We went to a restaurant last night on Truc Bach lake. The dining area was basically some mats laid out beside the footpath, across the road from the kitchen, with low Japanese style tables. There were a few rats scuttling in and out of the water and along the mats. I thought "let's go eat Italian" as I squatted down to take my place.
4 girls sat down and take our order. They were interrupted someone from a nearby table coming over to us with 2 shots of some clear liquid. We knocked these back with a hearty "Xin Chào Việt Nam" before resuming our order.
Neither of us was particularly hungry. After much confusion and clarification, using a menu with no English and no prices, I thought we had each ordered a bowl of Pho Ga.
10 minutes later a waiter brought out gas cooker, then a massive pan of hot broth, then a huge bowl of leafy greens, then two packets of noodles, then a whole raw chicken (cut up).
We realised then that the enthusiastic girls who took our order were probably just there to upsell. Actually it was not really upsell. It was more a case of ignoring what we want and giving us what they have. Of course when too much food started turning up, they were nowhere to be seen.
Our waiter lit the cooker and opened the lid of the pot. She grabbed my chopsticks and started putting pieces of the chicken into the broth. First the head, then the feet, then some other ambiguous pieces until about half of the chicken was gone. Apart from what appeared to be an anus, the only other parts left on the plate were the wings, breast and legs: the Colonel Sanders bits that I'd normally want first.
When I asked for another set of chopsticks she pointed at the ones which she had abandoned in the raw chicken. When I played dumb and insisted on another pair, I think I saw a faint eye roll.
The chicken's head kept bobbing around the pot throughout the meal. It seemed to slowly lose its buoyancy at various times, only to turn up camoflaged under a leaf of spinach in the ladel. Tricky thing.
Although the chook head spent its last moments circumnavigating the pot as his memories slowly dislodged from his skull ... I feel it was a worthy end. So I gave him a name. Darren provided my best meal yet in Vietnam.
By the end of the meal we'd forgotten all about the feet. Until they both popped up, on queue, like an Esther Williams finale.
This is how it all ended. [Click to enlarge]
As she cleared the table our waiter noticed the vignette which had unfolded in the pot, and laughed.
