep! If there isn't enough snow, the resort might make artificial (not natural) snow. They take huge pieces of ice and then use machines to cut it into very small pieces, as small as grains of sugar. They then blow this on the sides of the mountains. Of course, it's cold in a ski resort. The temperature is usually below -10º or -15º C even during the day time. But you usually don't feel cold. People wear special clothes, and this helps keep them warm. Also because they are always moving, this exercise keeps their bodies warm. Another surprise is that the sun is so bright. People with white skin must use special protection on their skin, just like when they go to the beach. The sky is usually clear and the white snow on the ground reflects (gives back) a lot of light. Everyone, whether their skin is white or dark, needs to wear goggles (special glasses) to protect your eyes. If you don't wear these goggles, you eyes will become tired after a few hours of being in the bright light.

Downhill skiing is not a cheap sport. It costs several hundred dollars per day per person at most resorts. You have to rent a hotel and then you must rent your equipment (the things that you use): skis, boots, poles. Most people buy their own special winter clothing, and this is also costly. Finally, most people who go to a ski resort must travel long distances from their homes, so they have to buy plane tickets. Cross country skiing for most people is a lot cheaper.

One of the attractions of downhill skiing is that you can do it on flat ground with little snow. For example, there is no downhill skiing in Chicago, the city where I live in America. It is too flat (the highest point on land is just a few meters above the lowest point) and there is usually no more than 10 centimeters of snow on the ground. Not a good place for downhill skiing! But lots of people go cross-country skiing there. It's easy to go near the lake and put on your skis and then to go up and down the lakefront (the land near the lake). I don't know anyone who skis to work in the winter, but it would be possible if one's home and work were near the lake.

Youth Union Festival

Every year in March, there is a big celebration all over Vietnam. This is the celebration for the Youth Union, and at colleges and universities everywhere in the country, students have a lot of fun. The Youth Union festival usually happens on a weekend. This is necessary because students are very busy preparing for the festival. They don’t just get ready to have fun. They also get ready to build and make things. For the Youth Union Festival, students form groups (usually with students from their major and their class) and then make plans to build a place for their group to have fun. Here we see the photo of a very happy student who's majoring in English. He was good at cutting bamboo and also at explaining in English many things about the Youth Union Festival.

So what do students build? Sometimes these places are tents (a house made out of cloth), but sometimes they are more like small houses. Here is a picture after they have finished buidling it. You can see that this place is big enough for twenty or thirty students to stand, sit, sing, eat, dance, and have fun.

Here at Tra Vinh University, many students are very good at building things. They are farmers and have a lot of experience building things for their own farms, and they also understand how to use materials and tools. They know how to use materials like bamboo and palm leaves and also tools like hammers, saws, and nails.

They get many materials—most of them natural—and bring them to Campus One. They all come to the football field and build their tents there. Students with experience in building things will be the leaders, and they will help their classmates. They will give advice on how long to cut the bamboo, on how deep to dig the holes, on how many nails to use to hold the pieces of bamboo and wood together.

When I saw students making these structures (buildings, houses, tents), I did not think they knew what they were doing. The students were all young and looked happy and excited, but the wind was so strong that I was sure the structures would not stand. But I was wrong! The students had very good ideas about how to build these structures, and they made them strong and stable (not moving). And, of course, it’s very important that these tents be strong and stable: they are used for all the classmates to meet, sing, eat, and have fun. They must be strong and safe.

But it is not enough to be strong and safe. They must also be attractive. Who wants to sit and celebrate in an ugly building, especially for a big festival? No one! So students paid attention to at least two things: the strength of the tents but also to the decoration (the little things that make something beautiful). And most of the decorations yesterday were natural, just like the materials used to make the structures. In this photo we see two students taking a plam leaf and putting in near the door of their tent. Students brought many kinds of flowers and leaves and used them to make their tents more beautiful. Coconuts, palm leaves, and banana plants and flowers were some of the most common things used to beautify (make beautiful) their temporary (short time) homes. Sometimes students used these things in their natural state, but often they changed them a little bit. They took leaves and cut them or folded them to make them more attractive. Or they added color to different kinds of green plants. Some students were very creative. One group (which was engineers and tailors together) took many bikes and put them together to make an arch over the entrance (the place where you go inside something) to their tent. I love to ride my bike, so I found it interesting that they were able to take bicycles and make something beautiful (and fun) from them.

After the students have built their tents and decorated them, they are ready for fun! It’s hard work making these tents. It takes work of both the hands and the brain to create these temporary structures. So, naturally, students are a little tired after they finish. Most groups of students yesterday had lunch together inside their new tent and admired (looked at with happiness and pride) what they had built. Then they started various activities. Some people wore funny hats. And lots of students immediately started to sing with karaoke machines. It was loud, but a good kind of loud. This was the sound of friends happy to be with each other, and everyone was excited.

