December 31, 2010
We hit the local hawker stall courtyard, a phenomenon we’ve grown to love in Asia. A bunch of small restauranteurs set up a little stall or table, selling one or two key items, all in a square around a courtyard. You order at various stalls, then they bring you your food.
Our guides on this trip seem uncomfortable sending us to local food, or slummy hawker stalls for meals. They inevitably steer us towards the touristy, high-end but “local” food eateries, that always have pizza and spaghetti, just in case. But, this time we insisted, even had to insist a couple times, that our guide take us to a hawker stall, that seemed a guarantee of a local food experience.
The hawker stall he sent us to was named Quan An Ngon, and it was downright posh compared to the one we loved in Penang, Malaysia. A real waiter took your order from a menu that was offered with foods from all the stalls inside. But, taking a harder look at the stalls, I even doubted that these were real hawker stalls, with each stall representing a unique entrepreneur, usually a family with a child helping serve. Rather than having all the tables and chairs being miniature tables and chairs, as is loved in Hanoi as if all Hanoi-ans were midgets, they automatically seated the Western tourists at separate BIG tables and chairs, with locals happily squinched into their mini chairs. No, I think it was a high-scale restaurant masquerading as down-low hawker stalls, hoping to attract tourists looking for an “authentic dining experience,” like us.
Still, we happily ate our way through the ruse, smiling while eating rice pancakes wrapped up in shrimp, a huge pile of herbs, and pork. Click here for a video of the hawker stall.
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