Com Tam Time

Streetfood has remained a permanently exciting and indulgent fixture in my daily comings and goings around Saigon.

I have expressed a few thoughts on this blog in the past about pho, the staple Vietnamese noodles (increasingly popular and available in the UK now, I noticed last month) and which we usually eat two or three times a week.  There are some moments when noodles just hit the mark.  Fiery chili heat combined with leaves, bamboo shoots, raw steak and delicate broth.

There are some moments – for me, this is currently every day, hence capturing this for future posterity – when only Com Tam will do.

Com Tam translates as “broken rice” and is a special type of rice, shorter, slightly more al denté than normal rice, and typically accompanied with chopped cucumber, chives, bbq pork (or other types of meat) sweet honey sauce, chili and, should you desire, a fried egg on top.

Behold…

Feast your eyes, and your stomach…

There is something very special about sitting under a tree, by the roadside, on a plastic chair, huddled over this simple, yet masterly, concoction.

As with other local dishes, there is a moment of preparation that kicks off your meal, as you meticulously administer the prefered amount of chili into the honey sauce, before dipping and devouring your way through the food itself.  All washed down with iced cold lotus tea.

The owners of my favourite local com tam place run a slick operation.  They are a wonderful family, with loyal customers and a great reputation as cooking the “best pork in the district”.  The plumes of bbq smoke they produce, billowing down the street at the end of where we live, are so reliable, that the temptation to stop for breakfast on the way to work is, all too often, too great to pass up!

The even better news is that Flo and Martha are also com tam converts now.  Although, as is evidenced by the photos below, their appetites are generally well established.

Like father, like daughters.

Martha and her iced tea

Com Tam Princess

Martha stealing chairs

What happens when you utter the words “you can have ice cream for pudding if you finish your rice” to children

How to eat pancakes? Flo – with chop sticks. Martha – no utensils required thanks

Off in search of more food…

On a real train. Drinking milk. Butter wouldn’t melt…

And a final tune to which to play out the weekend, on the birthday anniversary of Grandma Edna – who I miss very much, and who would have perhaps liked com tam, too.  Happy Birthday, Ma.

Welcome back

Monday.  Day 3 of being 38 years old, and it’s good to be back on saigonsays after a brief leave of absence.

By popular demand (from both readers) I am endeavouring to spruce up this site with thoughts, images, and anecdotes from the quirky old city of Saigon.

For anyone with real sleeping issues, I started up a more ‘thinky’ blog site in January – www.definitelymaybe.me – which has got off to a slow start, but now that I have recovered from the sobering occasion of being 38 (or, “nearly 40,” as my brother likes to describe it) I’ll step the pace up a bit and actually write something more, well, thinky.

Stay tuned.

In the meantime, warm (that’d be around 39 degrees today) greetings from Vietnam and lots of cheeky hellos from Team Flo and Martha.  More soon…

The Art of Being Vietnamese

In a short while, we will be subjected to 2012 “lists”.  Top Ten Celebrity Gossip of the Year.  Most Popular Boy’s Name.  Worst Dressed Politician.

All of the above, and more.

Inspired by a meeting with an elderly Vietnamese monk last month, here, in the spirit of such things (ie for fun, rather than for anything more meaningful) are my “Top Things Learnt about the Vietnamese in 2012”.

Anyone is welcome to add more to these or, indeed, share with me their own SE Asian (or elsewhere…who cares!) versions – I expect to add to this myself in the future, however I only had a short window at Singapore airport earlier to reel these off…

1. Face protection - “one life, one face” is up there as a life motto for most Vietnamese.  No matter what the scenario, saving face in all situations is paramount.

Granted, face saving is not specific to Vietnam, however they do it so well over here!

Choosing to be active

I have been in Dhaka this weekend, speaking at a conference about sustainable development in South Asia.  Sunday morning’s national papers in Bangladesh carried articles about the event, but also featured news about a tragic incident which took place in the city on Saturday evening.

Whilst conference delegates were stretching their legs between the day’s final session and the evening buffet dinner, a fire broke out in a garment factory in Ashulia, on the outskirts of Dhaka.  Reports currently offer figures of 120+ factory workers who perished in the blaze, and many people are still unaccounted for.

