This is probably not going to be one of my more organised posts but I promised pics and here they are!
So yesterday we went shopping across the border... wait, I mean, the day before... here are some food pics. We ate at our fave Jap place, and I told BIKSS I'm not taking anymore fotos for the blog cos we always eat the same thing. So this time we made it a point to order stuff we'd never tried there.
Tempura, and that's some agedashi tofu on the side
They do a mean yakitori. And bacon tastes great with everything!
Some soup thing. Which turned out to be light and refreshing.
And this was part of the set that the tempura came with. Turns out we over-ordered again!
Right. That was effectively BIKSS' birthday dinner cos we won't be able to celebrate together on the actual day, what with my crazy baking schedule and his having to attend a funeral on that day and all. He got the news today about the unfortunate timing... but see? Good thing we already had our celebration dinner!
Here's a hoodie that BIKSS got me for movie dates - they always turn the a/c to freeze-your-butt-off-temperatures so I'm always numb somewhere by the time the movie's done. I thought the phoenix on the back was kinda cool and unexpected.
Speaking of gifts, the shirt I got him for Christmas only JUST arrived. I know right?
This is him trying it on last night :)
If you've never watched "How I Met Your Mother" you probably wouldn't get it. But um, yeah, he likes it! Yay! (Plus, I like how the fit is so flattering!)
Oh this was a photo I meant to attach to the previous
Bak Kwa post but forgot.. heh. Oops. I thought the drink cups were awesome! They're bigger than the rice bowls we ate out of! LOL.
Um... moving backwards... here are some holiday photos from our trip to Ho Chi Minh :
OK this was the control panel in the room by the bed. First of all, for some reason we couldn't get the entrance light working... and each time we entered the room the lights would come on in some default preset where everything was dim and we couldn't see anything. Mostly because the hallway light wouldn't come on. I would then sit by the bed and try to turn everything on individually, and as I sat there and looked around trying to figure out what came on and what didn't, BIKSS would just walk over to me and press the
MASTER button. This of course does the complete opposite of what we want - it turns everything OFF! The first time he did it he said, well, who knew it would turn things off instead of ON. But each time we came back to the room he would forget and press it again! By the 3rd or 4th time I teased him, "Just cos it says Master doesn't mean you have to press it!" He laughed at that. And stopped doing it :)
Our favourite pizza place (Pizza 4Ps) had a camembert ice cream on their limited-time menu. So we decided to give it a try. If there's one thing they failed at this was it. Everything else on the menu was simply to die for. Both of us sat there with bits of ice cream in our mouths trying to figure it out. I think my brain just couldn't handle the fact that it was cheese flavoured ice cream. Or ice cream textured cheese. Whatever the case, it was a big fat X from both of us. No ticks for this one.
That's me out on the terrace / patio type thing in front of the hotel having a ciggy with my morning coffee.
After breakfast we headed to Chinatown to walk around the markets and pick up some tees and shorts (for BIKSS) and random items for me - nipple shields, face powder, novelty pens. We also bought too much coffee :)
It's filled with way too many shops!
Each tiny square is a shop. They number in the hundreds! If you click on the picture and enlarge it you'll see the numbers on the squares. This is the chart of the lower level. There's a second floor too.
View of Bitexco Tower from the street
View of the Saigon River from the 51st floor of Bitexco tower where we had lunch at a restuarant called EON51.
Then we went to the Heineken museum (also in Bitexco tower) where the guide couldn't speak English to save her life and there was not a lot of anything to see. But at the end we got to try our hand at pouring a draft...
And we got personalised Heineken beer bottles. So that was worth the torturous tour, I thought.
After that it was time to go to dinner at The Deck. I think I might have mentioned it
in a post a while back. Lucky for me I had a longish skirt in my suitcase and a choker to dress things up a bit. Some of the diners were in suits and long dresses... I didn't expect it to be such a formal affair!
Here are some pics of that most enjoyable dinner which is also the very first time I tried ceviche. Which isn't too much of a stretch from sashimi, really, and I
do enjoy me my sashimi!
Top : Yellow Fin Tuna Ceviche with Red Onion, Tomato, Ginger Shoot and Coriander
Bottom : Roast Duck, Watermelon, Cashew Nut, Cress Salad with Hoisin and Lime dressing
Top Left : Pork Belly Chicken Dumplings with a Soy, Ginger and Shallot dipping sauce
Top Right : Spinach with Cream Miso
Bottom Left: Grilled Broccolini with Sesame, Soy and Crispy Garlic
(aka the best Broccolini this side of the planet)
Bottom Right: Baked Sea Bass seasoned with Coconut, Lemongrass and Chilli
The green dollop is a savoury wasabi sauce, and the brown one is a miso based sauce.
Warm Chocolate Sauce beside the Chocolate Bomb
Warm Chocolate Sauce melting the Chocolate Bomb
Inside the chocolate bomb - poached berries and vanilla ice cream.
NICE!
And that's the view from our table on the deck. On the left are the windows of the indoor section of the restaurant and that's the Saigon River we're sitting over.
Made it to Maison Marou!
Breakfast the next morning was had at Maison Marou - a bean-to-bar artisinal chocolate place. The chocolate brownie had chunks of chocolate in it, and when I ordered the banana muffin I sure wasn't expecting chocolate in there as well! It was good tho. I would definitely go back there!
On our previous trip we didn't buy anything from here because 1) I didn't know how good the chocolate is, and 2) I didn't bring a lot of money and the stuff here definitely isn't the cheapest. But considering it's as good as it is, it's pretty worth it! I came prepared this time!
Then English Tea at The Majestic Saigon. Because I love English afternoon tea. I wish they had scones tho. The Majestic Malacca had scones. Hrmph. Still, it was a relaxing afternoon spent in a posh hotel with Daddy so it was all good!
There was an interesting "wedding" cruise ship diagonally across the (very big, very many-laned, very heavy-trafficked) road from the hotel.
We walked over to take a look while waiting for the tea service to start. I got us there too early, so what better way to kill time than by working up an appetite and enjoying the sights while we're at it!
We went shopping at a nearby mall, then headed over to have dinner at a quaint little French restaurant called La Cuisine where we had braised beef cheek with truffle mash and a double salmon fettucine.
The food was really good. But I much preferred the ambience over at The Deck.
We found quite a yummy
Banh Mi for breakfast on our last morning. The lady was super calm as she pointed at the ingredients in front of her one at a time by way of asking us if we wanted each item included in our sandwich. Didn't bother her one bit that we couldn't speak the same language. At the end of it she pointed at a number shown on the price list behind her and we paid up! Easy peasy and so delish!
After more wandering around the local markets we headed back to Pizza 4Ps for lunch. We had already decided before our trip that it would be where we'd have our first and last meals!
We had a fruit and parma ham + burrata salad to start...
Then we had a half & half Salmon Miso Cream and Soy Garlic Beef pizza which we couldn't finish so we packed it up and finished it later on at the airport just before our flight.
'Dessert' was a Truffle Burrata Pie with Parma Ham. It's burrata cheese wrapped in parma ham and wrapped in pastry and baked. On the spot. The perfect ending to our food journey in Vietnam!
