Had another random culinary experience last week here in Hanoi. Someone from work was leaving so after work on Friday night we went out for dinner. There ended up being a massive group of us and we went for beef BBQ. It was in the standard grubby Vina restaurant with sticky floors, stained walls, dangerous looking stairs, plastic tables and chairs and the washing up being done in grey looking water inside a big plastic bowl in full view of the diners, but after so long here I have come to realise that even though the restaurant looks like the food will kill you it actually does no such thing (either that or my stomach has hardened up and is able to take things that might kill a pansy Englishman fresh off the plane), and even tastes pretty good (usually).

The restaurant was pretty full when we go there and as there were so many of us we had to be paraded past all the other diners who all stopped eating to look at the procession of foreigners passing them to get to the space right at the back of the restaurant where an assortment of tables and chairs were then provided for us to set up ourselves. The menu is pretty straightforward - beef and goat udder, tomato, and bread. The meat comes out raw on a big platter and on each table there is a little camping stove type contraption that is lit by some kind of waxy gasoline thing. You then cook your own meat as you please and create your own sandwiches (there are no plates so that is really the only option for eating your beef!!) while trying not to cause yourself any kind of horrific injury. Naked flames on rickety plastic tables and oil spitting all over the place provide a slight element of danger that you don't usually get at most other restaurants. The beef was pretty yummy, but not so much the goat udder. It was kinda chewy and tasteless. One of the Vietnamese girls however loved it, and after eating all the udder next to her stood up and loudly shouted down the table that she would like them to pass more boobs to her. Entertaining! There is no tab kept while eating so at the end of the meal we were all shifted out of the way while they counted up all the empty beer bottles and platters. It ended up being pretty cheap, only £3 or £4 per person and there was a LOT of food and beer.

Good stuff!