When in Vietnam...

I haven't met very many expats who shy away from Vietnamese food, but some people enjoy it more than others. There are the expats who eat mostly the popular dishes, like pho and bun cha. There are the expats who will try anything, like still-beating cobra hearts. Me, I'm somewhere in between. There are things I'd love to experience and some I just don't think I could ever eat, like dog (Velvet would never love me again if I ate her "people"). But, as the saying goes, "when in Rome, do as the Romans do." Well, when in Vietnam, you eat on the street like Vietnamese people. There are a few street places I like in my area and I pretty much stick to those, but last night I met a friend for dinner and we decided to be adventurous and try out a new place. The tricky thing with trying out a new place is that you don't always find a place where people speak any semblance of English, nor do you know what is on the menu. My Vietnamese is pretty limited so far and I only know how to say certain foods, none of which were on the menu last night. That's where it helps for the place to have a menu. After studying the mostly unrecognizable words, we settled on two choices, only knowing that one had something to do with beef (bo).

My friend J and our spread. Thank goodness we had two
beers on hand before we started! Notice the green dots in
the dark sauce. Wasabi. Lit. Me. Up.

The food that came out looked fabulous and my friend and I were super proud of ourselves for selecting (okay, so I used that word loosely since it was all luck) an awesome meal. We starting eating away when I realized the packet of what we originally thought were hand wipes (quite common to get at every meal) were actually rice paper wrappers. It was a make your own spring roll type of meal--awesome! I loaded up my rice paper wrapper with greens, beef, pineapple, mushrooms, and egg marinated in chili sauce. Then I spread a soy-looking sauce on top and wrapped up my Vietnamese delight and dug in. Within seconds I was in pain. The soy-looking sauce was actually pure wasabi with a light cover of soy sauce that lit me on fire like nothing I had never experienced. It felt like my nose was on fire. My eyes immediately began to water, my sinuses were throbbing, and my nose started to run. It was painful. It was also hilarious. At this point, I hadn't even swallowed my entire bite of the spring roll. I quickly grabbed my beer and sucked down half of it to put out the fire. But the damage had been done. I was still hurting and my friend was laughing uncontrollably at me, as was the entire staff. Locals were staring, I was coughing and laughing and yelling. It was a quite a scene. My friend wanted to know what the big deal was, so he took a bite out of his roll and more antics ensued. It was pandemonium! After crying and laughing for the next 15 minutes, we finally finished our first spring rolls and quickly ordered 2 more beers. We learned our lesson after the first roll, but we kept coming back for more heat. It was just too good and too much fun not to! I woke up this morning still feeling like a dragon, but I had the most amazing experience that I wouldn't trade for anything. 

It isn't about being safe. It is about putting yourself out there, trying new things, and taking a leap of faith. If we don't, we end up with ordinary experiences that while they may be enjoyable, they won't be what we remember for the rest of our lives. This one is going in the books.