Noir: Dining in the Dark, Ho Chi Minh City

Noir - Dining in the Dark

More than 6 months ago, we were asked if we (as in Hub and The Teenager) would like to take part in a friendly golf tournament in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) to be held just before the New Year. That was a couple of months after our trip to Hanoi (during CNY), so we were obviously quite destined for Vietnam in 2014. 

My only problem with visiting Vietnam is the cost of the visas. I do not need one with my Singapore passport, but it's 440 rmb for a single entry for the Hub and the kids. Considering that each trip there lasted between 4 and 8 days, I found paying for 2 rounds of visas in the same year a little painful.  

Anyway, we booked 2 rooms at the 5-star Sofitel Saigon Plaza with its famous rooftop pool and once again, it wasn't really my idea as I usually prefer boutique hotels. But the organiser of the above-mentioned golf tournament pre-paid for his rooms and informed us after, that we were expected to do the same so that we could all be together. In other words, I didn't really have a choice.

Fortunately, apart from 3 first nights of lights that refused to be switched off (my mother would tell you the room was haunted), the hotel was comfortable and well-situated, so I had no reason to complain about it. Plus, I found out that Vietnam had an interesting rule about prostitution in such hotels: a member of our group (a divorcee) came back one evening with a Vietnamese girl of questionable reputation and was discovered by the hotel manager himself who informed him that he would only be allowed to bring her in if she happened to be a guest of the hotel (which would involve paying for another room on the spot in her name). Guy, I heard, is like a sailor with certain habits at every port of call; needless to say, with all his ECAs he ended up last in the golf tournament.

Once again, I digress. I was out to blog about a restaurant we dined in in HCMC (among many others, but that will have to wait) named Noir - Dining in the Dark. We like to go local at different levels when we travel and while I could possibly eat Pho Bo Tai every day, I was also keen to try something new and dining in the dark was something I had yet to try at that time. It's not at all unique to Vietnam, but I had not been to one anywhere before.

I had expected the kids to reject the idea when I first suggested it; they were reticent, but were at the same time curious enough to want to give it a try. Our greatest problem probably is the fact that we are very picky eaters and you do not know what you are going to eat when you dine at Noir. Then, out of politeness, I asked our group of friends if they would like to join us and they all said pourquoi pas?

We arrived in a renovated old house with pretty floor tiles one evening at 8pm. With those French people's habit of having aperitif before dinner, we had to dine late every evening when we were in HCMC, not to forget eat and drink way too much. I would have preferred to eat at 7pm latest, but once again I wasn't asked my opinion.

One of the owners G coming out of the bar

We were a group of 10. You were served cocktails (not very tasty) and asked to choose between a western and asian menu (with no idea what's going to be in it exactly). Then you had to blindfold yourself and attempt a simple game where you return to your childhood and have to match wooden objects according to their shapes and place them on a tray (see picture of the group next to us doing just that). During the meal, the food would be served in 5 containers set on a tray, this being a foretaste of what you would need to do once you are in the totally dark dining room.

Totally dark. It seemed that a few members of my entourage had only just realised that we were going to eat in total darkness. It wouldn't be diplomatic on my part to suggest that there was a bit of panique à bord, but one or two of them started to act really weird. He's one of those tall, commanding, very disciplined (military background), successful sort; he called one of the restaurant owners T over and asked if T could guarantee that he would not dirty his clothes during the meal...(!) 

Our neighbours playing the pre-dinner game

T was taken back, I guess, and didn't give a tactful enough answer and we could almost see a volcano about to erupt in front of us. Now friend said he didn't want to dine there because of T's bad attitude! Fortunately, friend's usually quiet wife decided for once that she would take things into her hands and just dragged him out of the restaurant. So we ended up 8 to dine.

You have to surrender all of your watches and mobile phones before the meal so that nothing that could produce light would be introduced into the dining room. Second friend, as we would discover later on, didn't surrender his watch and I would spend the whole evening being irritated by this light moving around opposite me. What's with these macho, strong, successful types and their weird reaction to being in total darkness? Are they afraid of not being in control?

The dining room was on the first floor and we were greeted at its entrance by 2 visually-impaired waiters. Our waiter was called Vinh and he spoke beautifully-accented and clear English and I couldn't help thinking that he must have very good hearing to have picked up such a crisp accent.

