Hué Delicacies - Something's Fishy

We're in a new city. We want to experience the local culture. We've had a long day on the road touring the DMZ and we're hungry. We should sample the local cuisine.

I consult the Lonely Planet book. Lonely Planet will know where to go. Lonely Planet won't steer us wrong. Lonely Planet is our friend.

The book tells us the Hué delicacy is Royal Rice Cakes. Great, we think. We like rice, we enjoy cake and whilst I don't care for our Royal family, at least not to the extent I feel the media expects me to, perhaps the relevant royalty here had an exceptional palate and thusly their attributable fare, in keeping with the other Vietnamese specialties we've sampled, will be delicious.

Also we have rice cakes at home and they're fine. These ones, the book informs, are a little different, but the difference seems to be the addition of shrimp; an addition that consistently heightens any experience. The picture looks promising and anything achieving the echelon of 'local delicacy' must possess certain merits.

The recommended outlet isn't far. We walk the five minutes to it, turning up our noses at the similarly-named shop next-door attempting to coast on the coat-tails.

We're brought a menu. There's six items on it. We don't know what to choose but the lady conveys to us in Mr Bean mannerisms that we can order and share all of them for about a tenner. We trust the lady. The lady won't steer us wrong. We like Mr Bean.

We wait, salivating with anticipation. They're doing that Wagamamas thing where they bring things when they're ready so they don't need to properly manage their kitchen like every other restaurant does. It doesn't take long for the first plate to arrive.

Dish one is actually a tray filled with twelve smaller dishes. Four apiece - bargain! Each is filled with a white, jellified substance topped with dried bits of bits and a fried morsel of pig skin; a proximate pork scratching. It isn't immediately clear how we eat them, but the lady kindly illustrates we're supposed to pry it from the sides of the dish with a spoon then contort it into a bitesize blob that we consume. We oblige.

The pork scratching is nice.

The shrimp bits might have been were they not now infused with the white goop, that presumably at some point in the manufacture involved rice. It doesn't taste of rice. It tastes of, and neatly mirrors the consistency of, what I imagine a cooled tub of cooking fat might taste like if I was dumb enough to eat it, with a hint of fish.

Ah well, we figure. There was bound to be one we didn't like, just what rotten luck that it's the first one. Undeterred, the second plate arrives and we eagerly dig in for our hopes to be partially validated. The puffed rice cracker topped with savoury cream and a shrimp is fine. Not nice, but broadly recognisable as sustainance. Notably, this is the only dish pictured in the book.

In quick succession the remaining plates appear. Overwhelmed, and with a degree of dread pertaining to what lies in the periphery, we employ tunnel-vision and take from the plate holding what looks like the sliced innards of pork pies, only less appetising. We don't think it's pork. Its possibly sausagised shrimp, but that we can't tell is of concern.

Of the three other plates, one stands out as the preferred option. Like how the 'red one' looks the least repellant of the Aftershock liqueur range. Translucent, flat, gummy disks rolled like crepes and sprinkled with the same dried shrimp they must have buckets of in the back. They're easy to pick-up and hold with chopsticks, which is about all I'll say for them. Useful though, as it's less easy than usual to convince my lips to part and embrace this alien matter as nourishment.

Nausea brewing, we cast our eyes upon the similar-looking though differently proportioned contents of the final two plates. Cursory examination only reveals that whatever we are to convince our gullet to permit passage is wrapped in banana leaves. Unless we're supposed to eat the banana leaves which, despite being indigestible by humans, following was has preceeded might be a step-up.

We cautiously unwrap the leaves. It's a little like unpeeling a napkin from a slice of birthday cake that's been smushed into a kid's party-bag. Unfolding the final leaf-fold we find the contents don't fall free of their wrappings but cling to it, like the sticky, globby, snotty gunk it appears to be.

I dry heave. Caught within this gelatinous web of putrified spewtum is some sort of protein, cooked so as perfectly resemble a chunk of congealed vomit. We're British and polite so we have to scrape this crap off the garden-cuttings and introduce it to our digestive system.

We're living-out the dinner scene from Temple of Doom, only the beheaded primate has sneezed-out it's chilled monkey brain then cleaned it's nose with the same leaf it just finished wiping it's arse with. A hygienic monkey to be sure, but not tantalising gourmet.

The sole acceptable plate of almost-food has already been polished-off. We won't finish the rest. We sit back, contemplate the sheer ludicrousness of our unappetising, inedible banquet and laugh. And laugh and laugh. I'm almost in tears. This is a memory we'll hang onto always and will forever recontextualise any piffling complaint we have with a restaurant's output.

After a rather morose day, despite in no way sating our hunger, this experience was somehow what we needed. Now if only we can find a cowboy bar and some cheap beer, we'll be all set.Read more