Travelog - A travel guide to Vietnam

“Right as I was getting on the plane to leave for Ha Noi my mom handed me a small, wrapped present, which I opened as soon as I sat down in my seat. It was the book 1000 Places to See Before You Die by Patricia Schultz and on the card accompanying the book she wrote, “A little inspiration for your trip. Love, Mom”…. Schultz chose the Old Quarter as of one her picks, and intriguingly devoted another coveted spot to Cha Ca La Vong, a restaurant that is famous for just one dish, grilled fish or cha ca. As a seasoned chowhound who spent the last two years obsessively trying new restaurants in New York City, I knew Cha Ca La Vong would have to be one of my first destinations upon arriving in Ha Noi… What the book said was true: Cha Ca La Vong is a veritable Ha Noi institution, “writes Sara Schapiro in The Vietnam News. NB: For my money, you’re better off ignoring everything you’ve ever read about this place and have the same thing down south. Here are my reasons.

Frying tonight

In her weighty tome, ‘1000 places to see before you die‘, travel writer Patricia Schultz advises readers to shuffle along to Cha Ca La Vong restaurant in Hanoi before they croak. However, if you browse a little further along the bookshelf, next to Schultz\’s two tonnes of pulped rainforest, you’ll find noodlepie\’s very own ‘1 thing to do before you leave Hanoi’. It’s a slim volume consisting of a single piece of advice: ‘Find out the address of Cha Ca La Vong in Saigon and go there instead.’

Cha Ca originated in Hanoi at the Doan family restaurant over a century ago. The street was later renamed simply Cha Ca Street, a legend was born and the hordes still stampede up the narrow, creaking stairs of number 14 to this day. It’s a very tired looking restaurant and it has something of a monopoly on the dish (The name Cha Ca La Vong was copyrighted in 1989), but the lazy, slapdash service and average grub put some folk (Pieman included) off a return visit. However, in late 2003 Cha Ca La Vong opened its first Saigon branch at 31 Nguyen Thi Dieu Street in District 3. The food is better, the service comes without the northern snarl and the indoor/outdoor restaurant is still sparse like the Hanoi original, but far cleaner, more modern and comfortable.

There’s only one fish on offer in Hanoi. In the decadent south you can choose from two varieties, Ca Loc (Snake head fish) or the fattier Ca Tre. I tried the Ca Tre once, but the original and only fish on offer in Hanoi, the Ca Loc, works better. The dish is already a greasefest, so you don\’t really need a fatty fish clogging up the pipes any further. The fish is fried in a saffron tempered frying pan on a charcoal burner sat upon your table. There’s bun (cold vermicelli noodles), unsalted peanuts, chopped yellow chili, chopped spring onion, herb plate (mainly a kind of mint and coriander), mam tom (shrimp paste) and nuoc mam (fish sauce). The waiter brings a bowl of hedgerow consisting of green sections of spring onion and dill he chucks it into the frying pan for a minute of rapid reduction before eating.

Pick and choose what you like from the sidedishes and stick it in your bowl. Lastly, you’ll be needing a wee bit of sauce. Fish sauce good, Mam tom better. A spoonful of the purple monster brings Cha Ca to life. OK - I know - it stinks, but try it just once, it really works. It’s also worth stirring some sugar and half a lemon into the mam tom to tart it up before letting it loose in your bowl. This is the greasiest dish in the east, but one of the best. Dinner for two with one extra order of Cha Ca (it’s that good…) plus a couple of drinks costs 208,000VD. It’s slightly cheaper in Hanoi. Cha Ca at 31 Duong Thanh street, Hanoi is an excellent (and better) alternative to the original joint. View the business card and reverse side info. You can also see - Cha ca the movie - It’s brief and bad, but you do get to hear the dodgy, but very popular, resto music you hear all over Saigon. Plus the lovel sizzle of Cha ca cha-cha-cha-ching-ing… Yumm.

Graham Holliday