Tag Archives: breakfast

Good Morning, Vietnam

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After the flight delay at the Siem Reap International Airport, we finally left on our flight to Hanoi, Vietnam. We arrived in Hanoi more than two hours after the scheduled arrival time. It was pretty late in the evening by then, so it did not take long for us to get through immigration and wait for our luggage. I had requested a pickup service through the hotel where we’re staying in the Old Quarter part of Hanoi. I was a little worried that because our flight was delayed we would miss the pickup. However, thankfully the driver actually patiently waited for us, and we were able to locate him when we exited the airport.

The drive from the Hanoi Noi Bai Airport to the Old Quarter took about twenty minutes or so. Hanoi seemed quite more modern than Phnom Penh, but not as developed as Bangkok. When we got closer to the Old Quarter we saw what we read in the guidebooks: narrow streets and very dense areas. It was weekend evening, so there were still quite a lot of activities out on the street.

When we arrived at our hotel, the Hanoi Serenity Hotel, we were welcomed by the young lady at the front desk that doubled up as the concierge and also a tour business. She gave us our room assignment, and it was on the fifth floor of the building. There was no elevator to go up, so she had one of the hotel staff members helped us with our luggage to go to our room. Originally we were planning on at least getting a dinner at a restaurant in Hanoi for that night. But it was close to 11 pm by the time we settled in our room, and since we’re not even familiar with the area near the hotel and we had a long day following, we decided to just call it a night.

In the morning, we got up pretty early, and we went down to the ground floor to a breakfast area at the back of the hotel. There they had complimentary breakfast made fresh to order. We looked at the menu, and I ordered scrambled eggs and bacon. The breakfast items were pretty much like what I expected, though it was served with a baguette. Similar to Cambodia, some of the French colony influences remained in the culture, including the use of baguette for sandwiches or as part of a meal. The baguette in Vietnam seemed to be lighter and more airy than the French baguette I had elsewhere.

Along with the meal, we could also make our own coffee serving. This became the favorite way to start the day for Kristi and me… making a nice cup of hot Vietnamese coffee mixed with condensed milk (cà phê sữa nóng). After the nice meal and coffee, we’re ready to start our day exploring Hanoi. Technically we were checking out from our room that morning as we would be going to Sapa that night, but the lady at the hotel front desk was nice enough to allow us to leave our luggages in our room, and she said they would bring those down to the ground floor and store them for us while we went out and about in the city, and we could just pick up the luggages before we leave in the evening.

Here was the nice breakfast I had that morning, the scrambled eggs, bacon, and baguette.

Breakfast

Breakfast with the Crew

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When traveling with a chartered tour group, typically there might be a tour guide and support crew (e.g. driver) who would take the group from place to place. But when it comes time to a meal time during the tour, when the group goes to a restaurant or a particular place to eat, the crew would either be the ones serving the food, or else they would leave the guests eating at the restaurant while they would go separately or wait elsewhere. I noticed that during our first couple of days in Siem Reap; our tour guide Vanna and driver Hour would take us to a restaurant, and then would leave us there to enjoy our meal and meet us outside the restaurant once we’re done.

On our last day in Siem Reap, after we spent the early morning at Angkor Wat experiencing the first sunrise of the year, it was time for us to head back to the hotel to pack up and later on continue with our tour for the day. However, since it’s a private tour and we got to call the shot on the itinerary for the day, I asked Vanna and Hour if we could go to a good place where local folks would go for breakfast, and I told them that Kristi and I would like to have them join us for the meal — our treat. The only ‘requirement’ was that the place we would go to has to be one that both of them would go themselves if they were to go out on their own.

Vanna suggested a restaurant in downtown Siem Reap that was popular with the locals. The price was not cheap for them, but it’s still reasonable enough that he said he would go there once every few weeks or so when he would like to eat out. So we went to a restaurant called Kids Plaza — named that way because it had indoor playground for the kids. Vanna said it’s one of his favorite restaurants in the city, especially good for breakfast.

