Rice Noodle Dumpling

I don’t even want to call it a market cause honestly, Vietnam is one big amazing market.

There’s this one in particular that sells everything from food to fresh seafood, meat, dried goods, clothing, shoes, and a plethora of many items for the household or the office or pretty much anything you can think of and you can purchase things either wholesale or retail. It’s the Ben Thant Market and you’ve got to have some amazing bargaining skills to do well here.

Their food area.

Yummy snails, many kinds.

Some really good offal congee.

This awesome rice noodle salad is with shrimp dumplings in clear wrappers and mung bean dumplings. There’s a little army making them.

And it just looks like a mess but tastes awesome. Fresh dumplings and herbs.

And these clear shrimp dumplings look like little aliens.

Then you’ve got some of the typical market items like spices

Vegetables

Across from the veg was some awesome seafood and really awesome fish mongers

Now these meat butchers have some really amazing displays and awesome meat cleaver skills

Some brain?

No? Not your cup of tea? How about some intestines? Or liver?

You don’t like offal you say? How about some feet?

Are you a vegetarian now? Did you want some noodles? Cause they dry them in the sun. And that’s how they make bread crumbs as well.

Then they’re stacked up all nice nice to sell.

Maybe you’re not hungry anymore, so you walk into the center and walk upon this crazy jam packed market filled with so much stuff, you kinda go crazy.

I gotta shoe guy.

I also happen to love that outside of the market center, all the streets around are just an extension of the market. So you have blocks of veggie stalls, grains, noodles, etc. etc.

Flowers are sold from little old ladies on bicycles.

There are just so many things to look at. Sensory overload.

Rice is the ultimate asian grain and this place, Xoi Yen has the best bowl of Xoi Xeo by far! What is Xoi Xeo you ask? Well, it’s a mixture of yellow sticky rice with mung bean shavings and fried shallots topped with some sort of meat. What are mung bean shavings you ask? Well, it’s a giant yellow ball made of mashed up mung bean paste, which they take and shave like a block of cheese over your rice. Oh the joy!

They serve the dish with a side of spicy pickled cucumbers, perfect.

Then we’ve got rice noodles, dry with a sauce, crispy spring roll and meat. You take a little bit of the rice noodle, put it in the sauce so to soften them, take some fresh herbs and add it to the bowl. You can wrap a piece of the spring roll in a lettuce leaf and dip it in the sauce. You can just eat the noodles with the sauce cause it’s that good.

Square springs rolls that come with the dry noodles.

Then you’ve got rice noodle dumplings. Comes from Chinese cooking but it’s basically one sheet of noodle rolled up with meat inside and topped with fresh cilantro, fried shallots, nuts and you have a sauce. All amazingly delicious.

Another version of the dried noodled dish is to have it with grilled meat and over veggies, so it’s like a noodle meat salad with sauce. You can walk down so many allies and find them filled with “bun”.

And of course there’s pho, rice noodle soup. This time I had the beef variety and this woman and her meat, my goodness is it tasty tasty.

All this rice, you need a beverage.

And maybe a view.

And the Market

Rice