WoW

[lsanderson]

I just stopped at Cub Foods to pick up a few things. Dropped enough for the Dinh family to live on for half a month or longer and was surprised by the sterility and lack of selection at Cub Foods. In the market by the Dinh house in Vietnam, I could walk a block and pick from a wide variety of tropical fruit, some of which I'll never see here, and I can buy potatoes, carrots, and tons of herbs that I'd only get at the Farmer's Market. The pork selection at Cub is pretty pale compared to Vietnam, although the beef is waay better. Chicken, well, maybe. Other poultry is available, and it's all fresh. Eggs -- the Vietnam markets have at least 6 or 7 varieties all of the time. And rice, a wide variety. Fish and seafood? Forget about it. In Vietnam, there's at least 4 varieties of live snails, lots of live and dead fish, shrimp, prawns, crab, lobsters. Sigh. OK, so the orange oranges are imported from America, the Asian oranges (bright green) are not that bad, and don't get me started about mangosteens, cherimoyas, mangoes, and the wide variety of other fruit available there -- and it's all ripe (unless you want green mangoes). OK, so our green onions are more regular... And they have about 20 kinds of fresh noodle available at the markets there as well...

One fruit stand in one market in Saigon







If you look very close to the vendor's left arm, a picture of custard apples

Comments

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

We felt this way after returning from France.

B

Fruit

[lsanderson.livejournal.com]

The fruit in Vietnam seems incredible, although I did have to convince them to not serve me things I was familiar with. They thought it interesting to buy expensive American oranges (not very good after shipping to Vietnam).

Custard Apples

[lsanderson.livejournal.com]

We stopped at this stand because Thong saw the custard apples. I did not get a picture of them. They're on the floor in a basket, but they do look just like a green apple -- until you cut into them.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Re diferences: The last couple times we've been to Quang's, B couldn't get over the size of the bowls of pho, after his being in Vietnam. It really was eye-opening for him, even compared to Korea.

Phuong Cafe

[lsanderson.livejournal.com]

Phuong Cafe, now gone, used to sell two sizes of pho. The smaller would probably be what you'd get in Vietnam. On the other hand, when we were out and running around, Thong and Tin seemed to gravitate towards 5 or 6 meals a day.

[mle292.livejournal.com]

Just the color in those pictures is really amazing - Especially the first picture. I can see why Cub would be a serious let down after that.

Re: Phuong Cafe

[sleepingzebras.livejournal.com]

It would be wonderful to eat 5 or 6 meals a day! :)

I was worried initially when I saw the WoW heading--I thought "not Larry!" I'm glad you didn't buy World of Warcraft.

[bratcub.livejournal.com]

I hear ya.. just like in the Philippines. You can find all kinds of cool suff and cheap too!

Re: Phuong Cafe

[lsanderson.livejournal.com]

Buy World of Warcraft? That would be a safe bet... ;-)

Re: Fruit

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

You can get most of those in Toronto, though of course not as fresh and tasty. I think we don't allow importing of them because of fears of some pest or parasite destroying the tropical and semi-tropical fruit production in the US.

I ♥ mangosteens.

K. [that's charming of them, buying American oranges for you]

Re: Phuong Cafe

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Take him to Pho Tau Bay. Better pho.

B

[mattmn.livejournal.com]

I was watching a documentary about food taboos in different cultures and I recognized that spiky/prickly fruit in one of the pictures - the tv program said it had a very weird smell/taste, almost like rotting flesh, and that many hotels in that part of the world have banned the use of that fruit in the hotels for the comfort of 'westerners.' Interestingly, many of the people of that area have the same reaction to westerners eating cheese.

Durian

[lsanderson.livejournal.com]

Yes, the dreaded durian, which I've only eaten as ice cream here in the TC. It seems to be all over Vietnam.