A Cook's Tour (41 page)

     ‘I love everybody,’ she says. ‘You must give love. Give yourself to be success. You love people. They love you back.’ Food arrives at our clean, newly varnished and polished table.
Canh ngheu
, a tofu and dill soup. Platters of
bong bi don thit
, crunchy, delicious golden zucchini blossoms that have been stuffed with ground pork and seasonings, then batter-dipped and fried.
Cha goi
, spring rolls, and
rau muong sao toi
, flash-sautéed spinach with garlic sauce – an otherworldly bright, bright green.
Thit kho tau
, a stew of pork and egg in coconut broth, the halved boiled eggs tinged pink around the outer rim of white.
Tom kho tau
, lobster stewed in coconut and chili, redder than red, the plump tail meat a phosphorescent saffron yellow.
Ca bong trung kho to
, a whole fish fried and dressed with chili sauce.
Dua gia muoi chau
, stir-fried baby bok choy. And, of course, lots of
com nieu
, the wedges of crispy rice cake from which the restaurant takes its name. Everything is as fresh as I’ve seen it anywhere in the world, fresher even. The flavors practically explode on my tongue; the colors shimmer. At the end of the meal, platters of ripe custard apple on ice arrive, accompanied by sliced mangoes, papayas, dragon fruit, and pineapple. I have been Madame Ngoc’s guest three or four times by now, and there is no question in my mind that hers has been the best food I’ve had in the country (this in a country where everything is already fabulous).

     Like any really good restaurant lifer, Madame Ngoc’s nervous system is hard-wired to every movement in both kitchen and dining room. She has the ability to sense a full ashtray on the other side of the restaurant, even when far out of view. One moment she’s cooing over Lydia, or teasing Linh for being late to the airport the last time she was in Hanoi, or insisting I try the crab, or worrying over Chris’s stomach – the very next second, she’s giving orders to a shaking but very competent waiter who has somehow managed to displease her, rebuking him in terrifying imperious tones.

     Then it’s back to ‘I love you, Chris, Lydia . . . Tony, you happy?’ She places her hand over mine and gives it a pat. When she smiles, it’s a broad, full-body grin. And I want to hug her like a beloved aunt. She’s a cross between a Jewish mother and the head of the Genovese crime family, driven, relentless, smotheringly affectionate, dangerous, warm, complicated and attentive. Though very concentrated on money – and things – she has rarely, if ever, allowed us to pay for anything.

     She’s strong. She can be hard. She can be cold. But on our way out the door after dinner, as we say goodbye for the last time to our new best friend in Saigon, her face collapses and she bursts into tears. As our car pulls away, she is sobbing, her hand brushing the glass in a combination wave and caress.

New Year’s Eve in Saigon is a jumbo-sized version of the
song tu do
, the weekend ritual of cruising downtown Saigon, circling the fountain at the intersection of Le Loi and Nguyen Hue boulevards. It’s the Vietnamese equivalent of low-riding or cruising down Sunset Strip; thousands – tonight, hundreds of thousands – of young Vietnamese, dressed in their best button-down shirts, freshly laundered slacks, dresses, and
ao dais
, drive in perpetual slow-moving circles through the downtown city streets. They are going nowhere in particular. They don’t stop. There is no place to stop anyway. Every inch of Saigon seems filled, tire-to-tire, with motos and scooters. It takes twenty minutes to cross the street.

     My plan was to celebrate the New Year at Apocalypse Now, a promisingly titled expat bar a few blocks from the Continental. What better place to be when the ball dropped, I thought, than some sinister expat bar in Saigon? I expected opium-addicted ex-mercenaries, aggressive whores in silver minis, long-AWOL ‘white VC,’ black market hustlers, Aussie backpackers, shriveled French rubber barons, their faces teeming with corruption and the effects of malaria; I expected international rabble, arms dealers, defectors, and hit men. I’d had such high hopes. But from the moment I step inside, I am instantly disappointed. Apocalypse Now is a fern bar! There’s food! A crowd of well-dressed tourists from America, Canada, and Taiwan sit in a rear dining room among potted palms and Christmas lights, near a buffet of hot entrées, salads, and what looks like Black Forest cake. They sell T-shirts with the movie’s logo. Soccer is shown on an overhead projection screen near a small stage. Sunburned blondes with Midwestern accents and Tammy Faye hairdos drink colorful cocktails at a clean Formica bar.

