Snails

Posted on May 8, 2012 by setiawanphoto

When eating at a restaurant with very extensive menu, sometimes the difficult part is to decide what to order. There are so many choices, and only a few you can pick especially when you’re going in a small group. Such was the case when we were at Quan An Ngon restaurant in Hanoi, Vietnam. We ended up selecting several dishes, all were dishes that we don’t think we would get at other places in the next few days of our trip in Vietnam. One of the dishes was one that may be considered as a bit exotic to some people: snails.

Though snails may not be common food to eat where I live in the United States, and perhaps is known as gourmet food, in many parts of the world it is actually commonly eaten in poor communities since it’s easily harvested in the fields and it’s a very good source of protein. First time I had snails was at a French bistro in the United States, in the form of the gourmet dish (escargot cooked with garlic butter and herbs). At Quan An Ngon, we noticed the various ways snails (oc in Vietnamese) were prepared — grilled, broiled, steamed, in noodle soup, etc. — and it seems to be pretty popular there. Later I found out that it’s considered as one of the popular beer foods, appetizers that you would have while you’re having drinks with friends. The dish that we decided to get, steamed snails with lemongrass, seemed to a common preparation method as well.

Below is the photo of the dish that we ordered. It came in a claypot and accompanied by several bamboo skewers to use to get the meat out of the snail’s shell. The snail meat itself has unique texture — chewy, crunchy, a little rubbery — that might be a bit difficult for some folks to enjoy. But I thought it was quite a delicious dish, and the broth was refreshing.

Food Stands

Posted on May 6, 2012 by setiawanphoto

One unique experience found at Quan An Ngon restaurant in Hanoi, Vietnam, is the concept of having representation of street foods from various regions in one place. You can peruse the very extensive menu to order your meal, or you can walk around and look at the food stalls that were set up similar to how street vendors set up their makeshift restaurants. One thing nice for foreigners is that you can find the dish that looks interesting and delicious and order it from the menu without having to worry about the language barrier in ordering the food, and for locals, you can find good variety of dishes that could cater to everyone’s taste when you come in a large group.

You can also see how a typical street vendor sets up their stand. The set up has to be completely portable, and in many cases the vendor would come with a cart or in double-basket carriers with everything they need to operate the establishment for the day (or night). At Quan An Ngon this is obviously not the case, but they represent the set up quite well to demonstrate how that set up is done.

The photo below shows the stand for pho ga, the chicken noodle soup dish. You can see the stack of steam chickens on the right side, and other ingredients needed to make the dish on the left and front side. Imagine if your the vendor setting up the food stand and having to do the preparation, load up your double basket carrier, and carrying the whole thing on your shoulder to the location where you set up your stand.

Quan An Ngon

Posted on May 5, 2012 by setiawanphoto

Quan An Ngon is a restaurant in Hanoi, Vietnam, that serves an extensive variety of authentic Vietnamese dishes. We went there for our first lunch in Hanoi after spending the morning visiting the Ho Chi Minh Complex and the Temple of Literature. The restaurant was mentioned in many travel guides and travel/food blogs on Hanoi, so we thought it would be a safe bet to try out.

We came to the restaurant around lunch time on a Sunday, so the restaurant was quite packed. But they had a large seating area, so it didn’t take long for us to get seated (sharing a long table with other guests). The setup of the restaurant was pretty unique; the seating area was mostly outdoors, surrounded by open kitchen set up like street food vendor stalls. Even though we were given menu to order from, we could walk around and see the food getting prepared. This was nice especially if the description of the dish on the menu was not enough to convince you to order the dish.

The menu was so extensive that we had a hard time narrowing down our selection for the meal. We ordered lotus rhizome salad with shrimp & pork, steamed snail with lemongrass and ginger fish sauce, and grilled beef ngon style. They were all very delicious.

I think this was an excellent restaurant to get authentic Vietnamese food especially if you’re new to Hanoi and not comfortable going out to eat at the street food vendor yet, or if you want to find a large selection of dished in one place, or if you’re coming with a large group of people. The best place to find Vietnamese food is at the street vendors, but most of them specialize only on a particular dish, and very likely they only have limited seating. So, as an alternative, Quan An Ngon would be a good place to go. The place seems to be popular among foreign tourists and locals alike, as we observed from the tables around us.

The photo below was taken from our table right in the middle of the outdoor seating. You could see around the courtyard there were stations with open kitchens where you could look around and order dishes as if you were finding street vendors selling a very specific dish.