Did I mention while I was in Hoi An I ate? Yeah, I ate A LOT. When you're not running from site to site you have a lot more time for food, it turns out! And while I've had a lot of great food in Vietnam, I think I can definitely say Ba Le Well in Hoi An was my favorite, both for the food and the atmosphere!
Half the reason Ba Le Well is so fantastic is that there is no menu, which is something I didn't realize when I first wandered down their alley and sat down. So when they just started dumping piles and piles and PILES of food on my table, I kept trying to wave them away, thinking they were giving me someone else's meal.
Finally some waitress took pity on the poor white girl so confused and sat down across from me to explain the process. And then, THANK GOD, she was patient (domineering?) enough to stay and show me what to do with all this food!
Turns out its all the makings of a fantastic rice paper-wrapped roll. You get about a pound and a half of lettuce and mint and coriander and approximately 10 other herbs, of which she made me taste them all before we created my wrap. I wish I could remember the name of half of them, but two of the most memorable were the one that tasted like mustard and the one that cleared out my nasal passages because it was basically wasabi in a leaf. Then you get some cucumbers, pickled vegetables, shrimp spring rolls, and pork satay. And then after showing me how to wrap up all of this goodness in banh trang--rice paper--and dip it in some mixture of fish sauce and chilli paste, I was apparently giving off incompetent vibes, because she proceeded to basically force feed me the thing.
So if this insane atmosphere didn't make for the best meal I've had in Vietnam, one bite of this wrapped up loveliness did. In a word--AMAZING! And after I had three of these suckers and my spring rolls were all used up, magically some banh xeo appeared on my table, the newest thing I was supposed to wrap up and have shoved in my face.
Banh xeo has actually been one of my favorite foods in Vietnam. They call it a "country pancake" for us Westerners to try to wrap our heads around, but it's actually rice flour fried up with fresh herbs, bean sprouts, green onions, and either pork or shrimp and tastes nothing like a pancake. But it's delicious! That being said, I had not realized I was supposed to be saving room for MORE wrapped up goodies and this time I really did need this Italian grandmother hiding in a middle-aged Vietnamese lady to force me to eat at least one before I begged for mercy!
Yep, best meal yet. Especially when you do the math and realize the food (and show!) were just about $4. Have I mentioned I love Vietnam?