Taipei - Revisits to Jin Feng and Golden Delight

It wouldn't be a visit to Taipei without some lu rou fan, so we paid a re-visit to Jin Feng Braised Pork Rice.

It was even busier than it had been five years previously, but the line moved quickly.

And the lu rou fan is still delicious and reasonably priced.

One evening after a walk through Linjiang night market that was fun but didn't result in dinner, we stopped in at a place we'd had pork rib soup before. It was still exactly the same. Nothing super special, but satisfying.

Hanoi - Cháo Dậu Cà Bà-O

Near our hotel there was a stall set up on the street during morning and afternoon that was always busy.

They had two large pots full of some kind of porridge - one yellow and one reddish brown. Looking it up, it turns out to be a very traditional dish we'd never heard of before - cháo đậu. It is a rice porridge - the red version is made with red beans and the yellow one is mung bean.

We got a bowl of the yellow version. The base is fairly bland, but they added in a salted egg and some braised tofu. The egg in particular is very salty, so when you break it up and mix it together, you get a nicely seasoned dish. Not something I'd go out of my way to have again, but it was fun to try.

Saigon - Cơm Tấm

Cơm tấm (which translates as "broken rice") may well be the quintessential dish in Saigon. Elegant in its simplicity, it is rice made from broken grains served with grilled meat (usually pork or chicken), varied extras, and nước chấm.

On our first full day in Saigon, we were out looking for dinner. A couple of options I'd researched fell through, and we were left wandering the streets getting hungry. And then we came upon this little cart by the side of the road.

It turned out to be the perfect way to experience cơm tấm for the first time. The lady running the cart was very nice, and another lady who spoke a bit of English helped us through the ordering process.

We got two plates - both with sườn nướng (grilled pork chop - probably the most common item), and one with the addition of some chả (pork loaf).

It was perfect.

Mid-day is a more typical time to get cơm tấm, and one day we went out walking to find a spot called Quán Cơm Tấm Hùng.

We got one plate with pork chop and egg, and one with pork ribs and chả.

Delicous. The best food in Vietnam is always down an alley.

Saigon - Bánh Mì Hồng Hoa and Phố Cổ 159

No visit to Vietnam can be considered complete without having some Bánh Mì. We had a couple in Saigon.

A number of famous bánh mì spots were right near our hotel. The most famous ones seemed to be mostly renowned for how big and stuffed with meat they are (kind of a Vietnamese equivalant of the New York deli sandwich).

Not needing or wanting a huge sandwich, we stopped in at place called Hồng Hoa just outside the alley where our hotel was located.

We got two sandwiches - one thịt nướng (grilled meat) and one heo quay (roast pork).

Both sandwiches were very good.

They also had xôi, so we got an order. Sticky rice with a hint of cinnamon, topped with fried shallots and cold cuts. Delicous.

Another day we stopped for lunch at a well-rated place called Phố Cổ 159.

We got a roast pork sandwich, and a mixed meat sandwich from the lady working her cart out front of a travel agency (which she used for seating).

Both sandwiches were good, if nothing special. My guess is the place is mostly rated well for its clean, spacious seating area (something not common at bánh mì spots).

Langkawi - Restoran Selera Padang Puteh

Another place I found via google maps, but had confirmed by a local as a "good spot" (this time, a grab driver). Selera Padang Puteh is a breakfast/lunch place - we went for both.

First up, lunch. The restaurant is primarily a buffet - you take what you want, and they charge you based on what you've taken. The options were a bit overwhelming. We ended up with one plate with fish balls, braised egg, and beef rendang.

The other plate heaped with fish, two types of chicken curry, potatoes, and eggplant. They had both a regular sambal, and another with ikan bilis in it.

Everything was really good, and it was a very pleasant place to eat, so we came back another day for breakfast.

Breakfast was a similar affair, with a buffet that overlapped with the lunch offerings, but with some different items. We got a plate with some fried chicken and rice with a gravy from a few of the dishes.

They do roti in the morning, so we ordered a roti pisang - roti canai with banana cooked in it, served with condensed milk.

And a couple of half-cooked eggs.

Great local restaurant - the kind of place that would be in our regular rotation if we lived here.

Langkawi - Selera Lubuk Buaya

Toward the end of our stay in Langkawi, we finally started to find some more "local" places to eat. Selera Lubuk Buaya is a place I'd bookmarked from my google map research. We overheard a local lady giving some tourists a recommendation for a good seafood restaurant - which turned out to be this place.

It is a large, brightly lit place full of locals (and a few tourists) busily eating seafood. Langkawi seems to be a center for squid fishing, so we ordered some deep-fried. It was super good - crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. They gave us two dipping sauces. One was a standard sweet chili sauce. The other had a fresh tomato base with some fermented shrimp funk - really good.

We also got some kangkung belacan (water spinach with a fermented shrimp sauce), which was decent.

And some udang goreng halia (shrimp with fried ginger). The shrimp were very good, but the sauce didn't have much going on.

We came back another night and had some tom yam soup - very good, with a generous amount of shrimp and squid in it - and some kailan buwang putih (which we thought would be gai lan from the name, but turned out to be some sort of cabbagy vegetable.

The star of the show here for us, though, was the fried squid, which we got again. Even better this time.

Langkawi - Jomakan

Dinner is usually our hardest meal to sort out when we travel. This was definitely the case in Langkawi, so we were happy to stumble across Jomakan restaurant.

We actually found it because it shares a space with an Indian restaurant that operates earlier in the day that we had a pretty mediocre lunch at. We ate here for dinner twice. The first time we got a combination set that had a tom yum soup, a seafood stir fry, an "omelette", and some veg. The standout here was the soup - a different style than we're used to with a thicker broth. Very spicy and flavorful.

We came back another night and got a fried rice and some deep fried squid.

We also got a beef dish.

Can't remember what it was called, but it was good over rice.

All of the food here was good, and the staff was very friendly. There was one guy working the wok, which slowed things down when they got busy, but he steadily turned out tasty dish after tasty dish.

George Town - Nasi Lemak at McDonald's

Every once in a while, it's fun to stop into a familiar fast food joint overseas and see what different items they might have. Finding ourselves a bit hungry at the Penang airport with time to kill and limited options, we checked out the local McDonald's.

We ordered nasi lemak, which turned out to actually be pretty good. The chicken was moist, and deliciously seasoned. The rice was also good, and it came with the requisite egg, cucumber and ikan bilis. Not too shabby at all.

George Town - Hameediyah Restaurant

It had been a while since we'd had nasi kandar, so we had dinner one night at Hameediyah Restaurant - supposedly Penang's oldest nasi kandar spot.

They are obviously popular, as they have expanded into another storefront a few doors down. You order at one place, and then sit at the other.

We got one place with beef rendang, and another with grilled chicken and an omelette with okra and some other veggies in it.

Nothing revelatory, but a very tasty dinner.

George Town - Sister Yao's Char Koay Kak

Char Koay Kak - stir-fried rice cake - was a dish that we'd been wanting to try. It turned out that one of the more famous sellers was on the same street as our hotel. We went by her spot a few times, but she only sells on certain days. Finally, she was there.

We each got an order, one with extra egg, and enjoyed it at a table in the restaurant she was operating in front of (they were serving up some pretty good looking char koay teow - a similar dish, but with rice noodles instead of rice cake).

Smoky and savory, with both crispy and soft textures. A great way to start the day.