Vietnamese Food Part IV

After three and a half months of living in Vietnam, I've started getting used to a lot of things that were  quite jarring at the beginning of my time here. Things like deafening thunderstorms, painfully awful synthesized Vietnamese karaoke music, and constantly having a sore bum from motorbiking everywhere and sitting on hard plastic chairs. Or little things that I used to always notice that seem completely normal now - like the obsession with bedazzled Apple clothing items (e.g. sweaters that glitteringly say "Authorized Dealer"), or the fact that people openly pick their noses while having conversations.

However, I can always count on new foods to keep things interesting. So here are a few unusual items I've tried in the last couple of months - and the stories that accompany them:

There is one lady in town who sells waffles from the cart she wheels around. When I first discovered her, I was SO STOKED because the waffle was delicious. But then I couldn’t find her again for weeks. When she finally did reappear, I was with An, and he asked if I wanted an “ice cream cake”… I had to explain to him that waffles are definitely not ice cream cakes. But that they do go well with ice cream. Anyway, while I was consuming my gloriously delicious treat (and taking a selfie to prove it) we stopped at a traffic light and some dude on another motorbike kept touching my leg, presumably because I have such ridiculously white slash lobster skin. It didn't even bug me though because my waffle was SODAMNTASTY!!

This is a deep fried rice-wrapped banana. Tastes like a deep-fried rice-wrapped banana. 

My friend Brittany and I trying duck tongue. It actually wasn't that bad!

My apprehensive reaction as I unwrap banana leaf to reveal a special Vietnamese treat - sticky rice and vegetables in a kind of gluey gel. Not my favourite ... I had one bite before rejecting it. 

Snails on snails on snails. I can no longer keep track of all of the different kinds of seafood I've eaten now.

One day I was sick and Thanh brought me dinner - soup in plastic bags, pineapple juice in a plastic cup in a plastic bag, and mangoes in a plastic bag. Sigh.

A common treat in both Cambodia and Vietnam, I have now eaten two duck fetuses. They taste exactly like an egg, just a bit chewier in certain places.