http://www.thelittlemenu.com

Iron chef are you ready?

Contender are you ready?

Allez Cuisine!

Kimbi and I were introduced to our Vietnamese chef Son Tram (Chairman Kaga) and he took no time in taking our cocktail order and we were off!

Showdown!!

Tonight’s dishes are:
– chicken and unripe papaya salad
– pork spring rolls and dipping sauce
– some form of delicious pork pattie
– BBQ sea bass in banana leaf

The cooking went well but it was super hot! Sweat was pouring off us adding salt to the dishes.

We cooked all the foods from base ingredients and it was a lot easier than we thought it would be.

Chairman Kaga asked if we were chefs back home – apparently we have the skills to pay the bills!!

The food we cooked tasted surprisingly good! In fact it was very tasty indeed, but we couldn’t eat everything. After struggling for about 20 minutes they packed up everything we couldn’t finish and we took it with us back to the little menu restaurant to meet Mitchy and continue drinking.

While we were drinking with Mitchy our Chef Son Tram came and joined us and we ended up drinking and talking with him about Vietnam and our tour of duty. He really was a loverly person and he was very interested in our trip and Australia. He humoured me as I talked about my previous trip to Vietnam and showed him photos which he enjoyed. He was very genuine person who offered to have us for dinner at his house if we were staying another night which we could not unfortunately. He also told us that if we had trouble with our bikes again before we left to come and see him and he would help sort out a good mechanic for us. He was very happy that I was enjoying his cocktails as he designed them and even went to the trouble of making one of them for me himself, a bigger better version!

Son was originally from Hanoi and trained in Hanoi at the Sofitel academy as a chef. He then moved down to Hoi An with his family, his wife and two boys to get in on the large tourist boom in Hoi An.

We really had a great time with him and Jamie came and joined us as well in the end and we finally had to say goodbye around midnight as we had to get up early and they had closed long before and were all sitting out front with us chatting.

At the tailor Kimbi had two dresses and a jacket made. And at the leather maker a rather nice handbag and two pairs of shoes.

I had a white linen three piece suit made and at the leather maker I got a set off motorbike saddlebags.

When you have anything made for you in Vietnam you really need to sit down and communicate clearly with the designer about what it is you want otherwise you can get all sorts of quirks with your order. Kimbi must have tried on her dresses about 4 times so they could get things right – and unfortunately it was so hot in the tailor that you just poured out sweat the moment that you put any additional item of clothing on, let along a full dress or jacket or three piece suit.

At the leather merchant I sat down with pencil and paper and drew the style of saddlebag I was after. We then spent time going through google image search to find pictures and schematic drawings and I even found a how to make video for them.

We went back the next day so we could see how they went and…
They were fucking unreal! They looked absolutely brilliant! We could not believe that from a crappy little sketch and some photos that they were able to have made them so well! Well worth the effort and well done to the leather merchant! – They have been on my bike for a few days now and are making life much much easier and more awesome.

The tailor was one of 5 sisters and her family had the leather merchant store that we went to. We kept them very happy and in business:

Nhi Nhi custom tailor and design
82 le loi st, Hoi An – Vietnam

Hieu Giay shoes shop, 82 Bach dang st, Hoi An – Vietnam

Mitchy loved waking up in the morning and dragging my fat ass to the gym to make me sweat like a fat kid chasing cake.

After gym, Mitchy would play his favourite game – is the egg over boiled. In this game Mitchy would grab a boiled egg and cut his toast into soldiers and then open his egg to find his egg hard boiled over and no amount of pressure would have his soldiers crack the yoke.

On the bridge of lanterns Mitchy placed a candle boat into the water for good luck.

At the tailor he had two loverly winter jackets made with very sexy purple lining. He also had two pairs of formal shorts made which made him look very dashing. At the leather merchant he had two very nice pairs of shoes tailored to his desire a large leather duffle bag – I had no idea he was such a closet fashionista. He was strutting his stuff all over the tailor shop.

On one day we went past an antique model boat shop and in dived me and Mitchy. He ended up going back and buying himself a mantle piece sized model of the endeavour for his non-existent mantel piece. Very Australian!!!

As ever Mitchy was alert to the construction issues facing Vietnam and it’s people. You can see him doing a bit of free lance inspecting of the electrical installation at the beach – power points wired up the tree and encased in Tupperware very proper and definitely to code!