It still surprises me how the food can make me happy!
I can be at the end of the world but at the moment I have a good, warm, comforting breakfast I travel back to my family house in the late ’80s and feel as on the lazy Saturday morning when mum was making some delicious breakfast and I could spend half of the day in my pyjamas watching cartoons with my dad. The older I get the more precious such time travels (along with everything that allows them) become.
Last night my friend Thanh stayed for the night at my place – we had a fun evening watching an episode of ‘Girls’ and putting on face masks. As the poor one is a bit sick with a nasty cough I decided to take her for the ultimate curing breakfast in the morning, which in Asia would always be chao. It’s a slow cooked rice porridge with a variety of ingredients involved. Our today’s’ version was chao suon cooked with pork ribs and served with snippets of crunchy banh quay and the addition of shredded, dried pork meat called ruoc. The best thing about this one is that unlike most of chao I had before, the rice here is pounded until it has the texture of perfectly smooth and creamy pudding. It’s hot, delicate, tasty and has healing properties both for the soul and body, no doubts about it!

The bowl of chao suon was too small to deal with my morning hunger so I just had to try some sticky rice from the lady next to us. This is xoi gac coloured with seeds of the fruit called gac and steamed with some sugar and rice wine. Not only good for your soul but supposedly also for your vision:)

Both stalls are just on the noisy corner of alley 124 Au Co, Tay Ho, Hanoi.