Wow it’s been a long time. Lots to
catch up on so I’ll go one installment at a time. First off, there was the
culinary roller coaster, Top thrill Dragster to be specific. We hit a peak two
weekends ago at Tres Gourmands (thanks Mr. LeCorgne). I was all excited there
were going to be these Michelin starred restaurants here in Saigon with Vietnam
style prices, turns out Michelin hasn’t made it to Vietnam yet. Had to rely on
TripAdvisor and it sure didn’t disappoint! This was truly a next-level culinary
experience, a level neither Libby nor I had previously known existed. 7 courses
of pure heaven with 2 palate cleansers (savory truffle ice cream & key lime basil sorbet),
7 types of homemade cheeses for one of the courses. The duck liver spring roll, the fish ravioli, and the lamb lasagna were probably the highlights for me but everything was
swimming in truffle oil, the mignon filet had a morel sauce that was somehow
outdone by a different pepper sauce. If someone pointed a gun to my head and
asked for a complaint, I might say the beef wasn’t
supreme quality but we are in Southeast Asia home of the beyond
suspect beef so they get a free pass. Clocking in at 3.5 hours, that meal went
down in the record books. Like the top thrill dragster, we were at 400 plus
feet in the culinary dining sphere before plunging down to zero the next day.
Honestly I think my stomach went through gourmet food withdrawals the next day,
that or I was simply refusing to eat any food that would blemish the perfect
memory of the previous evening’s food.
The next evening we had a much
more-traditional???- Vietnamese
meal. Dog three-way. I had to do this right because I knew odds are this was going
to be one of those one and done culinary experiences. Despite Kien’s claims
that Dog meat was like Viagra, it definitely
was one of those one and done deals. Dog, first way, little cutlets that
you rolled up in lettuce and mint and dipped in fish sauce. Yeah I couldn’t
complain with Kien’s “very healthy” assertions but… yeah. Contrary to popular
belief, dog does not “taste just like chicken.” Rather it tastes gamier with some
distinct flavor that I’m not quite sure how to describe. That and my brain has
already quarantined that memory and is currently trying to dispose of it ASAP.
I think it was providence that loads of pictures of cute little puppies started
showing up on my Facebook that same night I ate them. The second way was the
only palatable serving of dog I had (the restaurant prided itself on having 10
variations of Dog), it was a Dog meatball. I hate to admit it, but it sort of
tasted like Swedish meatballs with all the onion flavor and frying but you
could never forget what you were eating because a little dog bone stuck out of
each meatball (which doubled as a convenient handhold sadly enough). The next
dish was straight DURTY- Dogribs. Dogribs are about as lean as you can imagine,
everything disgusting about dogmeat is truly exemplified in this dish. The “ribskin”
is so hard that I couldn’t even tell if it was a bone or not, that is until I looked
over the table and saw Kien just chomping on the skin. Needless to say we went
and got banana and chocolate roti (similar to crepes) after that… experience… The dog
restaurant was exactly where you would picture it, nameless district somewhere
in Saigon where you had to literally walk through a different karaoke bar and
restaurant before you came upon the much dingier place in the back… One funny
side note, Libby and I were rightfully curious as to where this dog meat come from.
Do they raise the dogs on farms specifically to slaughter or do they just go
for whatever they can get their hands on in the streets of Saigon? Much to our
dismay Kien said they did both… Apparently after further inquiries Saigon in
years past has had big problems of “dognapping.” I’ll leave you with that.
Kien on the left and our buddy Nam on the right
Cute little dog statue?
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