     I hate the place on sight and retreat back into the streets, finding somewhere to stand by a large stage set up behind the Théâtre Municipal. I recognize my moto driver from a few days earlier – from his Yankees cap – and we wave hello to each other. Onstage, a group of children are taking part in some kind of dance and theater presentation: patriotic songs, storytelling. No one in the crowd is watching; everyone has their attention fixed somewhere else. The constant growl of the motos and scooters drowns out nearly everything. Once in a while, loud technomusic plays over loudspeakers as the traditionally garbed performers leave the stage for a break. Everyone seems to be waiting for something, going somewhere, but nothing happens. As the hour approaches, I see a few people check their watches. One minute to midnight, and traffic has not slowed. No ball appears poised to drop. There are no fireworks. Midnight passes – indistinguishable from five minutes before or after. No one cheers. No one kisses. Not a single raised fist, shout of ‘Happy New Year,’ or any acknowledgment that another year has passed in the Western world. It’s true the Vietnamese celebrate the Chinese New Year (Tet), but for weeks there have been signs everywhere reading Happy New Year, and people have been calling it out whenever they spy an American or a Westerner. Everyone seems poised to party, the milling crowds huge, the traffic heavier than ever, but I see not the tiniest indication of any intention to do anything but drive or stand. They’ve all come out for the event, all these kids, as far as the eye can see, and beyond. They cluster around a laser-light display outside a nightclub, as if not knowing what to do next. Dance music blasts from inside, but nobody dances, sways, even taps a foot or drums a finger.

     It reminded me of my first high school dance – boys on one side, girls on the other, both sides afraid to move. Or have I misunderstood? Are the hundreds of thousands of kids driving and driving in circles all dressed up with no place to go – as the song says – or are they truly indifferent to the infinite delights of three chords and a beat? Vietnam seems to have shrugged off the worst of our culture with barely a look back. Is ‘living freely’,
song tu do
, just driving? Or is it waiting? And for what?

It’s
tim ran
time. This time, I’m going to eat something that will, I am assured, make me very, very strong. The strongest. Huong Rung (Flavors of the Forest) Restaurant is a bright beer-garden-like space, enclosed by trellis, its foyer crowded with fish tanks. I enter, sit down, and order a beer right away, steadying myself for what will probably be the most . . . unusual meal of my life so far.

     A grinning waiter approaches, holding a wriggling burlap sack. He opens it, gingerly reaches inside, and extracts a vicious, hissing, furious-looking four-foot-long cobra. As I’ve ordered the specialty of the house, I assume the staff is inured to the sight, but when the cobra, laid on the floor and prodded with a hooked stick, raises its head and spreads its hood, the whole staff of waiters, busboys, and managers – everyone but my cobra handler – steps back a few feet, giggling nervously. My cobra handler, a nice young man in waiter’s black slacks and a white button-down shirt, has a sizable bandage on the back of his right hand, a feature that does not fill me with confidence as he lifts the snake with the stick and holds him over the table, the snake training its beady little eyes on me and trying to strike. I knock back the rest of my beer and try to stay cool while the cobra is allowed to slide around the floor for a while, lunging every few moments at the stick. The cobra handler is joined by an assistant with a metal dish, a small white cup, a pitcher of rice wine, and a pair of gardening shears. The two men pick up the cobra, fully extending him; the cobra handler holds him behind the jaws, while the assistant keeps him stretched just ahead of the tail. With his free hand, the handler takes the scissors, inserts a blade into the cobra’s chest, and snips out the heart, a rush of dark red blood spilling into the metal dish as he does so. Everyone is pleased. The waiters and busboys relax. The blood is poured into a glass and mixed with a little rice wine. And the heart, a Chiclet-sized oysterlike organ, still beating, is placed gently into the small white cup and offered to me.

