Vietnam Travel Tips

Vietnam is an astoundingly beautiful country. Deep, dark jungles give way to the majestic beauty of the Red River and Mekong Deltas. Tropical beaches stretch toward emerald green rice patties that seem too vibrant to be real. Vietnam’s cities are bustling, crowded, energetic places with a pace all their own, and their marketplaces, filled with colorful fruits, vegetables and spices, thrill the senses.

My family and I have always loved Vietnamese food, and during a recent trip to Ho Chi Minh City were fortunate enough to be offered a cooking class by chef Nguyen Dzoan Cam Van, who has, through her televised cooking programs, become something like the Julia Child of Vietnam. One morning we met Ms. Cam Van at Ho Chi Minh City’s largest market. Our plan was to meet with Ms. Cam Van for a morning of shopping, cooking, and, naturally, eating too.

Ben Thanh Market dates back to the French Colonial Period and is perhaps the most famous market in Vietnam. We followed Ms. Cam Van to a line of densely packed stalls filled with deep purple eggplants, dust-colored jicamas and dozens of mysterious things in every color of the spectrum. Ms. Cam Van paused at one stall to tell of the many uses for the lotus plant—from fighting insomnia to strengthening the heart—derived from all its parts, from the shoots to the flowers. My sister pointed to a small plastic bag filled with what looked like blood. “It’s the juice of the gac fruit,” Ms. Cam Van said. “We use it to color xoi, the festive sticky rice we eat at weddings.”

All this food had begun to make us hungry, so we piled into our van and drove to Ms. Cam Van’s house, which has an airy courtyard specially fitted for cooking. An enormous cooktop, with burners spaced all around it, stood at its center. Suddenly, Ms. Cam Van’s assistants appeared from inside the house, carrying trays of spring roll wrappers, rice noodles, shrimp, strips of pork, bowls of fresh basil, cilantro, and mint, the ingredients for Goi Cuon, the fresh uncooked springrolls for which the Vietnamese have become deservedly famous. Ms. Cam Van demonstrated how to make a thick dipping sauce and then led us through the tricky task of wrapping the rolls. We had a few disasters, of course, but eventually all of us had contributed to a beautiful pyramid of springrolls resting atop a platter.

Next Ms. Cam Van began preparing bo bay mon, a traditional beef dish. There are seven courses, their nature and order always strictly adhered to: raw beef cooked at the table in a hot broth; beef pate; meatballs; rolled slivers of steak; charred beef tucked inside the leaves of the la lot plant; beef salad; and, finally, a thick, flavorful beef soup.

We went into the dining room off the courtyard and feasted, the springrolls tasting even more delicious because we’d made them ourselves, and the bo bay mon a totally novel and thoroughly satisfying experience. Ms. Cam Van appeared in the doorway. “Okay, cooks,” she said, “now back to the kitchen.” We’d already eaten enough to constitute a substantial lunch, but no one hesitated. We couldn’t wait to see what was next.