Other students went outside to build kites (toys made of paper or plastic that can fly in the wind) to fly. Also, at this time, judges from the Youth Union came to every tent to look at it. There was a contest for the best tent, and the judges had to see each tent to give it points. Here we see a photo of someone with large kite that just a few minutes later was flying high in the sky.

In the afternoon, there were many kinds of games. Some students played in small groups with their classmates, but others gathered in the center of the football field and played with hundreds of other students. It was very noisy and exciting. I could hear the voices of the students hundreds of meters away.

In the evening, everything looked very different. It was now dark, but students had already fixed lights to their tents and they then turned these on. Normally the football field at night is empty, black, and quiet, but last night it was filled with people and life. There were lights everywhere. Many students had put lights in the signs above their doors to their tents. Some had also put different colored lights inside their tents. There were so many bright lights that it looked a little bit like Nguyen Hue Street in Ho Chi Minh City on Tet! And everywhere you went there were students walking, running, singing, dancing, and having fun.

My apartment is very close to the football field. In fact, I live just about 20 meters from where the celebration was taking place. In my living room, it was very noisy. It was so noisy that I had trouble hearing the television, but that wasn’t a problem since most of the time I was outside with students and friends celebrating. I don’t know when the party ended. I was tired and went to bed about midnight. The bedroom of my apartment is not next to the football field but is on the other side of the building, next to the Agriculture and Fisheries Building, and there it was quiet. So although thousands of students were having a noisy good time, I was able to sleep easily.

This morning, when I woke up, it was all quiet. My plan was to get my camera and go take some pictures of the students as they took down their tents. I looked out my window and was shocked. Every tent was already gone! I had heard that there would be a big fire, but I had assumed that people would build a fire, watch it burn, then go to sleep and in the morning take down all their tents. But that isn’t what happened. I now think that the bonfire (a big fire for a celebration) they had last night was made with all the materials from their tents. I guess that they took the bamboo, palm leaves, and other natural materials and threw them on the fire. This did two things. It saved them a lot of work, since now they wouldn’t have to take all these things out of Campus One. And, maybe more importantly, it let them have a lot of fun. It made the fire bigger, brighter, stronger.

But this morning, as I look at the field, I find it hard to believe that just six hours ago, there was a small city in front of my apartment, a special kind of city filled mostly with young college people having a great time. And now, it’s gone. It’s all a little bit beautiful, but also a little bit sad. It reminds me that the things we love in life don’t last forever. They are here for a short time, bright and noisy, beautiful and filled with happiness. But then soon—much sooner than we want—they are gone. We think that we can go back to them, but just as I learned this morning when I saw the tents were gone, when we try to return, we find that everyone has left.

Probably the happiest times of my life were from my college years, so I enjoyed watching students today having fun, making friends and memories. When you’re in college, you think that it will last forever. You imagine that it will always be easy to meet your friends, talk with them, be silly, have fun. But in just a few years, years that are far too short and fast, it’s over. And maybe because we know this inside—we know that our youth won’t last forever—we enjoy these moments a little bit more. So, I want to say thank you to everyone I met yesterday. You let me take photos of you and to make videos of you setting up your tents and of you singing and having fun. Many of you invited me to join with you—for a short time—and share some of the happiness that you were feeling. I’m glad that I accepted your invitations of friendship. Even though I will l be in Tra Vinh three-and-a-half more months, and even though I hope to return many times in the future, I will never be here again for the 2011 Youth Union celebration. That is over and done with, and I want to let you know that I feel very honored to have been a part of your special day.

Taking a xe om in Ho Chi Minh City

Ho Chi Minh City is big. It's really huge! The whole area has about 10 million people, and this means that sometimes you have to go a very long distance. Lots of people have their own motorbikes, and they use these to get from place to place. But I don't have a motorbike, and I don't want to get one. In Tra Vinh, I get around on my bike, which I really love. But most people don't ride bikes in HCMC. The traffic is just too heavy, the distances too far, the pollution too bad, the temperature too hot.

So, usually when I am here, I walk. For distances of just a few kilometers, this is OK. Walking let's me see the city. I get to know the streets, businesses, sights, and sounds better. One day I walked from Ben Thanh market almost all the way to the airport. That was not a pleasant walk: too long, hard, and tiring, but I'm glad I did it. Once.

Today, I bought a lot of books and did not want to carry 10 kilos of things from the bookstore to my hotel. So I found a xe om. Xe om is a Vietnamese word, and the meaning is a little bit cute and funny. Xe means "car, vehicle" and om means "to hug". This is what people call a motorcycle taxi. There is a motorcycle, one driver, and you! You just tell the driver where you want to go, agree on a price, put on your helmet, jump on, and go. The helmet is required. Drivers won't take you anywhere if you are not wearing a helmet. But don't worry if you forgot yours. They always have an extra helmet for their customers. One problem for me is that the helmets are always too small, but I this problem by bringing my own helmet. It is big and red and very well.

