Category Archives: Vietnam

The Broad Did It! She Schooled Foodie King Eric Ripert on the BEST Fish Taco. Ever.

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It’s not easy to introduce the king of restaurants, chef Eric Ripert, to a Puerto Rico seafood shack he’s never heard of. The restauranteur and host of the Cooking Channel show “Avec Eric” is married to a Puerto Rican (my pal Sondra) and has visited the island at least three times a year for the past 20 years. But I did it. (!!)

Eric was shooting his show in Puerto Rico and called to see if I wanted to come down and learn to surf. Obviously, I said (HECK) yes.

Related: Top 5 Reasons to Visit Puerto Rico — Right Now

WATCH: Schooling The Food King, Eric Ripert, In Puerto Rico

We met up at his hotel, the Condado Vanderbilt (as opposed to my hotel — the Courtyard Marriott), and when I found out he hadn’t been to my favorite food shack, Tresbe, I was shocked. Floored, even.

“But it has the best fish tacos ever,” I said.

“OK, we go then!” Eric said.

Related: How to Go Full Local in Puerto Rico 

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A half hour later we were digging into the dream tacos, ceviche, empanadas and … pretty much everything on the menu.

“Oh, this is gooood,” Eric said. “So light, so fresh!”

And somewhere, I felt like I won the food gods’ approval.

Go now and school your friends and family. It’s that good.

Related: Old San Juan, the Best Quick (and Cheap) Weekend Getaway

*Weird editor’s note: There are times in traveling when you think no one is around. Someone asks you to do something like, say, sing on top of a piano in a bar and you think, “Why not? I’ll never see any of these people again?” And then you… do. I hadn’t seen Eric in a while — but he’d seen me. A few years back, while in Hanoi, Vietnam, I’d been invited out by a couple communist officials who wanted to play a joke on the American — by taking me to lunch where only hard alcohol was served and instead of water there was beer. Little did they know I was raised on and below the Mason Dixon Line. Six hours later, not unlike that scene in “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” they were on the floor and I was at the bar of the Sofiftel Metropole Hotel belting out show tunes. Apparently, Eric was shooting a show there at the time, was walking through and …

“Hey, I saw you!” he said. “I was so dirty — I had been out in the fields all day so I thought, ‘I will go change and come down, but then I fell asleep. You were having so much fun and entertaining the room.’”

Enter the face palm.

The Khe San Slambook

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Khe San Today

Along the old DMZ zone in Vietnam, the war is still being played out, this time between the tourists. The battle is played out in the pages of the Visitors Book at Khe San, the notorious battle site outside of Quang Tri where the Marines were under siege by the North Vietnamese for over four months in 1968 during the Tet Offensive. The government memorial proclaims a victory for the North Vietnamese Army – a notion disputed by Americans. Lying in the back, behind bomb remnants, pictures of Americans “fleeing in fright!” (boarding a carrier during Operation Charlie), and mannequins of VietCong women sewing a flag ala Betsy Ross, is the visitors comment book. Which reads like an international high school slam book:

“Never trust an American – they speak with fork (sic) tongue, Vietnamese, you guys rock!” – Jeff, from “The World.”

[Underneath the previous message]:  “FUCK YOU,” – USA

Let’s be clear. Khe San was a horrific, long battle. And the wounds have yet to heal for many people [From militaryhistory.com: Lasting 77 days, the “siege” of Khe Sanh saw American and South Vietnamese forces suffer 703 killed, 2,642 wounded, and 7 missing. North Vietnamese losses are not known with accuracy but are estimated at between 10,000-15,000 dead and wounded].

It gets worse. For more fighting words and pics of the pages, continue after the jump.

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Lost In Translation: The Best of The Worst Signs In The World

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Warning: you may lose your head on the train to Morretes, Brazil.

Warning: you may lose your head on the train to Morretes, Brazil.

You have no idea how many times I’ve walked through a random street in some random section of the world and tried to figure out just what the local government is trying to tell me.

Don’t take a picture of rats? [Fine].

Don’t stick your head in the fire? [Yep. Figured that out].

Wild Monkeys may eat my hat? [I didn’t really like it much anyway].

Don’t feed the volcano? [Considering volcanoes historically only eat virgins, I don’t qualify].

You learn so much about a place from its signs. Mali has an AIDS problem; Colombia is more concerned with drugs;  Egypt apparently has a huge sex trafficking issue… and everyone is concerned with where and how you poop.

So, for your viewing pleasure, after the jump I offer some of the best signs I’ve found all over the world…

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The Night of The Tortured Turtles (Or: How To Make Organic Viagra)

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The final concoction: Blood (red) and Bile (green) mixed with 120 proof liquor.

The final concoction: Blood (red) and Bile (green) mixed with 120 proof liquor.