Vinh guided us to our side of the table and placed us in front of our chairs. The room was totally dark except for 4 red dots at four corners of the room. People tend to talk loudly in the dark for some reason so we could hear the other diners giggling or talking more loudly than usual as we tried to settle in.

It wasn't that difficult trying to take stock of one's space because the table setting was kept simple and we each had a glass, a fork and a spoon. I could feel both edges of my table so I knew it wasn't big and that if I kept feeling my way inwards from the sides I'll be able to find my cutlery etc. Personally, I felt quite liberated at the initial loss of my sight; I felt light, at one with my universe. 

When you cannot see, it's important to listen more and I wished my fellow diners could be calmer. Unfortunately, one was cold and kept screaming for the aircon to be switched off, another had a watch shining through the meal and Baby Girl played the zombie and refused to use her hands to find anything or eat anything (so I ate up her entire western dinner on top of my asian one!). The Teenager (actually since October last year he's an adult, so we will call him The Young Adult after these words) was surprisingly calm and compliant, eating his dinner quietly and joining in the talk with a few jokes here and there, while Baby Boy talked too loudly, but managed to try a bit of the food in front of him after Vinh assured him that it wasn't fish. Hub started to criticise the food, do you think it's gourmet? Don't you think it's too cold? Sight is really very important in food appreciation...

Sight is indeed very important in food appreciation, which is why Japanese food is very much appreciated and admired. Taste probably starts with our eyes, followed by smell (which somehow wasn't pronounced during the meal), by the actual tasting and in this case, if I may say so, by touch; because I stopped trying to use my cutlery, preferring to feel my food before I ate it and I found that it worked quite well.

One fear I had though was the possibility of everyone around me crashing their glasses and spilling their drinks on me. I had no idea why they were always loudly trying to find their glasses when the glass wasn't normally going to move elsewhere if you've put it back on your right above the cutlery. My lemongrass soda was delicious, by the way.

The reception hall

At the end of our dinner, Vinh guided us out of the dining room, warning us to keep our eyes on the ground so as not to be disoriented when we see light again. I must say that at this point, I was happy to leave the darkness as it was starting to be very tiring keeping the eyes open in the dark, in fact, it would be advisable to shut them from time to time in order to rest them.

I was also feeling sad, thinking that while we would be able to welcome light into our lives again, Vinh and his colleagues would remain in the dark.

As I had suspected, our chairs were acrylic (Philippe Starck to be exact) and our tables square and not very big. The 8 of us were sitting in 2 rows of 4 facing each other. G showed us what our meal looked like on an iPad, and we probably only guessed half of what we ate right. Everyone agreed that it was an experience to try at least once in our lives, though probably not too often as we do prefer to be able to see what we are eating. Finally, I wouldn't advise eating in the dark for a large group. With no other distractions around, it's a good opportunity to go all philosophical on your partner or kids, or at least become a better listener than usual. It was trying trying to get everyone to speak in turns or figuring out who said what from where etc.

Mekong Delta, Vietnam

Floating Food Stall

The Mekong Delta is a region in Southwestern Vietnam and as its name suggests is where the Mekong River approaches and empties into the sea through a network of tributaries. It is a very fertile region (e.g. rice fields, shrimp and fish farms...) that allows communities to work and live in it and is not to be missed when one is in Ho Chi Minh City. Some of its better-known towns include My Tho, Cai Be, Can Tho and Vinh Long. One could also enter Cambodia from the region and in fact many Khmer people historically live in the Delta.

We visited the Mekong Delta with Sinh Café. The coach left De Tham street at 8am with a guide whose English could barely be understood and a load of tourists from France, Spain, Malaysia, Singapore...and also Vietnam itself. And these Vietnamese would be the friendliest and most generous of us all on board, often buying fruit to share with everyone. Actually, I probably would buy something too if I could speak Vietnamese, had researched into the prices of pomelos and dragonfruit and were not afraid of being kotok (cheated).

Housing and shops in the Mekong Delta

The coach was airconditioned and quite comfortable. I slept all the way to the Cai Be floating market. Woke up to board a boat (took a pill to avoid being seasick) and prayed all the time I wouldn't fall into the water as it looked really dirty. Those people did everything in the water : wash their clothes and dishes, pee and poo, and even bathe in it. At the same time, they also throw their plastic bags and rubbish in it - even if most of the time the stuff won't even float away but will stay near the bank.

