SHERIDAN, CO
In a suburban strip mall just south of Denver, a steaming bowl of rice noodles is set before me. What this little Vietnamese restaurant lacks in ambience (an episode of Full House blares from the corner television, just over the shoulder of a woman jabbering loudly on her cell phone), it makes up for in cuisine: the sweet, pungent taste of fish sauce, and the slightly uncommon combination of hot noodles and steamed vegetables over raw lettuce and cucumber. My first mouthful of noodles has me waxing nostalgic about my trip to Viet Nam two years ago. While visiting a friend in Thailand, I was determined to visit Viet Nam and convinced him to come along for a short two week tour of the northern portion of the country from Hanoi to Hoi An. We were smitten with Hanoi from the minute we stepped out of the airport- and practically into a rice paddy. Beneath the billboards advertising cheap airfare, workers stooped in the bright green fields in iconic conical hats.
We sat down to our first meal at a corner cafe that gave us a fantastic vantage point. We eyed the tea stand across the street with minuscule red plastic stools, and we watched business transactions happen on the back of bicycles. A steady stream of scooters passed by, each carrying one to five people, and any number of chickens. (There was one scooter with a pig, but I think that came later in the trip.) We wandered narrow lanes under iron balconies that gave hints of the country's French legacy. We dodged bicycles and scooters, and wandered through one market that looked it may have once been a bus or train station. We professed our love for Vietnamese coffee immediately, and did not always resist the temptation to lick the sweetened condensed milk out of the bottom of the cup. After an afternoon coffee and cake by the lake, we wandered over a bridge to the temple in the middle, where I was accosted by a tiny Vietnamese woman who thought it was HILARIOUS that I was at least a foot and a half taller than her. A few awkward photographs followed. After a brief pause at the hotel, we set off in search of dinner. Following the recommendations of a guide book, we set off through the labyrinth of tiny streets in search of a particular street kitchen. In a place where flattery leads to many, many shops and restaurants with exactly the same name, it was impossible to be sure that it was the exact place written about, but judging by the crowded tables, it seemed a good bet. Hardly having sat down, giant bowls of noodles were placed before us. Two bites later, I had declared my new favorite food: Bun (pronounced boon). Rice noodles and peanuts and the ubiquitous fish sauce piled on a foundation of mint and slightly bitter greens. There was a little voice in my head cautioning me about eating the raw greens in a place with questionable sanitation, but it was awfully hard to hear as I was slurping noodles and crunching the greens. Despite our short stay in Hanoi and the plethora of other fantastic restaurants and food stalls to choose from, we returned for Bun at the same place at least once more.
Two years later, the noodles before me don't quite compete with those bowls of Bun or all the noodles and rolls that followed, but they're close enough to stir up a bit of wistfulness for traveling in far flung places.
