Day 1 - Tasting Vietnam through Bun Cha

Bun Cha. Bun Cha. Bun Cha. Sounds almost meditative. Maybe that's why our first meal went so uneventfully. No burnt food, no cuts, and no food poisoning. I even managed to eat the whole meal with chop sticks, without poking out any eyeballs! I'm not sure if we're having a bout of beginner's luck or if this is the calm before the storm, or if I'm just over analyzing. Whatever the reason for our success, Micah and I are breathing a sigh of relief that our super-awesome plan might actually work!

The ingredients. Those Jalapenos look scary!

Bun Cha, our second Vietnamese meal and our first big "assignment", consisted of pork (in our case, homemade pork meatballs) and greens served over a bed of vermicelli (rice noodles), flavored to taste with dipping sauce, hoisin sauce, and chili and garlic sauce. Well, at least that's how we ate it!

In return for a free meal, we got two friends to help us out (we're college students...we'll do just about anything for free food), and accompanied by traditional Vietnamese music, we got started.

Micah, Frank, and Jenn workin' for dinner in the kitchen.

First things first - saltwater soaked greens. I don't think that I've ever soaked anything (other than my sunburned body) in saltwater. Interestingly enough, it tasted good! I've read that Romans invented the "salad" by using salt as a dressing, and I can see why. Alone, it tasted refreshing. Mixed in with the noodles and meat, it tasted good, but it was definitely not my favorite part of the meal.

While the greens were soaking, Jenn (one of our willing chefs and food tasters!) prepped the dipping sauce, which was an interesting blend of fruit and spice. The taste was more subtle than I thought it would be, and it was easily overpowered by other parts of our dinner. Nevertheless, it created a great base flavor for our meal, and added a nice layer of sauce to the noodles.

Pork meatballs cookin' up, the orange stuff is the dipping sauce!

The last, and certainly not least, item cooked were the pork meatballs. Mixed and marinated with lemon grass, garlic, shallots, and chili, these were nothing short of heavenly.

HEAVENLY.

My mouth is watering just thinking about them. If you do nothing else but cook these meatballs, consider your life a success. They were that good. They were good enough that two facebook status updates were dedicated to them (oh, technology).

Ta-Da!!!! Dinner is served! :-)

In celebration of our life changing pork meatballs, we have decided to add a "best of the best" list to our blog. "Passport-worthy" foods will be listed by country and will be updated every time we cook something that makes our taste buds do a happy dance.
Overall, our first day went surprisingly well and the end result was rather delicious. Both of us have a new found respect for Vietnamese food, and are SO excited to try out our other recipes.

Tonight's food: Chicken Pho (this post has the link to the recipe!)
Tomorrow for lunch: Bang Xeo (Vietnamese crepes!)
Next Week: We're movin' on to Russia!