This could have been a disaster and I worried plenty. Could I really ask the family to eat street food in Vietnam where everything is on the table? Literally.

I worried for nothing. Our adventurous eating companions were delightful in their own right – that’s our group photo above minus Katie who needed to get to her teaching job and departed a bit early – and our guide Hue (or Tommy if we preferred) had us eating water bug – smells like fresh picked granny smith apples – within an hour!

It wasn’t all crazy food though. I didn’t take detailed notes of each stop but basically it was a moving feast of several courses:  we started at 9:15am with traditional breakfast food, Pho, moved to rice pancakes with pork and fried shallots (sweetened with that water bug), then a walk through the local market followed by a quick stop for green rice with banana (yum!), deep fried shrimp and sweet potato cakes, bun cha for most of us (snails for Simon), then an “unmentionable” that none in our family could stomach, rambutan fruit, “bia ha noi” (beer Hanoi) and ended at 1:30pm with amazing Vietnamese coffee from a purveyor who has been in business for 80+ years and whose “weasel digested coffee beans” served as the state gift to President Obama when he visited Vietnam.  I didn’t photograph the “passed” weasel and you can thank me later.

Food photos below but first, a quick happy birthday to friends Erica M (16th) and David B (18th).  Will raise a glass  to you both as soon as a I find one worthy enough.  Love you!