Hanging out in Hoi An

If you're looking for authentic Vietnamese culture, don't come to Hoi An. If you're looking for a laid back, quaint, touristy walking-town, then Hoi-An is the city for you. Tourists of all sorts, even Vietnamese, seemed to enjoy Hoi An's shops, walks along the river and restaurants. However, the prices in this town came to a complete shock to us. We had grown accustomed to $2 meals and suddenly the prices had doubled or even tripled.

Eli and Dave decided to spend the day apart - Eli to cooking classes, and Dave to historic sites. Eli took a class at Morning Glory, one of Vietnamese chef Ms. Vy's (quite the incredible entrepreneur) 4 Hoi An restaurants. It was a packed class, with probably 25 students. The room was set up so that we could watch the demo and then prepare the same dish. If only we could do that at Whole Foods in St Louis! There were probably 10 staff members in the room clearing dishes, assisting with cooking, and passing out salads, etc. While the class was excellent, Ms. Vy also kept many secrets to herself, such as the dipping sauces. One great tip learned was how to make rice crackers from sesame rice paper. It's on the to-do list for when we get home.

Dave visited the 5 big city sites and enjoyed his day.  Here's the most famous, the Japanese-covered bridge:

After a nice dip in the pool, Eli went to another cooking class, to learn even more Vietnamese dishes. Dave joined her to eat her dishes for their dinner. Some hits, some misses. Too much fried food all around.

Eating and Breathing Bangkok

I've had quite the week: 

• Day 1: Tour with Bangkok Food Tours
• 3 hour walking tour with 5 tastings. This was an excellent way to start my food exploration of Thailand, and a nice way to meet other travellers. I had the most delicious papaya salad (sans shrimp). That's a pork salad in the background. I heard it was tasty. This company was highly recommend in the NY Times and I understand why - they are very organized and really take you to local spots - not tourist destinations. We also took a boat across the river, from the dock near the Mandarin Oriental, so it was nice to see another part of the city.

•  Next I walked around Khao San Road and affirmed why I'm so glad we're not staying in this part of town! Yuck. 
  

•  Day 2: May Kaidee Cooking School
  
• This is the famous vegetarian restaurant and cooking school - May was our teacher for the day and is quite a riot. It's as much a show as a class. It was a huge class - about 15 people. I got there early to help prep, as otherwise they prep everything for you! No chopping required. I wish I too had 5 assistants in my cooking classes! We made 12 recipes, which was almost too much. 
• Some good veggie substitutions to note: 
• Instead of using fish sauce, which is quite prevalent in SE Asian food (made from fermented anchovies, not shellfish), they use a mixture of dark and light soy sauce. 
• They also use miso paste in their curry pastes instead of shrimp paste.
• Tomatoes are used to give red color instead of shrimp oil.

• I'm glad I took this class, as it was a lot of fun, but not the most focused on technique. I'm going to take a private class with May (same price as the group class!) to get more of her veggie secrets! Check out her outfit! She wears a different one (equally beautiful) every day.
• Day 3: Bangkok Thai Cooking Academy
• Another cooking school - vastly different than May Kaidee. I forgot to mention that May dances at the end of class for all of us - complete with headdress! At this school, you remove your shoes before entering, and it's a much calmer environment, with 7-8 students total. 
• There were 6 students in our class - mostly foreigners living in Bangkok. I was the only American and the only vegetarian. We made a delicious green mango salad, a steamed shrimp (tofu for me) with lime sauce, fried chicken (tofu) with tamarind sauce (yum!) and sweet corn in tapioca (ehh). They use corn in sweet desserts, and I'm not totally sold. Give me sticky rice with mango any day! 





 It's amazing taking classes here - there are about 3 assistants per school - they clear dishes, set up everything at the stations and bring out ingredients. At some schools they even chop everything. It's a different way to live, for sure. At first I didn't like it, but I'm appreciative of the calm it brings to a cooking class, especially to have that calm when Bangkok itself is so insane. 


My dishes for the day (minus dessert): 



 Day 4: Ma-San-Man Bangkok Thai Cooking School 

• Right next door to May Kaidee, I thought I'd try out a different approach. This was an excellent school as well! We prepared 8 or 9 dishes, and actually cooked and prepped most of the items ourselves. The teacher was excellent, very knowledgeable and obviously an excellent chef. They were also happy to make veggie options - using mostly mushrooms instead of meat. I brought home many leftovers to David, who was quite happy to eat my work. 
• Here I am preparing Tom Yum soup (the secret is the Tom Yum paste! - don't worry, I'll share once I've found my favorite recipe!) 

• And here's my version of Panang Curry - using a red curry and Thai basil.

• In the past two classes I discovered a new love - coconut sugar. It's like maple sugar, but $1 per pound, not $30 per pound. I could make a great business exporting this to my culinary school! It has the consistency of fudge, with a light, not-too-sweet flavor and it gives incredible depth to recipes. I'd choose it any day over brown sugar. 
• I couldn't get a cab going home - for some reason two cabs rejected me based on my destination (near ths hospital...?) so I walked and walked and then a nice Thai lady told me in English which bus to take. She saved me at just the right moment. Otherwise I would have probably walked for 3 hours to get home. 

 David should be off early today and we're hoping to explore Chinatown before going to Chabad on Sukhumvit Rd for Shabbat (the synagogue is named Beth Elisheva - how lovely!). We've heard this is the expat/business chabad, and much calmer than the Israeli/backpacker on on Khao San Rd. 

David will blog soon about the "breathing" part of this post! Then the title will make far more sense. 

I'll share some recipes in my next post! 

-Eli