HOT HOT HOT. The weather is really hot here. I’ll become a human jerky if I stay here any longer.
There’s only one thing left to do at Hanoi– eat snake.
We will be leaving to Laos once this mission is done.
And today, is mission day.
First thing when we wake up today, we say to each other, “let’s do this”.
We are going for snake meat during lunch time, instead of breakfast time.
Food hunt begins
We found one of the must eat food in Hanoi, featured in CNNgo.com, which is only behind our street.
/gasp! so near wan!?
Judging the walking distance, it will take us no longer than 3 minutes to reach the place.. but we get lost again, so it took us more than 10+ minutes ^^;
Look ma! The chef sit on a chair and cook one… next time I buy a chair for you in kitchen ok?
One bowl for 55,000 VND (~RM8). Simple yet delicious!
I’ll tell you where it is located next time you come Hanoi.
Dessert time!
I was having sweet tooth after our breakfast, so we scouted around for desserts.
It didn’t took long before we found a stall that serves colourful items on table. This is going to be yummy!
Syrup heaven. Everything is sugar sugar sugar… exactly what we are craving for.
Having no single idea how it was served, we use our universal sign “peace sign” again… despite there’s many types of drinks offered on menu.
Both party come into mutual understanding after we ordered, and just nod head.
Damn I love this.
2 Hours After Breakfast
On our way back from lunch, we saw another food stall that we wanted to try. “let’s do that for lunch, and do snake for dinner!”. Both agreed.
Our breakfast haven’t turn brown yet (turn into shit, literally), we are already sitting at another restaurant ^^;
That’s how to travel and eat, with style, bebeh!
We used our ultimate posture – PEACE SIGN shop owner. Both parties nod head (again). What an awesome universal language.
When the food were served… our table is filled with so many bowls and different types of food.
WHOA you serving us buffet meh?! why give us so many?
“Dude, how are we supposed to eat these food?”
We looked at another table, curi curi learn how they eat the food.
Hmm looks like this is the standard serving size here too! For each person, we get
- One HUGE bowl of glass noodle
- One bowl of pork soup (deep fried pork)
- One bowl of sweet and sour vegetable soup
- Fried springroll
- One plate of vegetable enough to feed my family for one month
Total 90,000VND per person (USD$4.50)
Due to the huge portion of this meal, we decided to head back hotel to rest.. and do the snake at evening.
The snake restaurant is located 13km away from city so we took cab. It was situated in a dark and narrow valley… sort of creepy but our excitement is kicking in – or rather adrenaline.
Walking into the snake restaurant, we are immediately offered what types of snake we’d like to have.
- Cobra snake for USD$60.00
- Bamboo snake for USD$40.00
We read in reviews that bamboo snake taste better, cobra has rubbery and chewy meat.
Before the snake was slaughtered, I was offered to hold the snake for photo – YUCKS. Like my dad told me, “don’t play with your food”.
Killing snake – live show
3 things were immediately extracted:
- Snake blood
- Heart (still beating)
- Gall bladder, mixed with vodka
The rest of the snake is cooked into 10 different meals.
If you’re wondering – you will need to eat the snake’s heart… raw, while it’s still beating. Then drink it down with snake blood. Click here to see photo.
My balls shrank to rambutan size when I’m attempting to eat the snake’s beating heart.. but it returned to original coconut size after I swallowed it.
Where’s my snake?
Snake meat fried with Chinese mix spices.
Snake meat rolled in Lot leaves and deep fried.
Snake popiah! (spring rolls)
This is both our favourites:
Shannon’s favourite is snake skin, it tasted like rice crackers but a bit harder to chew.
I love the meat balls because it didn’t taste like snake at all. It was mixed with lots of spices so I ate most of them.
I didn’t know it was snake’s testical. I just ate snake’s ball, booyah!
Snake fried rib on rice crackers.
Fried rice with snake’s fats. (eh, snake which part got fats ah?)
Remaining of the snake goes into snake stew with Chinese herbs. Taste like chicken soup.
How does snake meat tastes like?
I’d say in between pork and beef, albeit a bit chewy.
I certainly do not like the taste of the snake (like somebody hate lamb), so Shannon gao-dim most of the meal.
The best dish of the meal is desserts: fresh watermelon.
When we leave, there are still so many left over on the table. Not really fond of the taste – but hey everything is about experience, right?
Sharing the experience with travel mates
We returned around 10pm and we decided to have some light drinks (RM1.50 beer woh, where to find), met Leow and Belle, where we meet both of them on different occasion. We shared our travel experience and certainly the snake’s experience.
“Hey I still feel the snake’s heart beating in my stomach now”. Leow almost fainted. Hahaha.
Meet Belle
Belle is from Australia and she studied Chinese Acupuncture. Met her at Ha Long bay (credit: Shannon). Been traveling alone for past one month, and she still has 2 more months to go before starting her job on a cruise ship.
Brave young lady travel alone to explore the world!
Continue drinking and partying
After beer session, we two big guys walk both Leow and Belle back to their hotel respectively (restaurant close at midnight), then accidentally found a Latino pub just beside their hotel so we continued party until 3am, lol.
I met 4 more new friends in the pub, and one of them works in the same field as me (internet marketing) so I spend whole night talk business with him. Gotta catch up with him at Bangkok next week. Found more partners for my website SabahGuide.com, yeah!
I also danced salsa at dance floor… ahh, the magic of beer. Who would’ve thought Bing can dance?!
Knowing that I have no chance to leave my “mark” with any Vietnamese woman, I decided to leave my “mark” on a pot of flower instead.
Leave my mark at Vietnam: Mission Complete
Supper!
After sending Belle back (for real this time), we decided to hunt down for supper.
Drunk and happy, we asked passersby where to get good food in the middle of the night.
Never thought we’ll find one – but we really did!
I ordered a chicken soup noodle. I didn’t have much appetite… because I just dropped my iPad on floor and it shattered T_T
That’s blog topic for tomorrow!
Where am I now
Hanoi, Vietnam
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