Welcome to my world. Two escargot, pâté, frisee. Two green salads.
Okay, my name's Sofia. Lamb chops, steak frites. Shouldn't you be doing something?
Two pho filet and a pepper steak. Come on, make the dessert. Chocolate tart, please.
Thank you. As a cook, tastes and smells are my memories. Now I'm in search of new ones.
So I'm leaving New York City and hope to have a few epiphanies around the world. And I'm willing to go to some lengths to do that. I'm looking for extremes of emotion and experience.
I'll try anything, I'll risk everything, I have nothing to lose. Vietnam. It's beautiful.
It's dreamlike. It's exotic. It has a very sensuous nature. It's an intoxicating place to be. You can see why generations of Frenchmen and Americans went insane here.
But frankly, I've got the whole insanity thing down. I'm here to experience the flavors and textures of Vietnamese cuisine. From everyday fare... to the wildly exotic, and maybe a little taste of the French influence. On first arrival, it is just sheer excitement.
Ho Chi Minh City is a real throng of people. People are in constant motion. It's a little intimidating at first.
It's amazing what people could fit on two wheels. Whole families all squeezed onto a tiny little motorbike. I'd like it if New York were more like this. Basically taxis, scooters, and little two-stroke motorcycles.
Traffic flows at inexplicable and wondrous patterns in space. Walking here is a challenge. You gotta be awake. Off to the market.
Look at some hooves and snouts. The markets are always wondrous. I've been to wonderful places to sample all the local fare, and I'm on the hunt for the ever popular hot Vinland, fetal duck egg.
But first I've got to make it across the road. After the guy's agreed, I'm gone. Hang on.
Watch your back. Dodging this traffic makes running through the defensive line of the New York Giants look like a stroll through the park. It is suggested that this road is one way. Watch your back.
Benton Market is the central marketplace in Saigon. The largest and busiest in the city. We enter the market through the live poultry section. Nothing like the smell of poultry excrement and fear. The smell of a lot of live poultry.
poultry, a lot of food cooking, makes a rather heady mix. Actually, it smells better than the live poultry market in New York. A lot better.
Americans, we see our poultry, we see our meat in neat plastic wrapped packages in the supermarket. We don't have to smell it, we don't have to look at its face. The Vietnamese understand that this started out as a live creature. In fact, it still is a live creature until just before dinner time.
It seems like a panorama of cruelty at first, but in some ways it's more honest than our system. Somewhere in this maze of food is the duck egg I'm looking for. There are food stalls, each food stall specializing in different aspects of Vietnamese day-to-day working class cuisine.
I'm hungry. Bowls of pho, which are noodle soups, some made with beef and pork, others with seafood. Some are spicy with different kinds of stocks, cilantro, chilies, and other garnishes. A little lime, some sprouts and greens, and maybe we'll have a spring roll. Places that specialize in spring rolls are beef or chicken on a stick.
fruit juices. Sweet. And in every case, it's spectacularly fresh.
Smells good. Very spicy. Time and time again, you're struck by how proud each vendor is.
They want you to try their food. Oh, that's great. Next.
Here it is. Hot Vin Lan, fetal duck egg. Sold and consumed on the street and in stalls.
It's a popular Vietnamese snack, especially for men who believe it enhances virility. It's a duck embryo, matured past half term, then soft-boiled. Any takers? It's a difficult dining experience. The vaguely feathery, furry-looking bits here are actually not bad.
I don't think I'll be having another though. I think it's back to croissant tomorrow. I don't think I'll be making that a breakfast staple.
I don't think I'll be adding that to, you know, what is it, a little Special K, milk, bacon, and fetal duck egg. Beaks and feathers first thing in the morning may have been a bit ambitious. I'm in need of something to settle my stomach.
I hook up with a cyclo driver who assures me he has just the remedy. Now most of the cyclo drivers, they're very proud and very happy about wherever it is they take you. They're all too eager to take you to their favorite restaurant, the best bowl of pho, run you around and show you the sights.
But everyone seems to stare at you when you're sitting in this thing. You feel like a bit of a rube. Here comes Lord Jim, you know, let's shake him down for some dong. So it's fun if you want to feel like a pasha or a visiting dignitary. Hello!
I feel a little silly, actually. But I guess it's something everybody should do at least once. Squid soup. So this is what the cyclo driver had in mind? Chow muck?
Squid soup? Vietnamese have a distinctive culinary approach. Each dish balances considerable style of the regional flavor quartet.
Hot, sour, salty and sweet, eaten together in perfect harmony. Smells fabulous. It's good.
Now, I'm thinking squid, what looks like cut up baguette actually, with crouton. Cilantro. This is like a pork blood. It's a cake made of just coagulated, like actually like we're gonna see in Portugal. And like you see in a lot of Europe.
