Day 301: Vietnamese Cooking Class

Very last day in Vietnam and we are sad our time was cut short due to Typhoon Kristine! Definitely planning to visit again in the future to explore the country more.

We started our day walking around downtown near the city hall and Ben Thanh Market! Ate one more bahn mi, tomato juice, and coffee. We also grabbed a new pair of shoes for Kieran. At the market we were able to try coffee, cashews, dried mangos, and other little candies.

For our main event, we signed up for a Vietnamese cooking class! Mary’s coworker Jared bought us a gift card to use on an experience and since she forces her coworkers to eat all the Asian food with her, it felt appropriate to learn some recipes.

We were paired with some party hard Australian girls and another American boy from New York. This was important because we learned about the US election results 15 minutes into the class so we needed ample distraction and reasons to put our phone down. These girls were straight out of a Love Island episode and loved to drink, banter, and say the most batshit things; we ate it up.

The planned dishes were spring rolls, crispy shrimp/pork pancake, and chicken pho! Instead of everyone having their own station for every dish, the chef would assign one person to one job. For instance, Kieran was in charge of cleaning the chicken while the American boy crushed up spices.

The chef kept leaving and the Aussies would freak out and burn things. At one point, they were all cutting onions and everyone’s eyes were burning. At another point, the chef asked Mary to stir fry the meat. The Aussies thought they needed to do it too and turned on their burners and started frying garlic and pepper. It starts to burn and the chef comes running in to tell them that they didn’t need to do anything 😭

Halfway through the class, some of the girls left to grab us all wine. It required a wine opener and we couldn’t find one; one of the girls started using a pair of scissors until the chef came running in with an opener. Shit you not, the girls couldn’t figure out how to use it at all so we stepped in to help 🥴

It was so much fun though and we loved chatting about dating life in Australia and US and how one of the girls (originally from Kosovo) had her uncle set up her up with a Australian husband and they’ve been married for 12 years.

The chef had super patience and was a delight; she taught us how locals ate pho and other Vietnamese tips. The class also gave us each a recipe book; we have two now and Jared is required to accept the second one for Christmas.

As we walked home, the sad feels emerged and Kieran sighed, “This cooking class was perfect.” We talked about the election a bit while packing and sent an apology text to Germans Barbara and Max. They replied back their German councilor just ended their government coalition so fun times ahead.

We had a 3:00 am wake up call for a bus to Cambodia and could not sleep so gave up and watched Attack on Titan.

So thank you so much Jared for the cooking class! It was exactly what we needed and we will cherish the memories made with unhinged Australian party girls and delicious home made pho.

Food:
Bahn mi
Spring rolls
Crispy pancake
Chicken pho

Spots:
City Hall
Ben Thanh MarketLes mer