Phood and the Vung Tau World Food Festival

In my younger formative years, I could often be found daydreaming under a tall oak tree about a place where a bowl of Pho cost around a dollar, the bills in my wallet had plenty of zeroes on them, and Gingers were something parents made up to scare little children. I thought I had reached paradise until I saw the entire redheaded O'Donnell clan walking down the street all wearing "I Heart Vietnam" t-shirts. If you don't know what Pho is, do a quick, life-changing google search. Before you do that however, please jump out of a window head first.

The Pho has been coming in waves, but that is not all Vietnam has to offer. Every street has a few street stalls that offer a delicious array of Vietnamese style bagguette sandwiches, various rice dishes, other kinds of soups, and a whole host of other questionable-unidentifiable things that would make either the Food and Drug Administration or the Endangered Species Coalition cringe. Speaking of the FDA and other sanitation urban legends, I am beginning to think everything we are taught in the US about food safety is bullshit.

Anyone who has ever been forced to acquire a Food Handler's License knows about the so called "Dangerzone", or range of temperatures that are considered dangerous for foods to be stored/served at. Judging by what I've seen (food almost exclusively in the Dangerzone and relatively healthy people walking around) I'm ready to submit the entire concept of germ theory to Mythbusters. If your friends don't call you Maverick or Goose on a regular basis, chances are you haven't and won't ever go to the Dangerzone.

When I am feeling the need to sit down on a normal size chair and enjoy the comforts of AC, there are plenty of indoor restaurants as well. However these can easily be anywhere from 50%-300% more expensive, and the food isn't usually better.

Fruit wise, Southeast Asia offers some things that would make fruit from Pandora seem boring. The Greatest of All Time of course is the Mang Kut, or Mangosteen. This you should actually google without jumping out of a window. In the U.S., if you are fortunate enough to find it, a pound of Mangosteen costs around 6-10 dollars. Here, I can get a Kilogram for a dollar.

New definition to the term "open kitchen"

Bun Bo Hue from that lady's stand, the delicious, spicy cousin of Pho

At night, the grilled meats come out. This cost about 75 cents during the day, a dollar at night.

Mangosteen from the outside.

Heaven on the inside.

This last weekend I also had the chance to go to the beach city of Vung Tau, which was hosting it's World Food Festival. The trip itself was fun but I was a little disappointed with the actual festival. The size and scope of it was a little overhyped, and I also wasn't able to stay for the whole day (I heard that it gets a lot better during the night, as it goes on towards 2am). I went with five of my colleagues and about 30ish of our students, and the organizational/logistical nightmare of getting everyone on and off a bus is a story for another time.

Some highlights include:

- Getting some free food and a flag type thing from the Palestinian booth after talking to them in a little bit of Arabic.

- Trying Iguana and Horse for the first time. Iguana delicious, Horse not so much.

- Finally being able to enjoy a beach, even though it was deceptively dirty.

- Finding the North Korean booth void of any people or food. Such hilarious and sad symbolism.

Bunch of assholes

An entire parade halted to join us because they saw us taking a picture. I've never been in a country with bigger camera whores, seriously.

All the delicious food that I've been eating does have some drawbacks though. To put it gently, lets just say my digestive system is working as fast and chaotically as the city I am living in. To put it realistically, I will have to borrow a term we used when I was in Tunisia; I am assblasting like I've got no tomorrow. The sheer amount of TP I am going through makes any environmentally friendly activity I do irrelevant.

However, things are indeed looking up. Today, for the first time since I can remember, I dropped a bonafide, All-American, solid fecal matter. Honestly I wasn't even sure what it was when I first saw it, because it had been so long. It was like staring into the eyes of a mythical beast. I mean I've seen grainy video footage of it walking through the woods, but I cant recall in recent memory seeing it up close and so intensely personal. Five whole minutes between me and this mud colored unicorn must have passed before I fully comprehended the situation.

aaaand with that imagery, have a good day.

P.S. I will never complain about Oregon rain again. Shit is getting a wee bit redonkulous.

P.P.S. Do you see what I did there with the title and what not? Its like food and pho at the same time. Do you UNDERSTAND? ARE YOU ABLE TO FULLY COMPREHEND MY GENIUS!?