I guess it's just a little pan, pan cooked emulsified blood. It's fabulous. So I sit there and eat my squid soup and watch people go by on their motos.
doing the everyday things they were doing 200 years ago and will probably be doing 200 years from now. There's a cheerful stoicism and generosity here in spite of almost overwhelming history comes home to you even when eating the simplest bowl of squid soup. But it's remarkable.
Look at this place. As night falls, every street in Saigon seems to be like Sunset Strip. You've got the same type of low-rider cruise mentality. And the streets just completely fill up.
Tonight's destination is a one-of-a-kind family-style restaurant, Komnu Saigon. The first thing you notice is the sound of smashing crockery. Typically not a good sign.
My most memorable host in Vietnam is the inimitable Madame Gao. Welcome everybody. Oh, thank you.
It's so nice. Thank you, thank you. I'm happy to see you again.
Yes, I'm happy to see you again. This woman is a force of nature. I'm going to go. She's generous. I'm very happy to have you.
Almost smotheringly friendly. I love everybody. She's a mix of Yenta, Jewish mother, and six-cylinder Gambino family hoodlum. And the operation she runs is spectacular.
She thought about this place for a long time before she opened it, and it shows. You look at the tiny little details, the sort of things a lifer cook like me notices, a lifer in the restaurant business. It's not a corner of this restaurant. It's not one part of this corner that is incomplete.
completely squared away like a naval vessel. This is a smooth operation. This is the way to run a restaurant.
And of course the clean up job at the end of this night must be unbelievable. In a very Western way, she's figured out a gimmick. She's researched traditional Vietnamese cuisine and found references to a way of baking rice in clay pots, then smashing them open to serve a sort of crispy rice pilaf. The waiters keep sending these sizzling hot rice cakes sailing through the air at high speeds. They're received by a waiter on the other side of the room, given a little bit of English, flipped up in the air, cut into pieces, sauced with fish sauce, wak nam and scallions, and deposited on your plate.
It's crispy on the outside, fluffy in the middle, and totally delicious. People love it. It's a lot of fun. Of all the meals I have in Vietnam, Madame Gao consistently bowls me over.
This stuff is not only fresh, it's brilliantly presented. It's a full on assault, you know. It's just a touch of salt. Topped up brilliant colors. Lobster grilled and bathed in a sweet paprika sauce.
Crab stir-fried with sweet basil. Steamed tiger prawns. The ingredients she's using are really creative and really cute. Oh, zucchini flower.
Lovely. Zucchini blossom stuffed with ground pork, dipped in batter and deep fried. So good.
Fish soups. I've had a lot of fish soups, but this with the little cockles, tofu and dill in a fish broth is really imaginative and powerful. Cuts of pork with tea marinated hard cooked eggs.
Sounds like a strange mix? It's not. Everything is so fresh here. It's crisp. Really strong, really powerful, really seductive flavors.
This is the sort of food that Westerners who go to Vietnam time and time again come back raving about. It's mind-blowing. It's the best example of what the Vietnamese do so well. Every night it's like a holiday meal. Look at this.
a palate cleanser of chilled mango and custard apple. If you look around at how happy people are here, the expressions on people's faces. This makes me wish I had a bigger family so I could bring them all here. You see new arrivals coming in on motorcycles and motor scooters. They roll right through the dining room.
We're always talking. Madame Gao is a terrifyingly attentive host. Are you happy?
Uh-huh. Every time you come to Vietnam, you have to call my restaurant. Okay, have a good night. Thank you so much. Okay, kiss.
Okay. Don't forget me. I will never forget you.
No, no. But a word of advice. If you're thinking about copying her rice and crockery gimmick, think again.
I would not want to make an enemy of Madame Gao. Uh-huh. Modern Vietnam wouldn't be the same without the French influence of yesteryear. I'm on my way to La Bibliothèque, a little piece of France in the heart of Saigon, a restaurant that embodies the past.
Madame Da is a throwback to the early... colonial days of French occupation. This is a woman who speaks French fluently, educated and largely raised in France.
Vietnam's first female lawyer. This is my lawyer's resume. My law firm. Who in 1975, when the communists took over South Vietnam, turned her offices into a café. I bring you some martini.
Cheers, everyone. Which quickly became a meeting place for visiting dignitaries, ambassadors, and maybe a couple of spies. Oh, incredible.
Don't get the victor at Bien Bien Phu right here. That's amazing. It's just incredible. My dear friend, François Mitterrand.
The Pope. It's extraordinary. You have some extraordinary friends. Even after all these years, there's a whiff of aristocrat about her.
Her kitchen speaks of days gone by. People that work with her, she mentioned that one was a nanny for her children. I suspect these women have been with her for decades.
We're having a little grilled pork, little beef wrapped in leaf. It is a kind of grape leaf. Ah, grape leaf, how fabulous.
And this is rice noodles. Whoops. Lovely. And spring onion. Thank you.
This is so wonderful. It's exactly what we needed. We were walking around in the heat, overeating out there. This is so perfect.
