So good we ate it twice

Ben Thanh night market in Saigon is home to a number outdoor eateries, most of which will offer grilled fish in various forms. Myself and fellow travellers stumbled across a restaurant called Hai Lua, having seen and smelled the grilling of the red snapper pictured below.

Think crispy, caramelised skin. Think chilli heat, and subtle sweetness. Think juicy flesh. So addictive was this dish, that two days later, we came back. And ordered two of them. Oh and if you're sharing, remember to fight over the unctuously luxurious fish cheeks.

If you fancy a bit more variety in your meal, also order their deep fried elephant ear fish, pictured above. The crunchy skin and meaty flesh of the fish make perfect for wrapping with bun noodles, vegetables, star-fruit and herbs in a rice paper roll and dipping in the accompanying punchy prawn dip.

Review: Nizuni

7.5/10

22 Charlotte St, Fitzrovia, London, W1T 2NB

Contemporary Japanese food, from the guys who brought you Koba. It's not their slogan, it's just an easy way to remember their approach to cookery. This is also reflected in the sleek, dark decor which is everpresent throughout this restaurant. We first went for the tako (octopus) starter with tosazu (vinegary) sauce. To be honest, it was a wee bit disappointing - the octopus was a tad tough and the sauce didn't quite match the sweetness of the ocean-dweller's flesh.

Better, however, was their tuna tataki (seared tuna) with ponzu jelly. The citrusy dressing, slippery jelly and succulent tuna were a masterful combination of flavours and textures. Another winner was their salmon skin roll; a beautifully crafted maki roll studded with the crispy hits of the salmon skin and fresh crunch of spring onion. As a filler, we went for their katsu don (pork cutlet with egg on rice), which came with a few non-standard frivolities like potato-croquette type things. Tasty, but then again it's hard to go wrong with katsu don.

To finish, we went for their chestnut cake with matcha (green tea) ice cream. I didn't quite get it at first, but after the first few bites, the sweet, muffin like consistency of the cake had actually found a reliable friend in the form of the bitter ice cream. Pretty good pairing, I'd say. With efficient service and the price totting up to just under £25 a head, I'd say Nizuni represents fair value - though I would have preferred the portions to a on the slightly more generous side.

Review: Fenan Klein Afrika

7.75/10

Jan Pieter Heijestraat 147, 1054 MG Amsterdam

Ethiopean and Eritrean food is the not most famous of world cuisines, but one day, I hope it can be. This little eatery just off the Overtoom really backs up the case I'm making for this food eminating from the Horn of Africa. The concept is quite simple, curry or sauce based meat, fish and vegetable dishes on injeera bread, a soft pancake-like bread which marries fantastically, no, undescribably well with the said dishes. Why? The magic of the bread is its sourness, which beautifully offsets the heaviness of some of the curries.

You can kind of mix and match the dishes you want. Not being an expert on this cuisine, we asked for 3 meat dishes and 1 fish dish to be served on top of a huge plate lined with injeera (and asked for extra injeera, you can't really get enough), and other fellow diners shared 4 vegetarian dishes amongst themselves. The standout dish was the fish dish (which I believe to be Nile Perch) whose flesh tender and oozing with slightly spicy notes. In the middle of your injeera-lined platter (your main dishes lie around the edges) you'll find some interesting chickpea purees, another interesting little aspect of the meal.

This food is also fun to eat; grab some injeera bread with your hands, and use it to grab and absorb whatever dish you wish. Service however was a tad slow. From start to finish (including a very strong coffee at the end), the meal took around 3 hours, which is pretty long considering only a main course was indulged upon. Having said that though, at around 15 euro per person for the food, this was smashing value, and thus a highly recommended place for a (very) easy going dinner.  

London Review: Koya

8/10

49 Frith St, London, W1D 4SG

According to my friends from the land of the rising sun, Koya represents one of London’s few truly authentic Japanese eateries. And having acted on their advice, I can understand why. The restaurant is based on the Japanese ‘Udon-Ya’ concept; essentially a place which focuses on the art of creating those thick, silky noodles known as udon. And the noodles can be served in three ways: hot udon in hot broth (atsu-atsu); cold udon with hot broth (hiya-atsu) and cold udon with cold sauce (hiya-hiya).

I think I’m right in saying that the noodles are hand-made, a trait which is definitely in abundance upon savouring of these slippery, chewy, silky, slurpy and truly moreish delights.  Add the additional cold-hot temperature sensation and the beautiful crispness of accompanying tempura of the ten hiya-atsu dish, and you have a meal worth coming back for again and again.

What’s more, the noodles are deceptively filling, meaning your every penny spent here not only brings quality but also quantity. Combine this with the efficient service and simple yet pleasant surroundings, this makes for one of my new favourite restaurants.