During my trip to Hanoi, I got along so well with my guide Lan and my driver Thang that they invited me to Thang’s anniversary – and I (obviously) said HELL YES! I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Okay, these are the guys who took me to a brothel and introduced me to the hangover cure, so maybe I had a small clue, but damn, was I not ready for this mixology lesson.

The party was at a multi-floor restaurant 20 minutes away from my Hotel. It was the same crowd as the day before – except this time everyone brought their wives and children. The main entertainment was the torture of the turtles.  Two restaurant employees brought out a bucket of the doomed reptiles. While one held the wriggling body, the other employee took out a sharp menacing knife, grabbed the turtles’ heads and slit their necks – collecting the blood in a large glass while the dying turtle gave me the hairy eye ball [ed note: can’t say I blame him, but what was I gonna do?]. Minutes later a waitress took a hypodermic needle and extracted all the green bile-y goodness from the dying reptiles’ gall bladders. It was like watching the Coconut Tree Prison display come to life, with reptile stand ins for the mannequins.

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The Dark Side of Phu Quoc : The Idyllic Island That Comes With Torture Instructions

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IMG_3845Subtlety just seems to confuse people and so the Vietnamese government has good-naturedly sought to make its war homages as literal and interactive as possible with the use of life-sized mannequins, no matter how dull or inappropriate the theme may be. They are placed in mundane situations, like the ones chilling on hammocks at Cu Chi, or the UN inspector models at the DMZ line which are being served tea by a gorgeous little Vietnamese paper mache model. And then there are those placed in situations that are just… unfortunate. Like the re-enactment of the My Lai massacre – where American GI’s are frozen in place, forever terrifying women and children – or the torture scenes at the little known, un-publicized prison museum on Phu Quoc Island.

Phu Quoc is a tiny, idyllic island at the very southern tip of Vietnam that takes about three hours to traverse over dirt roads. An airport was installed about two years ago, roughly the same time a small patch of road on the West Side of the island was paved and resorts were built, including the exclusive La Veranda, where honeymooning couples go to snuggle on the beach and get their tan on. The hotel’s brochure lists activities to do on the island, like “snorkeling, reef diving, waterfalls, hiking in virgin forests, shopping at the market…” at the very bottom of the list, on the back page is “Coconut Tree Prison.” Located at the far end of the island, the prison is not a very popular destination for La Veranda guests – the hotel employees gave me a strange look when I told them where I wanted to go and it cost me a whopping forty dollars for someone to take me there.

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The Only Hangover Cure That Has Ever Worked: The Vietnamese Alka Seltzer. You’re Welcome.

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No, it's not a condom. It's the best damn hangover cure in the universe.

No, it’s not a condom. It’s the best damn hangover cure in the universe.

In my past life I went out for a living – as in out. Every night. All night. While it was fun and all, the mornings were not. Thus, about ten years ago, I started the quest to find the ultimate hangover cure. I worked at a company with many Australians who naturally suggested Berocca. Which, frankly, sucked. As in – didn’t work. Here’s a list of what else I’ve tried over the years which didn’t work:

  • A variety of “organic” hangover cure pills which vitamin companies tried to shill every year.
  • Alka Seltzer before going to bed and in the morning (okay, fine… it made me feel marginally better).
  • The hair of the dog (not to be done if you have to be at work the next day).
  • Greasy ham and egg sandwich followed by a V-8 and half a bottle of Visine (in the eyes, not the mouth).
  • Drinking a gallon of water before going to bed (which results in five trips to the bathroom that night, thus ensuring a fully interrupted sleep).

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Ho Chi Minh’s Tomb: So Strict Yet So Chic.

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Chilling with my pal Theano outside of Uncle Ho's tomb

Chilling with my pal Theano outside of Uncle Ho’s tomb

The Vietnamese do not fuck around when it comes to their beloved Ho Chi Minh. The line to see the Dear Leader’s body lying in state in a glass coffin inside his tomb is almost always a mile long, but it moves at a pretty good clip despite the many checkpoints. As I waited, a woman in a long navy blue uniform and a severe bob observed visitors through a glinty, eagle eye. I passed muster. The French woman behind me wearing a skirt that fell just above her knee did not.

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The Most Important Difference Between North And South Vietnam

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Dinner. Photo courtesy of Martin Brandt.

Dinner, Hanoi. Photo courtesy of Martin Brandt.

Fun fact: the Vietnamese are practically American in their view of one another above or below the 17th parallel – their Mason Dixon Line. It’s the typical grudge match between the Vanquished and the Victor. “People in the South are lazy. They just want to party,” Northerners will say. “People in the North are too uptight and strict,” the Southerners will say.

There are also more subtle differences.

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