Some randomness from Saturday night. About 20 friends and anonymous stragglers headed over to Com Nieu – the “Rice Throwing” restaurant on Tu Xuong Street, District 3. This is the more informal an popular “street” brother of the sophisticated one on Ho Xuan Huong Street which we went to two weeks ago. What makes this place unique is the circus-like antics the waiters get up to when you order com nieu: The rice is cooked on a charcoal grill in clay pots, which are then whirled in the air to cool down, smashed and the disk of rice inside is tossed across the restaurant and caught by another waiter on a plate which, more often than not is met by appreciative applause from the diners. It's not as hard as it seems, though; I tried it two weeks ago at the other restaurant and managed to keep the hard, ricy UFO on the plate, much to the suprise of my faithless friends and other diners.
By magical appearance, a bottle of Tequila had also hitched a ride with a xe om, scrambled up my leg and onto the table to ensure a memorable and unrememberable evening which passed in hazy green blurs and the faint, fresh, minty aroma of mojitos being drunk at Berlin and the more heady odour of a late night bun munchie behind Benh Thanh Market. Lets just say this morning I was very glad that they had razed our football fields where we usually play on Sunday mornings making practise a no-no. Chi also bought me the awesome and much desired Dogma book Morales from the Ministry which has fantastic and quirky propaganda murals and slogans. Enlighten you? Sure: “Nong Dan Co Dang Doi Doi Am No” or “The peasants and the Party – always warm and fed”. Brilliant stuff.
By magical appearance, a bottle of Tequila had also hitched a ride with a xe om, scrambled up my leg and onto the table to ensure a memorable and unrememberable evening which passed in hazy green blurs and the faint, fresh, minty aroma of mojitos being drunk at Berlin and the more heady odour of a late night bun munchie behind Benh Thanh Market. Lets just say this morning I was very glad that they had razed our football fields where we usually play on Sunday mornings making practise a no-no. Chi also bought me the awesome and much desired Dogma book Morales from the Ministry which has fantastic and quirky propaganda murals and slogans. Enlighten you? Sure: “Nong Dan Co Dang Doi Doi Am No” or “The peasants and the Party – always warm and fed”. Brilliant stuff.
Little did the snuggly claypots know that soon they would meet their doom at the willing hands of the "riceman"
The infamous "riceman" tosses the charcoaled disk of rice high in the air to his brother in arms
"Check out my moves, fool!" 8/10 for execution, 10/10 for elegance
Oh, how the snuggly ones have fallen!
Tofu munchies
This is funny because Wi-Fi is Vietnamese slang for gay, something which that little question-mark of a boy certainly doesn't seem to be
2 comments:
Man, that restaurant is so awesome. The only time we ate there, we accidently ordered four bowls of that claypot crispy rice when one is seriously enough for four. When they first flung one across the room, I seriously got giddy like a Wi-Fi lil' schoolboy. Man I miss Saigon.
Ai menno, jy moenie so kwaad raak met die bphils, ons was baie besig om troue en 'death duals' te beplan
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