Making rice paper

Making rice puffs - with the silt from the Mekong River

One good reason to spend at least a night in the region is so that one would be able to visit the bigger floating market the next morning. Otherwise by the time one arrives from HCMC any floating market would be almost over and there wouldn't be much to see. We visited factories where they made rice paper, coconut candy, banana biscuits, rice puffs etc. Then we had lunch in a simple restaurant (with clean toilets - very crucial) in an ecological farm that you reach by boat, eating soup and rice with grilled pork, or at least I thought it tasted like pork. It was followed by 2 ladies singing a few sad-sounding Vietnamese songs to music pulled by 2 Vietnamese men on traditional instruments.

Vinh Long market

We had 30 minutes to explore a land market in Vinh Long which seemed very long in the heat and pollution. Throughout this trip we would be given a little time to explore other similar markets (all looked and smelled the same after a while) and we would all be waiting desperately to return to the coach. The fruits and vegetables in these markets looked really fresh and wonderful - but nobody could buy them since they were bulky besides I'm not sure one is allowed to import such things into another country.

Baguette

Our hotel Hoa Phuong (2*) in Can Tho was a basic no-lift 4-storey building. But the rooms were clean and had ensuite bathrooms and airconditioning. And a hot buffet breakfast in the morning.

Finding dinner was difficult though as we couldn't eat in the streets and couldn't find a restaurant either - at the beginning. After walking around for a few hours, we finally found a few beer gardens that also served food to a mainly local clientele. The food looked quite good, though we ordered the wrong things (language barrier) and ended up leaving most of the food uneaten. This reinforced Hub's desire to only eat Pho in the same restaurant a few days in a row when we returned to HCMC.

No matter where we went, the scooters and their honking followed us. No matter where we went, crossing the road was a hazard.

Sacks of pumpkins, potatoes, sweet potatoes...

The next day, we were brought to visit the Cai Rang floating market in 2 motorised sampans. It was interesting seeing them work and live in their boats, including sending smses with no evident fear of dropping the phone in the water. We also visited a rice factory/husking mill, Vietnam being one of the most important rice exporters in the world. Then we visited an orchard and got to taste some fruit as well. It was a pity that our guide didn't bother to make much commentary during the trip, which probably also explained why nobody tipped him at the end - or it could be the reason why he couldn't be bothered to make any commentary in the first place (catch 22 situation). Our half-day HCMC guide on the other hand was very good and this guy was of course tipped quite heavily at the end of the excursion.

Mekong Rest Stop in My Tho - expensive one-stop for most Vietnamese souvenirs and imitation branded bags

We had enjoyed our excursion to the Mekong Delta though I suspect that it wasn't as colourful or busy as the floating markets in Thailand (from pictures I've seen). In any case, Vietnam is a really long and beautiful country which would merit another trip in the near future.

Saigon, Vietnam

Snack vendor by the road

I caught the Miss Saigon musical in London nearly 2 decades ago and have nurtured a certain fascination for Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City. Then I met Hub who was among the 1st tourists to visit the city when Vietnam opened up to the outside world in the early 1990s. Finally, One Wheel bought me an ao dai from his trip to Hanoi a few years ago and of course I had to grow too fat for it since. I needed to go there for another one.

I didn't need a visa for Vietnam but the Hub yes. It was honestly a waste to just go there for 4 days, but he didn't have the heart to leave the kids (whom he had not seen for a month before that) for longer than that. Plus my mom's blood pressure probably would suffer from our prolonged absence, so we made the most of it with a 2-night stay in Ho Chi Minh and a 2D1N trip to the Mekong Delta in-between. On our last day, we also managed to squeeze in a half-day excursion within the city.

Scooter paradise (and if you need air for the tyres, they sell it on the pavements)

I was picturing rickshaws for some reason and got the shock of my life to find hundreds of scooters (some with up to a family of 5 on each scooter!) in the streets when I arrived. God they honk for no rhyme or reason all day long and could be found in every nook and corner. There are often no traffic lights for pedestrians and when there was any most of them wouldn't respect it anyway. Crossing the road was like playing Russian roulette - you just keep praying that it wouldn't be this time that you would get knocked down. And the pollution (both noise and air)...I was getting a headache within hours of my arrival.

