Vietnam

Nov 14, 2007 | Post by: Phil Lees 4 Comments

The Ribs of Sapa

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

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Nov 13, 2007 | Post by: Phil Lees 2 Comments

The Narrowest Karaoke Cafe in Hanoi

There is not much room for dancing but the acoustics kick ass. Hanoi, Vietnam.

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Nov 13, 2007 | Post by: Phil Lees 2 Comments

Lao Cai Lager

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

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Nov 07, 2007 | Post by: Phil Lees 11 Comments

Let’s consume ethnicity!

Each Sunday in Bac Ha in mountainous Sapa, Vietnam, subsistence farmers from the surrounding hills descend on the normally sleepy market to watch tourists perform feats of amateur ethnography and find new ways to trivialise their culture. Local hilltribes get into their Sunday best to hit the market mostly for

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Nov 06, 2007 | Post by: Phil Lees No Comments

On the beaten path, Halong Bay

At Hang Dau Go (Wooden Stakes Cave) in Halong Bay

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Nov 03, 2007 | Post by: Phil Lees 8 Comments

Drank in public

There’s two ways to enjoy beer. Firstly, the late and sorely-missed Michael Jackson in his apophthegmatically-titled Beer suggests that for proper close examination, beer is best enjoyed in the privacy of one’s own home, lest the neighbouring drinkers think that he or she is the sort of person that would

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Oct 29, 2007 | Post by: Phil Lees 8 Comments

Cha Cha Cha

Putting the char into bun cha bun cha is a blunt instrument. For all the subtlety engendered by Vietnamese cuisine, bun cha acts as a counterpoint: blackened rissoles of pork teamed with charred slices of pork belly in a thin fish sauce, vinegar and sugar stock with sides of bun

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Oct 29, 2007 | Post by: Phil Lees No Comments

Handy establishing shot

Guess where I am. I’ll be running a pool in the comments.

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