We had really good breakfast there. Good food (noodle soups, rice porridge, fresh juice) and also good conversations. We found out that our driver Hour used to be a driver at the Amansara, an ultra-luxurious but low key resort in Siem Reap. The Amansara is part of the Aman Resorts, which is a small but among the highest rated hotel groups in the world. The founder of Aman Resorts, Adrian Zecha, is part Indonesian. Hour told the story how Mr. Zecha was very down to earth and friendly to his employees and guests.

The photo below was taken right before we enjoy our meal together. It was a nice experience as we got to thank them for their service taking us to places during our visit to Siem Reap. We also got to learn about their life stories; now we consider them as friends rather than simply people who serve us during our trip. I think if you can, that would be a great idea to do when visiting a place, try to make it personal by building friendship / relationship with the locals you encounter. It makes for a unique, unforgettable experience.

Breakfast with the crew

Bobor

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After viewing the sunrise at Angkor Wat, we continued our day trip in Angkor Archaeological Park near Siem Reap, Cambodia. Breakfast at the Kool Hotel’s restaurant was included in our stay there, so we could go back there for breakfast and taking some rest before continuing our day again. But since our tour is a private tour (which means we could change the itinerary if we like since we have the tour guide and driver with us already for the whole day), our tour guide Vanna suggested an alternative of getting the breakfast at one of the restaurants near Angkor Wat, and then continued our trip for the day from there. That would save some time by not going back to the hotel first. We thought that was a good idea. It did mean spending extra money for the breakfast, but it also allowed us chance to get a variety in our meals there as we already had one at the hotel’s restaurant the day before.

There were several restaurants located in the area right across from the entrance gate to the Angkor Wat complex. Given their strategic location, they cater mostly to tourists and I’m sure the price was higher than what you would get at restaurants in Siem Reap. We decided to go with one that served more local flavors, traditional Khmer breakfast dishes. Particularly, I was interested in trying out the Khmer’s version of rice porridge called bobor. I read about it in the guidebooks, and it was particularly intriguing because the word bobor sounded very much like the Indonesian word for rice porridge, bubur. Vanna knew of one of the restaurants that had the dish on the menu, so that’s the one we went to.

As we walked into the restaurant, a young Cambodian boy, must be around seven to ten years old, approached us with a bag full of bootlegged guidebooks to offer to us. He said, ‘Guidebooks, sir? I have several.. on Angkor Wat… Lonely Planet…’ I looked at him and politely said ‘No, thanks’ while shaking my head. He then smiled and said, ‘If you change your mind, come and buy from me, ok? Have a good breakfast…’ I said thanks and we continued entering the restaurant.

We ordered our breakfast and then waited for the food to be prepared. There were several other groups of tourists and locals in the restaurant. They seemed to enjoy the food. When I looked outside the restaurant, I saw the bookseller boy outside hanging out with some of his friends waiting for other tourists to come. Coming from Jakarta, that wasn’t a new experience of being offered goods at the parking lot by people on the way to restaurants. But I thought it was interesting that this Cambodian kid at such a young age already learned English quite well to conduct business (and very likely that was not learnt from taking formal language classes), and the gentle and positive mannerism I think well represented the Cambodian culture as ‘the land of smiles’, and it’s a good technique for someone in sales / business. I just hoped that the boy would have a chance to go to school and get educated, and not getting stuck to working from such a young age.

Our food finally arrived. I ordered a bowl of bobor with salted fish, omelet, and pickled vegetables as toppings. Kristi ordered a rice noodle dish with seafood. My bobor came with the toppings served on a separate plate from the bowl of rice porridge. The rice porridge was a bit on the watery side; it was closer to what I had in Indonesia (bubur) than the thicker ones I had in the US (Chinese congee). And the toppings are very much similar to what we would use in homemade bubur in Indonesia, so the taste of this dish was so familiar to me.

Kristi’s rice noodle soup was somewhat similar to the ‘bun’ dish in Vietnamese cuisine. Given its location in between Thailand and Vietnam, I think that’s one of the unsurprising thing we learned about the Khmer cuisine. There are some similarities with the cuisine from the neighboring countries, but there are also some things that make it unique.

The photo below is my bowl of bobor with the toppings already added to it. Our table was very close to the entrance, and we had natural lighting from outside, which made it great to do food photography.

Bobor