Another story about a factory fire in Asia.  This time it was Bangladesh, most recently it was one in a factory in Pakistan which made international news.

We are familiar with the “sweat-shop” issues raised so publically in the 1990’s, in terms of the disturbing conditions to which factory workers across Asia can be subject.  Many organisations since then, including CARE, have addressed the often hugely complex issues associated with the manufacture of items such as garments and electronics, and have successully run development programmes on factory floors, with factory owners, and in conjunction with the global buyers who sit at the top of the chain.

November journal: my new bike; and our entertaining children

Recently, I have been over-run with plenty of work travels, and so it’s great to have been back in Saigon for the past couple of weeks.  I love working in this part of the city (in the western corner of District 3) for all the local quirkiness of what’s on offer, as well as the daily hilarity of what goes on in our office…

I went downstairs earlier this afternoon for coffee, only to be confronted by a large brown eel writhing around on the reception floor.  It would seem our lunch this week was trying to make a break for it, and had leapt out of the plastic jerry-can it was sharing with its mate by the front door!  Eel hot-pot to look forward to tomorrow then….

Saigon is quickly gearing up for Christmas, and we are excited about being here again during the glitziest time of the year, when it is customary for a high proportion of the public (mainly young chain-smoking men) to dress up – really badly - as Santa Claus, whilst everyone else spray paints their shops in festive colours (we had a white spray-painted Christmas tree last year, photo here, and are hoping to outdo this with something even more kitsch next month.)

And the result is…

Big day today.

Millions of Australians will end it comatose, as the annual Melbourne Cup tradition of drinking-your-entire-body-weight-in-beer-before-lunch will ensure that particular country’s collective outputs for 24 hours will be, at best, sub-optimal.

As the table-top dancing down under comes to a close, the United States of America will awake to Election Day, with polls still saying the result is “too close to call” – hopefully this is a canny angle to ensure media sales rather than pointing to the prospect of the world’s most powerful nation being led by Mitt “The Binder” Romney.

In Saigon, very little attention is being given to either of these events by the locals today.  Many international media outlets have tried to express what the US Election outcome will mean to the rest of the world.  For the lady who sold me a coffee on the street outside our office just now, it is implausible to find a connection between her daily grind with that of the politics playing out on the other side of the world.

But this gap is shrinking.  It will continue to take further generational change for some of the positive aspects of global citizenship to really shift the status quo.  But it will happen.  And the role of the private sector in accelerating this is finally being recognised.  Business as usual is changing.

Enlightenment, when you’re least expecting it

I am currently on day ten of a fairly packed trip.  Eight of the last nine nights have been spent at different hotels or houses (or on a plane) and, in addtion to work commitments, I’ve also been to one friend’s wedding and one family wedding anniversary celebration.

I have spent nearly thirty hours either in the air, or waiting at airports, hopped from the humidity of Bangkok last week to experience the final remnants of late summer sunshine the UK had to offer and then, today, been enveloped by a 40+ degree searing heat here in Dubai.

Whilst certainly not a sustainable routine I’d recommend to anyone, all has (so far) gone to plan, and generally been great fun.

I last visited Dubai in 1998.  On that occasion, I went on a very short “historial tour” which took us up to a viewpoint over the emerging city skyline, in order to visit a concrete hut that I remember our tour guide described as ”dating back to the 1950′s”.

It is fair to say that since 1998, the locals have been busy with that skyline….

Human Wellbeing in the 21st Century

About 4 years ago I won a memorable hand of poker at Las Vegas’ Bellagio Casino (the one with the musical fountain display out the front, and which George and Brad robbed in Ocean’s Eleven).  Two red aces and $200 better off, and I’ve not since then allowed myself the chance of losing these winnings by making a return visit.

If I was a gambling man, I would put money on the fact that next time round I’d almost certainly come away empty-handed…

The Bellagio Initiative, a much newer institution than the casino, caught my eye last year not just because of the euphoric memories its name stirred within me, but because of the organisations who had established it, and the mission they had set themselves – namely, the collective pursuit of answers to some of the world’s most pressing and current questions.