A little gecko watches us from a lamp overhead.
The emperors of the Nguyen dynasty were a decadent bunch. They made their home in the palace in Hue, they had concubines and servants coming out of their ears, and when they died they were buried in huge, elaborate tombs near the city. Apparently (as legend would have it) these gluttonous darlings also wanted variety, variety, variety in their food. They demanded that their servants serve them fifty DIFFERENT dishes every night. Can you imagine? FIFTY dishes? Those poor damn chefs must have been scared witless.
Anyway, in order to satisfy the hunger of their emperors, the chefs had to get pretty damn creative with their food; this tradition of culinary creativity has been handed down over the years, and now Hue is famous for its ’emperor-style’ culinary traditions.
Porky peacock from above
To get a taste of this tradition, Emma, Kylie, Troy and I decided to hunt down a restaurant called Tinh Gia Vien, which was inside the citadel in Hue. We heard claims that they served food in the old tradition, and although we didn’t expect 50 courses we figured it had to be good, so off we set to find it.
Pineapple with fried entrees
First of all, heading into the citadel at night was a bit of a scary proposition. None of us had a proper map and we had to just follow our noses. We had heard that it was down an unlikely-looking laneway but we didn’t want to get the wrong one! First, we got stalked by the rickshaw drivers, and then when they finally left us alone we got chased by a pair of scary dogs. We noticed that the streets were almost completely empty (somewhat eerie), but thankfully, there was one small family hanging out on the street (I’m still not quite sure what they were actually doing); they spoke not a word of English and we in our ignorance spoke not a word of Vietnamese. However, they somehow managed to understand our ridiculous gestures and pointed down a tiny hedge-lined lane that looked like it could contain any number of rapists, muggers and Jeffrey-Dahmer style serial killers in its darker corners. The family were, however, quite forceful in their gestures so we decided to trust them… hopefully they weren’t just trying to steal our kidneys!!!
Vegetable soup
We followed the lane and stumbled across the most beautiful garden, studded with fairy lights, fountains, neat-looking statues and cobblestoned clearings. This was indeed the restaurant, and one of us went back to the family to thank them profusely. A beautiful woman in traditional Vietnamese costume met us and ushered us to a table right next to a little fountain, so we enjoyed the tinkling sound of water throughout our meal. There was nobody else there… I suspect that a lot of people probably get scared off by the location of the restaurant!
Spring (roll) chicken
Anyway, we were handed a menu with a handful of choices on it. We chose one of the banquets, and sat back and waited for the food onslaught to begin! The first course was (we guessed) a sort of pork roll with veggie ‘highlights’, sliced up and arranged to look like the tail of an exotic bird. It was a little spicy and totally delicious.
The next course was a range of fried goodies which included dumplings, seaweed rolls and chicken, all of which were on skewers poking out of a pineapple lamp.
Little flowers dotted on the tail of our spring chicken
Next up, we had a hearty vegetable soup, and by this point another group of diners had joined us so the place didn’t seem quite as isolated and otherworldly! Following the soup we got a bird carved out of pineapple which sported some ridiculously good spring rolls as its plumage; little chillis had been used to make the comb at the top of the bird’s head and it had peppercorns for eyes! Its ‘tail’ (the leaves of the pineapple) had small flowers made from carrot and radish (I think) arranged all over it.
Fresh prawns, served with a salt/pepper/lime dip - yum!
After the spring rolls the lady brought us a plate full of plump, fresh prawns. She pulled out a little white bowl and put a generous tablespoon of salt into it, and then added another tablespoon of ground pepper. Onto these, she squeezed a whole heap of lime juice. Oh. My. God. Dipping the prawns into that mix was like a party in my mouth! If there was one thing that I took from Vietnam, foodwise, it was that. So simple and so delicious – I can’t believe I hadn’t thought of it before.
Dragon salad!
Recovering from the prawns, and at this point already feeling a bit stuffed, we moved onto the next course of dragon salad…! Then came the fish with a tomato sauce. Then came the beef stir-fry (surprisingly not done up to look like any sort of animal this time!). Just as we were about to explode like the fat guy in Monty Python, they brought out ANOTHER course of fried rice, shaped like a cute little turtle. Could we eat it? Well, we gave it a damned good try.
Turtle fried rice - disgustingly cute
Finally, as a dessert, another dragon came out, this time filled with fresh green bananas and scooped-out pineapple. And with that, our gastronomic extravaganza overload came to an end. All in all, it cost us about $14 each, which for a feast of that size is remarkable. Was it the best food I’ve ever eaten? Hmmm… not really. I’ve had meals with more interesting flavours. BUT… was it the most beautiful meal I’ve ever eaten? Yes, yessiree. Just the sheer magic of having your food come out looking like a dragon that’s about to wriggle off your plate… brilliant. And the setting was fabulous.
Dessert - sweet green bananas in a pineapple dragon
We stumbled out of the restaurant, half-drunk from our gorging, and stared bleary-eyed at all the pretty lights before setting off out into the night. Totally worth braving the laneways in the dark. I learned that sometimes it’s worth risking the theft of your kidneys for a good meal…!
There is one other thing that I learned that night…
The kings must have been real fatasses.
Thanks for stopping by,
Tara.
To see all the pictures from the meal full-sized, see the photo gallery here.
Totally stuffed, but very happy, we come to the end of our meal
Born in Hong Kong and raised all over the world, I've been tootling around for 33 years now. A Spanish friend of mine once said that "the smallest pot has the finest marmalade"... I have to agree with her! I'm small but I can still make 6-foot Brazilian bodybuilders cry if the need arises. And I never need to whinge about legroom on a plane!
little tara 