RICE PAPER SCISSORS

We’re here to eat street food, and lots of it. Here’s how we made our first dent in Saigon!

Chao Long - Offal Rice Porridge

Inside: Tasty pig parts like blood cubes, intestines, and liver, topped with a Chinese donut and bean sprouts

Verdict: Loved it. Full of texture. Can’t wait to try our hand at it.

Extra bits: Our vendor was a third-generation Chao Long vendor; her 40-year-old beautiful blue cart was passed down from her mother. We shared our table with a very drunk man who paid for us before we even had the chance to pay up, showing us how generous Vietnamese folks can be.

Xoi Bap - Corn Sticky Rice

Inside: Hominy, sticky rice, fried shallots. Topped with sugar and roasted sesame seeds.

Verdict: We’re accustomed to eating regular xoi, a sweet mung bean sticky rice. This version is more on the savory side due to the use of salt and shallots. Perfect for breakfast.

Extra bits: Scarfed it down in about two minutes.

Hot Vit Lon - Fertilized Duck Egg

Inside: Fertilized duck/quail. Basically a somewhat developed fetus, complete with feathers and soft beaks.

Verdict: Duck egg faired better with the lime/salt/pepper dipping sauce, which helped us ease into the idea of eating feathers. The quail eggs tasted like little boiled eggs, and paired well with rau rum, a Vietnamese herb.

Bap Xao - Sauteed Corn

Inside: Sticky corn, dried shrimp, fried shallots, chili, margarine

Verdict: Yum! We make this dish quite often at our Banh Mi Thursdays, but we’re not able to get our hands on sticky corn in the States, so it was a treat to eat this more toothsome maize.

Ok, this isn’t street food - but check out the huge coffee filters we scored! We’ll be ready to churn out tons of drip coffee for you when we get back!

V + K