Food and City Tour- Mostly Food =)

Last Thursday Helen, Jason, and I went on a motorbike food tour of the city.  The tour was provided by XO Tours and is rated the number one tour on trip advisor.  What could be better combining a motorbike experience with a food tour?  We were scheduled to be picked up by beautiful ladies (the website advertised this) at 5:20 from SEAMEO.  Around 4:30 it started to downpour- that was a bummer.  We were about to the cancel the tour but then we decided to wait it out (a lot of reviews online said that rain did not ruin the tour).  By 5:20 it was only drizzling I put on my raincoat and went and downstairs to the beautiful ladies were waiting for us.  We hopped on the back of their bikes and drove to the first food stop.  The place was in district one and was really just a food cart- the tour specializes in showing you how the Vietnamese really eat and this means street food!  At the first stop we ate a noodle soup, not pho, bun bo hue.  The noodles in this soup are round and the broth is more flavorful.  It was very good and a nice light way to start off the tour.  

After we finished eating we took a drive to visit Ho Chi Minh’s china town (district five).  We drove through a food market and stopped in front of Binh Tay Market- a large wholesale market.  Then we got back on the bikes and drove to district eight, which is known for hot pot and karaoke.  The placed we stopped to eat had stainless steel tables and children’s lawn chairs to sit in.  At this stop we had a variety of food.  First we tried goat breast, which was barbequed right in front of us.  The goat meat was very tough and chewy. Then we tried frog- not just the legs the entire frog.  The Vietnamese would usually eat the frog with the skin on but to entice tourists to try it the tour company has the restaurant bring the frog out without the skin.   The frog was very good- something I will definitely eat again.  The other dishes at this stop were normal- squid and prawn on a stick.  Everything was very delicious. 

Goat cooking on the BBQ

FROG!

From this stop we drove to district seven- one of the newer districts in Ho Chi Minh.  This district is very rich and looks nothing like the rest of the city.  Mostly ex-pats live here and it is somewhere that my tour guide aspired to live.  There were no street vendors and very few motorbikes driving through this part of the city.  No food on this stop!

Our last stop was in district four- what we were told is the ghetto of Ho Chi Minh.  The head tour guide told us that many Vietnamese will not go to this part of town because they think it is dangerous.  (We were very surprised to hear this because the first day we were here we walked through this district and it didn’t seem too dangerous, just poor.)  The restaurant we went to is known for seafood.  We ate scallops (still on the shell), crab legs, and clams.  We also had quail.  I enjoyed the quail a lot more than the goat.  The last thing we tried was by far the weirdest thing I have a ever tried to eat.  It was a 20 day old duck egg embryo- a delicacy here in Vietnam.  I took one bite and decided it wasn’t for me- too weird.  At least I tried right?  For dessert the tour company picked up two things from street vendors- coconut jelly and flan in a cup.  Both of the desserts were delicious! 

Quail

Scallops

Crab Legs

Duck Egg

My one and only bite

 The coconut jelly came in a coconut shell.  The tour guides were very funny and attentive (the basically hand fed us the entire time).  The guide told Jason that there was a live animal in the coconut and to open it but very slowly because something will jump out.  He began opening it and I guess the tour guide sold her joke really well because Jason jumped and fell back in his chair bringing the table with him.  Everything from the table fell all over the floor and we all got a really good laugh (Jason was fine).  Helen caught the entire thing on video and it is posted on facebook! 

I am very happy that we went on the tour.  It was the most expensive thing I have done so far but I think it was worth every penny.  The tour guides were funny and informative as we were driving through the city and they also provided entertainment and helped us enjoy our meals.  The one critique I have of the tour was the head tour guide/owner of the company.  He did all the explanations of the different dishes and districts that we went to.  While we were eating he kind of just stood over the table watching his employees.  He just seemed like a jerk and I got a bad feeling about him.  Other than that I had an amazing time with the opportunity to try many foods that I probably wouldn’t order by myself and I got to ride around on a motorbike for hours!  A great experience that I would recommend to anyone!