Sometimes, it is a little scary to take a xe om, especially during the evening rush hour. The rush hour is the time before and after work when the streets are filled with traffic. On Friday evenings, the traffic is really heavy, and taking a xe om then is both exciting and frightening. But today, it was Sunday afternoon, the traffic wasn't too heavy, and the ride was simple and not scary.

Rice Harvest

Last weekend, I rode my bike around Tra Vinh province. I wanted to see what people were doing for the rice harvest. A harvest is the word we use to talk about the cutting of the rice or corn or wheat that is growing in a field. It is also the word we use when we talk about picking fruit (apples, mangoes, bananas, etc.) from trees.

Tra Vinh has many rice harvests each year. Many fields have two harvests each year. Some have three. And a few, my friends tell me, have four harvests each year. Many of the fields were planted with rice last September and October. The rice has been growing for five or six months since then. In some fields, the rice was harvested in January, after just three or four months, but in most fields, it took the rice longer to be ready for harvesting.

Although I am not a farmer and my parents were not farmers, I was raised in a small town in America in a farming area. Many of my friends when I was growing up were farmers. So, for me it is interesting to see some of the differences and similarities between farming in Iowa, the state where I grew up, and in Tra Vinh, the province where I now live.

One similarity is that whole families work together to do the harvest. In my state, the most common crops (plants for food) were corn and soy beans. In Tra Vinh, the most common crops are rice and corn. In both places, parents and their children work together to get the crop out of the fields. This is important since when a crop is ready, it must be harvested soon. Crops don't wait for the weekend! On my bike ride, I saw many adults in the rice fields cutting the rice plants and tying them together. This is hard work, and children can't easily do it. I also saw people drying the grains of rice along the sides of the roads. This is easier work, and older children can help, but they must be careful because of the traffic.

In both Vietnam and the United States, the grain (the seed) of the rice or corn plant is only one part of the crop. Farmers in both countries also use the stalk (the grassy part of the plant) for food for animals. People call this stalk "hay" or "straw", and it both countries, it is a useful product. In Tra Vinh, I saw many people gather the straw and make large piles of it in the fields or near the houses. They first make sure the straw is dry. If it is wet and they make a pile, the straw will spoil and become bad.

In Tra Vinh, I saw many people taking dried rice and putting it in large bags. They tie the bags tightly shut and then carry them to motorbikes or small trucks. These then carry the bags of rice to the river where other people put the rice inside large boats. The boats will carry the rice to different places where it will then be

Ho Chi Minh City for Christmas

About two months ago, I went to Ho Chi Minh City for Christmas. I'd heard that although most people are not Christian, it's still a lot of fun to be there for this day. I arrived early in the afternoon on Christmas Eve (December 24) and walked around the city to see what was going on. I had arrived in the city prepared for the holiday. Earlier I had a tailor make my Santa Claus non la, the traditional Vietnamese conical hat but covered in red and white like the cap of Santa Claus. At first I was disappointed since no one said anything as I walked down the streets in District 1. In fact, I felt a little foolish. Here I was, a grown man walking around a city with a silly hat on. I'd thought people would smile or greet me, but no.

However, as evening approached and as people started to leave work to prepare for the holiday, their reactions began to change. People smiled at me or said "hello" or "Merry Christmas", and this made me feel better. When it became dark, the traffic on the streets started to get increasingly heavy, and many of those on motorbikes had children who were also dressed up. Some, like me, just had on Santa headgear (though none had a Santa non la like I did), but others were wearing whole Santa outfits: cap, jacket, pants, and boots. The kids, of course, looked adorable, and I took a lot of photos.

As the evening went on, about 20 people asked to have their photo taken with me, and maybe another 100 simply took my photo without asking for permission. And that, of course, was fine by me. Anyone who dresses up in a silly Santa hat on Christmas Eve is asking to have his photo taken, and I was certainly pleased that people wanted to include me in their photographic memories of this night. I took maybe a hundred photos of people, stores, costumes. Some didn't turn out very well because of the poor light, but others came out pretty good.

What did I learn on this example of "Going Places"? Well, I learned that sometimes it pays to be patient. What seemed like a silly idea at 4 PM (namely, walking around with my Santa non la) turned out to be, at 9 PM, a pretty fun thing to do. I also learned that sometimes it's a good idea to take a bit of a risk. I wasn't sure if my hat would work and was a little reluctant to try it, but I'm glad that I did. Finally, I learned the importance of planning ahead and of testing. It took several days to get my hat made, and if I'd waited till the last minute, I wouldn't have had any hat to show off in. Also, I got a chance to test my Santa non la the night before at the annual English Department Get-Together at Tra Vinh University. The reaction there was positive, and that gave me more courage to go ahead with my idea of parading around a major city dressed in a somewhat crazy manner.