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I left the hotel this morning in search of Cafe 43. I had read that it was really awesome so I was keen to find it before heading to the beach. Unfortunately I left my phone aka GPS behind and ended up getting lost. So I ventured back to Banh My and had a delicious Mixed Banh My for breakfast. Definitely a great breakfast option with the addition of the egg.
Got back to the hotel half an hour before needed so I sat around spoke to Sean for a little while. He isn't dealing with my absence overly well at the moment so it can be a bit of a hassle trying to talk to him as much as he would like.
Finally we were off to the beach!! Our Taxi driver took us to the main beach, following which he informed us that we are unable to swim there and we had to head around the corner to the other one, An Bang. We arranged for him to come back at 12 to take us back.
Arriving at the beach you are immediately swarmed by women from the local restaurants wanting to rent you a sun bed. You can either rent the bed for 40,000VND for the day or buy lunch and get it free. In retrospect we should have shopped around and read a few menus before settling, but we just stopped at the closest ones and enjoyed our day. We enjoyed swimming, wave diving, tanning and just general good times.
Around 11.30 the boys and I decided we should at least get some food out of the money we'd already be spending and head up to the restaurant for some spring rolls. We got some delicious shrimp and banana spring rolls, vegetable spring rolls and some french fries.
Hot tip: unless the restaurant specialises in Western food, don't order french fries in Asia or you will be disappointed.
After lunch we pretty much left straight away. I would have been keen to stay longer, but didn't really want to pay the 100,000VND taxi on my own. Everyone went back to Banh My for lunch, I was happy after my fill of spring rolls so opted not to order anything.
The gang and I went walk about again in Hoi An looking at all the shops. I ended up buying some ready made pants, my bartering skills aren't amazing but after a while she just refused to budge. But hey, $5 isn't too bad. Mariela purchased a dress which she got taken up and Hannah negotiated for a bag to be made.
I almost wish I had more money so I could get a delicious dress made. Then in the lead up to my wedding I can just send them a picture of what I want and have a perfectly fitted dress posted to me. Oh well. The things we think about after budgeting a budget holiday.
The six of us had booked in for a cooking class which Ngoc booked for us at Tropical Garden Restaurant. The chef was the first Italian pizza maker in Vietnam, starting at Na Na Napoli. I remembered seeing it but wasn't keen on trying Italian in Vietnam (but apparently it's run by an Italian man so if you have a hankering for Italian you should definitely give it a go).
First up on the menu was a rice pancake, which is then wrapped in rice paper to eat like a spring roll. I, of course, almost burnt my pancake. Classic Ash. We eat these with a garlic and chili dipping sauce, common in Vietnam.
Next we started on the main course, Mackeral in Banana Leaf. We have to singe our banana leaves to make them easier to fold, marinate the fish and then wrap it up to be cooked. This one takes half an hour to bake in the oven, so we start the next course while we wait.
Vegetable Spring Rolls are up next. I wasn't too good at rolling my springrolls but they turned out okay in the end. We felt that the mixture had a little too much egg in it because it was a very obvious flavour. Part of the process involved using chopsticks ten times the size any normal human would have used to flip the springrolls in the oil. Being the pro chopstick user as I am, I was able to master this and felt quite proud.
(Hint: watch the chef do it first and just imitate his hand movements, trying to do what you think you should doesn't really work well).
Finally we made Chicken and Green Papaya salad. This is the most simple one of the 4 but definitely incredibly tasty.
This cooking class was a different set up to classes I had attended in the past. For those you select from a menu what you want to cook, and actually set about preparing the ingredients. For this one, we had a set menu and most of the preparation was completed for us. Although still enjoyable I think I enjoy the former method more, as you feel like you're actually cooking and the end result is so much more enjoyable. Still though, at roughly $30 I would definitely recommend it!
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