The airport however looked newly built and was more interesting than the one at Bologna, for example. We stayed at the Metropole Saigon in District 1 and it was probably the only mid-price hotel with a swimming pool in the city. We paid for a deluxe room with airport transfers (I'm past the age of bargaining for a taxi) and had the pleasure of being upgraded each time we checked in (1st Senior Deluxe and then Suite). The rooms were clean and comfortable and came with a hot buffet breakfast which was quite good.

View of pool and streets from our room in Metropole Saigon

The pool was small but deep and tend to run out of clean towels, but it was a luxury to be able to take a dip especially in the evening (you'll need it). There was a gym next to it and a bar manned by slim and sexy Vietnamese beauties. Hub said that when he was in Vietnam 20 years ago, single men travelling on their own usually got prostitutes literally knocking on their doors when they arrived in their rooms.

We could walk to De Tham street where most of the backpacker hotels and travel agencies are. We booked our tours with the famous Sinh Café and they were really cheap making our nice hotel look too expensive all of a sudden. You do not really need alot of Vietnamese Dongs in Saigon if you do not eat too much in the streets or in cheap restaurants. The travel agency had a change bureau (they could even return your change in USD if you paid them in USD) and we withdrew a one-shot amount from the ATM machine located in our hotel lobby with our credit card - and used these Dongs to pay for our meals and small purchases.

Fruit stall in Ben Thanh Market

From our hotel we could also walk to the famous Ben Thanh market popular with tourists seeking local handicrafts, textiles, souvenirs and local cuisine. At 6 in the evening, the market closes its doors and the streets outside transform themselves into a night food market with many stalls selling grilled seafood. We chose to be taken in by this chain of Pho restaurants (Pho 2000) calling itself the "President's Pho" with photos of a visiting Bill Clinton hanging all over on its walls. I've eaten better Pho but we were really happy to have the soup plus the Cha Gio (fried spring rolls) and even returned a few times to try the rest of the limited menu (e.g. curry with baguette, seafood soup...). Guess we didn't have the courage to try street food and didn't feel like eating in chic restaurants either and just wanted to play safe and eat in a decent place filled with both locals and tourists.

Beef Pho in Pho 2000

Cha Gio Bun

Hub said that when he was last here, he really thought that the country would be developing very rapidly and was therefore surprised to see that except for more scooters and cars on the roads, things didn't seem too different from 20 years ago. But it mustn't be true since we did see huge new housing and retail developments in parts of Saigon a little further out when we were on my way to the Mekong Delta. I suspect that the country would be changing very quickly from now on. Singapore, according to our Vietnamese tour guide, is currently Vietnam's Number 1 foreign investor. But for the moment, one thing is sure, like in most developing countries, the women are the ones hard at work, the men usually hang around some form of transportation waiting for clients.

Lovely façade in Saigon

Heavenly Mother Temple, Saigon

During our half-day Saigon excursion, we visited a few temples, the wholesale market with its stalls selling sharksfin, birdnest etc in Chinatown (Cholon), drove past majestic colonial-style buildings and toured a crafts-making factory employing mainly Vietnamese suffering handicap related to gas poisoning that dates back to the Vietnam war. We didn't plan to buy anything but after seeing them painstakingly sticking tiny bits of egg shell to make vases or scrubbing wood till it shined (lacquering), we ended up spending nearly 100 USD on 2 objects.

Making lacquerware

If Hub weren't around I probably would have shopped, but as it was, not much hope of doing so. Every time you touched something he would ask if I really needed it. I may not need it indeed, but I may need to buy it. Why couldn't he understand the difference? Only managed to grab a little ao dai for Baby Girl and have one tailor-made for me but it was such a rush job it wasn't properly done.

Eating out in Saigon

It was an interesting first visit to the country for me, though I suspect that I didn't look at things with as great a fascination as Hub did - because while most Europeans have probably never known similar poverty, most Singaporeans my age could possibly still remember what it was like using dirty toilets and eating in the streets about 25 to 30 years ago. As such, it was like a bad memory for me and I didn't find it so funny seeing that they are still living like us a few decades ago.

At the airport in Ho Chi Minh, we had dinner at...Prima Taste. 8USD Ba Kut Teh and Fried Sambal Kangkong and 3USD cans of Yeo's soy bean milk. That was expensive but I was really quite happy not to have to eat another Pho. But I'll be back in Vietnam. I was told that the centre and northern parts of the country are lovely and very different from one another. And I still need at least another ao dai.