What is the point of swallowing the last 10 years of Hanoi food writing from U.S. magazines, visiting said city for a holiday-come-assignment, talking to the self same people you’ve read about in those U.S. magazines and spewing 2,129 words of uninspired, unoriginal, factually inaccurate, poop out the orifice of an American printing press at the other end? I dunno, but maybe the editors at The Smithsonian can tell us.

It’s worth taking a look over at Noodlepie as Graham Holliday eviscerates the latest steamy gut-pile of parachute journalism on Hanoian phở. I’m still amazed that there is a market for articles where the journalists interview just the “cultural translators” – those handy English-speaking experts who can be relied on for a pithy quote – rather than the people who cook the dish on a daily basis.

• Phở Chu The, Footscray (18)
• Miming for Bun (2)
• Banh Mi Doner Kebab (2)
• The Ribs of Sapa (4)
• Cha Cha Cha (8)

Reader Paul mentions that the ferry from Ha Tien to Phu Quoc is now running, with confirmation from Phearak. Getting between two of Indochina’s laziest beach destinations has just become all the more lazier.

The route can now be organised through Sok Lim Tours and is cheaper than the way that I got from Kep to Phu Quoc.

In other Cambodia-related news, I’ll be back there for a short trip soon, so I might just take Phnomenon out of the garage for a short spin.

• How to get from Kep to Phu Quoc in a day (10)
• At least she didn’t mention the war. (0)
• And they ask me why I go back. (4)
• Cambodian food reviewing: You’re doing it right. (2)
• Maintaining the spider rage (15)

Kid who rents out mats to slide down the White Sand Dunes in Mui Ne, Vietnam. He looks that angry because I’ve just told him that under no circumstances will I be hiring a mat.

Bringing oranges across the bridge to market in Hue

Moving coconuts to market by cyclo, Hue

Serving pho in the back streets of Hội An

• At least she didn’t mention the war. (0)
• Pimp my regional cuisine: Hoi An (3)
• Sapa Hills, Footscray (3)
• Hùng Vương, Footscray (8)
• Phở Chu The, Footscray (18)

Cycling about the Citadel in Hue, Vietnam. Home of the Nguyen dynasty and the site of the bloodiest battle of the Tet Offensive.

I was looking for a decent shot of the front of Ben Thanh market to illustrate my faux Ben Thanh market post but it doesn’t appear that I have one. My “sites of Vietnam” back catalogue looks otherwise complete.

• Defeated in Hue (0)
• At least she didn’t mention the war. (0)
• Update: How to get from Kep to Phu Quoc in a day (1)
• Leftover shots (0)
• I can’t believe it’s not Chợ Bến Thành ™ (4)

There is nothing like a high degree of architectural verisimilitude to brighten up my day, be it a Big Banana, Giant Merino or in this case, a fake Ben Thanh Market building in the middle of Melbourne. This model of Saigon’s Ben Thanh Market is so accurate that the clocks are all set to the same incorrect times that they are on the real thing.

Rather than the tourist gewgaws that pack most of the Ho Chi Minh City prototype, this one houses one of the more useful Vietnamese grocers in Melbourne, Huy Huy, reliable stockists of the herbiage for great pho (and other Vietnamese soups) such as ngo om (limnophila aromatica), sawtooth coriander (eryngium foetidum), fishwort and a range of basils.

Location: 240 Victoria St Richmond, Vic, Australia.

• F-Shed at Queen Victoria Market, Melbourne (2)
• The sultry sounds of Queen Victoria Market (3)
• Sensory Lab, Melbourne (2)
• Sapa Hills, Footscray (3)
• “It’s a minefield even for Asians” (7)

The servery out the front pumps out endless bowls of the beef-packed noodles, topped with crushed peanuts, slices of fresh carrot, paper thin wafers of papaya and a fistful of fresh bean shoots. A layer of greenery lies beneath the white bun. Despite the freshness of the vegie components, the beef shines through and dominates the dish. I don’t think that I’d be surprising anyone by saying that Hanoians love their meat front and centre of most dishes.