Melbourne Review: Laksa King

8/10

12 Pin Oak Crescent, Flemington

I never went to the original locale of this Flemington favourite, but I've heard in moving to new surrounds it lost a bit of its hawker ambience. Now it's clean cut, spacious and has a slightly japanese noodle bar feel to it, which I guess isn't so bad. But the main thing is that the quality and value of their grub hasn't changed. Myself and my fellow diner had a feast of combination curry laksa, sambal king prawns and twice cooked pork belly.

The laksa was tasty; rich coconut and lemongrass tones were everpresent. And the portion size was pretty damn big. My one criticism is that it lacked that bit of chilli kick, but nonetheless this was still a good rendition of this malaysian classic.

The sambal chilli prawns were packed with prawn-punch; the prawns themselves were big and juicy, and the sambal sauce was packed with crustacean flavours without overpowering the pallette. I felt it could've done with a tad more sambal sauce, but that's just me.

Last but by no means least, the twice cooked pork belly. Firstly the aniseed flavour hits the pallette, followed by fatty, indulgent pork belly notes and finishes with a swansong of rich, soothing caramel-soy hits. Proper comfort food.

Adding rice to this, our final bill came up to about $24 each - which is fairly expensive for Malaysian, but good value considering we ate about 4 persons worth of food (with the exception of the laksa, the dishes were probably meant for sharing for 3 people). And with pretty efficient service and friendly staff, I'd be pretty confident in saying that this is Melbourne's best Malaysian offering. 

Seafood fit for a king

Feasting on  top-quality seafood for $10 might seem too good to be true. And in most cases, it is. But at Quan Phu'ong Nguyen in Hanoi, I found that these dreams can become a delicous reality. Below is a deep fried snake-head fish. Crispy on the outside, meaty in the middle, and when wrapped in a paper roll with dill, salad, starfruit and herbs and immersed in fermented prawn dip (pungent yet indulgent), it can make in the fullest of stomachs rumble at least once.

This place also did the simple dishes to perfection. Stir fried squid with chilli and viet basil ticked all of the right boxes.Tender flesh without a trace of rubberyness, chilli kick and the occasional note of aniseed were all in evidence. 

On the slightly more indulgent side, myself and fellow diners opted for prawns deep-fried with a salty egg batter. The sweetness of the sea-dwellers' interior married perfectly with the crispy, salty and unctuously rich egg exterior.

The only slight let-down were the fried soft shell crabs with tamarind sauce. The soft shell crabs did possess the usual sweet-from-the-sea overtones, but the tamarind sauce wasn't quite the right partner for these crustaceans.

This restaurant combined pretty decent service with a great view over the West Lake, and whilst it's a bit further from the usual attractions of the Old Quarter, it was certainly worth the taxi ride across town.

Bun Cha: Be prepared

It was my first meal is Vietnam. I ordered bun cha at Bun Cha Dac Kim (1 Hang Manh) in Hanoi. An almighty bowl of lemongrass-rubbed pork belly slices and grilled meatballs in a slightly sweet sauce, a bigger heap of rice vermicelli noodles (bun) and a jungle of Vietnamese herbs (mint, basil amongst many others) were presented before me and my friends. The photos don't really do the portion size, nor the taste, justice. It was a colossus of a meal, one which took me half an hour to attempt to finish, but one I'd happily enjoy many times again. So I am writing this post not only to promote the deliciousness of this meal, but also to recommend that you should leave space aplenty for this noodle and pork medley.

Hanoi Pho: A very different animal

Most Vietnamese restaurants in Western countries will put in front of you a rather different incarnation of pho. Before setting foot in Vietnamese lands, I was used to a clearer, less viscous broth, with beansprouts, lime, chilli and herbs served alongside the bowl... in Hanoi, I encountered what I think is a superior creation: thicker broth exploding with beef notes, crunchy chinese greens, slightly rare beef and featherweight rice noodles.

So if in Hanoi, head down to Cafe 47 on 47 Bat Dan, order pho tai (their mango smoothie-esque drink is not too bad either), wait a few minutes and then slurp away.

Food + travel = Gastro-tourism

In my blog, I aim to document every gastronomically-oriented adventure I've had recently. I'll start by making what I think is a pretty comprehensive guide to streetfood in Vietnam, soon followed by restaurant reviews in the three cities I've been lucky enough to have lived in; London, Melbourne and Amsterdam (where I'm now based). Then I guess I'll add some stuff about Grenada and Burma, and have a little page for one of my other hobbies, photography. And also recipes of quick and tasty creations of the not necessarily healthy kind...