     It’s still pumping, a tiny pink-and-white object, moving up and down up and down at a regular pace in a small pool of blood at the bottom of the cup. I bring it to my lips, tilt my head back, and swallow. It’s like a little Olympia oyster – a hyperactive one. I give it one light chew, but the heart still beats . . . and beats . . . and beats. All the way down. The taste? Not much of one. My pulse is racing too much to notice. I take a long swig of
rou tiet ran
, the blood and wine mixture, enjoying it, not bad at all – like the juice from a rare roast beef – robust, but with just a slight hint of reptile. So far so good. I have eaten the live heart of a cobra. Linh is proud of me. Many, many sons. The floor staff grin, the girls giggle shyly. The handler and assistant are busily carving up the cobra. An enormous mass of snowy white snake tripes tumbles out of the cobra’s body cavity onto a plate, followed by a dribble of dark green bile.

     ‘This very good for you,’ says Linh as a waiter mixes the bile with some wine and presents me with a glass of
ruou mat ran
. It’s a violent green color now, looking about as appetizing as the contents of a bedpan. ‘This will make you the strongest. Very special, very special.’

     I have long ago come to dread those words. I take a long swig of the green liquid and swallow. It tastes bitter, sour, evil . . . just like you’d expect bile to taste.

     Over the next hour or so, I eat every single part of the cobra. First,
ran bop goi
, a delicious shredded-snake salad, heavily dressed with citrus and lemongrass and served in a hot pot.
Ham xa
, braised cobra with citronella, is also quite good, though slightly chewy.
Long ran xao
, however, the snake’s tripe sautéed with onion, is absolutely inedible. I chew and chew and chew, grinding helplessly away with every molar. My chewing has not the slightest effect. It’s like chewing on a rubber dog toy – only less tender. The tripe, while innocuous-tasting, is impossible to break down. I finally give up, hold my breath, and swallow a mouthful whole and intact.
Xuong (ran) chien gion
, the deep-fried bones of the snake, is delightful – like spicy potato chips – only a lot sharper. You might enjoy these at a Yankees game, though very carefully. If one bone goes in at the wrong angle, it could easily pierce your esophagus, making the prospects of lasting through the ninth inning doubtful.
Ran cuon ca lop
, the cobra’s meat, minced and rolled in mint leaves, is also delightful – a festive party snack for any occasion.

     The manager comes over to present me with a plate containing a large tree grub, white with a black freckle-like mark on one end. It’s alive, undulating, bigger than a thumb. Oh, Jesus, no . . . It squirms around, thrashing on the plate. No, I’m thinking. No. Not that . . . Fortunately, the tree grub is cooked before serving, sautéed in butter until crispy. When it arrives back at my table, perched on a little bed of greens, I warily take a nice-sized bite. It has the consistency of a deep-fried Twinkie: crunchy on the outside, creamy and gooey in the middle. It tastes fine. But I would have been much happier not having seen it alive.

     Overall, though, not a bad meal. And I’ve eaten the still-beating heart of a fucking cobra! (I’ll be dining out on this story for a while.) For the very first time after eating food that will ‘make me strong,’ I actually feel something. I don’t know if it’s just nervous energy and adrenaline, but when I walk out into the street, I feel a buzz, a jangly, happy, vibrating sense of well-being. I think, Yes, I believe I do feel . . . strong.

     ‘Monsieur Fowlair. Monsieur Fow-lairr . . .’ someone is whispering.

     It’s the police inspector in Greene’s
The Quiet American
, talking in my dreams. I wake up expecting to see Phuong, the heroine of the novel, preparing an opium pipe for me, and Pyle, the youthful CIA agent, petting his dog in a chair. I’m in my room at the Continental, carved fleurs-de-lis in the woodwork, ornate chairs, yards of intricately carved shelving. I can hear the clack-clacking of shoes on the wide marble floor outside the door, the sound echoing through the halls. Saigon. Still only in Saigon. The French doors leading onto the balcony are open and, though early, the streets are already filling up with cyclos, bicycles, motorbikes, and scooters. Women crouch in doorways, eating bowls of
pho
. A man fixes a motorbike on the sidewalk. Buses cough and stall and start again. At Givral’s, across the street, they’re lining up for coffee and the short, plump, fragrant-smelling baguettes. Soon, the ‘noodle knockers’ will come, rapping their mallets to announce the imminent arrival of another yoke-borne kitchen, bowls and bowls of steaming fresh noodles. Linh has informed me of something called ‘fox’ coffee,
ca-phe-chon
, a brew made from the tenderest beans, fed to a fox (though I have since seen it referred to as a weasel), and the beans later recovered from the animal’s stool, washed (presumably), roasted, and ground. Sounds good to me.