The eating hall has all the ambience of dark subway tunnel with patrons eating quickly enough to suggest that they know when the oncoming train will arrive. A mezzanine level seems tacked on above the fray, with a ceiling not more than four feet high. Underfoot lies a layer of banana leaves, discarded in the frenzied destruction of nem chua, small packages of cured pork.

Location: Bun Bo Nam Bo, 67 Hang Dieu St, Hanoi

See also: Stickyrice’s coverage

• Cha Cha Cha (8)
• Pimp my regional cuisine: Hoi An (3)
• At least she didn’t mention the war. (0)
• Phở Chu The, Footscray (18)
• Banh Mi Doner Kebab (2)

Their crisp white toque was almost as impressive and bewildering as their rotating elephant’s foot of miscellaneous kebab meat. I’m still unsure what Germany’s greatest man of letters has to do with it at all but it seems to serve as an appropriately Faustian warning towards those who choose to sell their soul to street side meat barbecue.

The end product was just an average kebab, pork being the rotating meat in question. None of the banh mi’s freshness or crunch but with the addition of recently pickled red cabbage and mayonnaise.

Location: Banh Mi Doner Kebab joints are coincidentally located next to where foreigners in Hanoi do vast amounts of drinking: at the “Bia Hoi Corner” (Corner of Ta Hien and Luong Ngoc Quyen) in the Old Quarter.

• The Ribs of Sapa (4)
• Cha Cha Cha (8)
• The pleasure of pork skin: Banh Mi Bi (4)
• At least she didn’t mention the war. (0)
• Bánh Mì Xiu Mai (6)

My worthless superpower is the ability to step into any city in the world and find a joint that serves barbecued pork ribs. Sapa in Northern Vietnam is not a street food mecca but ribs were there to be unearthed, alongside the usual assortment of chicken parts and other innards prepped for the grill on the street just north of Sapa’s central market. The ribs had the heavy charcoal flavour that comes from a long period of rest in a sugar-packed marinade followed by a short and brutal blast over the coals.

One of the barbecue innovations that you see around Vietnam is superheating the charcoal barbecue with an electric fan. I never saw this in Cambodia (possibly as a result of extortionate electricity prices), but it seems to be more common in Thailand as well, especially as a technique for heating a charcoal-fuelled wok burner.

• Cha Cha Cha (8)
• Banh Mi Doner Kebab (2)
• Let’s consume ethnicity! (11)
• Defeated in Hue (0)
• Pimp my regional cuisine: Hoi An (3)

• Miming for Bun (2)
• Drank in public (8)
• Cha Cha Cha (8)
• At least she didn’t mention the war. (0)
• Banh Mi Doner Kebab (2)

The bugbear of all brewers is consistency. While most of Southeast Asia’s lagers are dull, watery and forgettable, they can’t be faulted on their brewing process. Every beer comes from the factory with a taste that is of invariable quality. For all the poor base ingredients and surplus of rice malt, Asia’s biggest breweries manage to churn out the same product ad infinitum. When you pop open your can of Anchor or Tiger or Singha, it will taste the same as the last one. Not remarkable but infinitely dependable.

Lao Cai Lager however manages to not place a heavy emphasis on regularity. The first bottle came out as the expected crisp bland lager. The second tasted like someone had dropped a sizeable chunk of rock candy into the bottle. The third was skunky and strange, possibly left out in the blazing sun for a few weeks. I didn’t make it to a fourth as things seemed to be progressing in a bad direction.

My theory is that there is no Lao Cai Brewery. Lao Cai, situated a few kilometres from the Chinese border, would make a great staging post for Chinese beer smuggling runs. The enterprising ale pirates then rebottle their contraband booty under their indigenous label as not to attract attention from the Vietnamese authorities. The perfectly unpredictable beer crime.

Alcohol by volume: 3.5%

Location: Lao Cai, Northern Vietnam.

• Drank in public (8)
• At least she didn’t mention the war. (0)
• Miming for Bun (2)
• Banh Mi Doner Kebab (2)
• The Ribs of Sapa (4)