These are typical Vietnamese appetizers and entrees, presented in a little corner of France. This dessert is a classic creme caramel, strictly French. Now, this is a taste of my childhood. A creme caramel. I guess I brought that Speedo along for nothing.
You'll be carrying me out on the gurney. And of course, at the end of the meal, she decides to hit us with her special blend of snake wine. Special preparation. I didn't expect her to come out with this big jar of snakes right after my creme caramel.
Perfect, merci. A votre santé, madame. And like so many things in Vietnam, if you drink it, it will make you strong.
It's good. Fear not. I get real strong in the next few weeks, let me tell you.
Please come back soon. There's Madame Dai in her black dress and her hair pinned up, still speaking French, still in her parlor with her books and photographs and her memories. It's yet one of many really remarkable places. ...where you can reconnect with the past in Saigon. I'm starving.
I could eat a snake. In fact, I could eat a palpitating snake heart. In fact, that's exactly what I'm going to do.
One continually hears about the mythological stamina-giving quality of certain foods in Vietnam. And Cobra Heart is one of them. Wong Run restaurant literally translates to flavors of the forest and you get flavors of the forest alright.
Roasted field mouse, lizard, chameleon, minced bat. What's a teal? What I'm going for is the famous live palpitating Cobra heart. Come on, let's go.
This is one of those things that you just got to do, right? I want the heart still beating, right? It's one of those cocktail party stories that's sure to turn mom green.
I don't like it that the waitresses are afraid of this. I wanted Cobra Heart. This was a destination for me. Cool, let's eat. Essentially, they're all too happy to bring out a squirming, hissing, menacing-looking cobra.
Let's do the nasty. They don't seem to have their mise en place together. I have my mise en place together when I'm making steak frites.
It seems to me, you know, when you're making a live cobra, you know, you should have your operating desk stuff laid out. You know, what's the cutting board? The knife. Scissors?
You notice the band-aid on our waiter? My cobra handler has a large bandage on his hand, which leads me to believe that maybe he was a little sloppy with the last cobra. So, cobra heart.
They zip that guy open. open right in front of you. They put the beating heart right into a little dish, and it's pumping away like right out of a horror movie.
Hey, come on, man. Hey, hey, let's go. It's fresh.
I want it beating. Cheers, folks. It feels strong.
It kind of pumps on its way down, too. It's still ticking. Don't think this cobra is going to waste.
It's about to become a five-course meal. Snake eating has long been a valued part of the medicinal repertoire of Vietnam. It makes you strong. Cook that up for me. Cut it in chunks, sear and pan, slow braise.
Now this is impressive. I'm told that every part of the snake is going to be prepared into a different dish for me. Okay, let's have a shot. Cheers, looking at you.
Cobra heart makes you strong. Cobra blood makes you stronger. It kind of tastes like a bull shot, a Bloody Mary made with beef broth.
Come on, Emeril, right here. Kick this up a notch. You seem to have drained some sort of dark, viscous fluid in here. This is the best part. It's sort of a worst case scenario.
This is the bile. You know, I figure I'd be tasting plenty of that later at my hotel. Bile, well, it's a little bit bitter. Yeah, I don't like this that much.
Now, I thought bile was... was a bad thing. Well, in Vietnam, it makes you strong like everything else does. Apparently bile makes you really, really, really strong. My wife tells me I'm bilious enough.
Let's eat. The bones of the-Oh, the bones. Fried cobra bones, they're crunchy and delicious, kind of like potato chips, only sharper.
Not bad, you know, Yankee game. Seventh inning stretch. I'm not crazy about the meat that much. Mmm, tastes like chicken.
The skin is a little rubbery. It's like sushi. But the tripes is like eating condoms still in the packet. Not that I've done that. You can chew that all day.
You're not getting anywhere with it. I swallowed it all. And of course the obligatory Cobra soup.
Looks like it's got some curry in it. It's like a... Like a Moligatoni soup. It's terrific. How will I ever go back to that?
to like grilled cheese sandwich and Cheerios. What next? They brought this out very proudly.
What the hell is that? An oversized tree grub squirming around in all its glory. All right, he's pretty. What are we gonna do with him?
You know, I've already been gargling cobra bile and they bring this along as course two? Right, there's my grub. You know, the cobra guts aren't enough. I gotta do this for the cause. Thanks.
It's kind of crunchy on the outside and creamy in the middle. Imagine a deep fried Twinkie, only smaller. I don't think I'll be taking a batch home.
It kind of looks like Alien 7, The Revenge. I wouldn't call cobra or tree grub everyday local fare. Do they sell this at D'Agostino? Not yet.
Eating them is a lot like some Western foods that the sophisticated eat without thinking. Bellon oysters, caviar, foie gras. Maybe eating snakes and worms only seems more outrageous because it's a different culture.
All right. There are four or five touchstones of my Asian adventures. The palpitating cobra heart is a must-do.
I'm not disappointed. It's exquisite. exactly as exotic an experience as I'd hoped for, even a little scarier.
And strangely enough, I am feeling strong.