Our guide Nguyen Ngoc An of Connect Travel took us for dinner at Bờ Ao Quán restaurant, his family's favourite hang out. During the 30 minute drive southwest from Hue to Bờ Ao Quán, An kept raving about the goat dishes there. That got me really excited as I love goat meat and wondered how they are done in Hue, Vietnam's imperial city 😋
We got off the coach at this signboard and walked down a dark path. We could never have found this place without the help of An. Thanks!
I've seen setups like this before in Malaysia, Indonesia and old Singapore - family homes doubling up as restaurants with shed extensions. Still, this felt like a separate universe because of the different aromas from the kitchen and unfamiliar language.
Families, friends, beer buddies, children - no tourists here, except us 😄 It is easy to tell us from the locals - there are no fat Vietnamese, while we are all rotund, roly-poly guys. But, no one bats an eyelid while we darted around with our cameras like excited children let loose in a playground and bantered loudly in Singlish as we ate.
The kitchen was in a separate shed steps away. Just one youthful chef (handsome chap) who does many things besides the cooking (tell you what other things later). The action was frenetic inside with leaping flames and acrobatic juggling of several big heavy woks (though I didn't capture it on video 😂 ).
Some 100 dishes in a 12 page menu booklet. Only in Vietnamese, so An helped us with the ordering. Every page had the squiggly blue ticks of approval from the house's young "boss". During my few days in Hue, I saw that people dot on their children who are all cared for lovingly.
First up was cơm chiên trứng or good ol' fried rice with eggs - but, what a fried rice.
We were all blown away by the almost greaseless crispy crunch and layers of robust savoury flavours from caramelised sauces and grains. To say that they were like savoury loose rice crisp is only exaggerating slightly.
KF Seetoh was so smitten by this fried rice that everyday, up to the end of the trip he was asking An when can we come back for it 😂 🤦♂️
Next up, lươn om chuối or eels and plantain slices stewed in a thick sweet savoury sauce with turmeric spice notes.
The eel is a bit of an acquired taste - Hue folks love it going by the number of eel dishes I saw during the trip.
The eel flesh was tender-firm, sweet but had an underlying earthly taste. The sweet savoury sauce balanced the earthiness somewhat. Once I got past that, I quite enjoyed this eel dish too. I love the tender subtly sweet plantain slices.
Đậu hũ nướng nấm hải sản - Squid and prawns with mushroom, tuber slices and tofu wrapped and baked in aluminium foil. This reminded me of the foil baked dishes at Malacca's Portuguese Settlement.
Very fresh seafood. Nice savoury sweet flavours, enjoyable but not so memorable.
Ếch nướng muối ớt. Poor frog - yes this heap was a frog chopped up into large pieces with skin on and grilled with dark savoury sauces. The frog was quite bony and its meat and skin were fibrous and chewy. The savoury sauce was rather robust so it masked most of the frog's delicate natural sweetness.
When we saw this lady grilling chicken over charcoal, someone decided that we should have chicken instead of goat 🙄 Apparently, the aroma of caramelised sauce and seasoning in the wafts of greasy smoke flipped a switch in some of our minds 😂
Well, the chicken was very fresh. How very fresh?
The chef yanked a yelping, flapping bird from a cage by the legs, calmly snipped its throat with a pair of scissors and dunked it in boiling water in the wok. He then passed the wet, limp bird to a staff of take care of the feathers 😄
Gà nướng muối ớt. OK, the BBQ chicken was nice - the tender, juicy meat was savoury peppery. Reminds me of those BBQ chicken we had during my school days at the beach. Say until like that, like our romantic memories of our younger days, means very nice lah 😄
No regrets ordering this, even in lieu of the much raved goat.
The chicken feet and innards were served to us in a small bowl of soup. Can't remember how it tasted or maybe I forgot to taste it 😂
Cá lóc um măng chua. The last dish was a large snakehead fish soup.
Full of sweetness and a bit of earthiness in the tender meaty fish. (Seems Hue folks do not mind a bit of earthiness in their fish.) The soup was sweet savoury and slightly tangy from the bamboo shoot slices inside.
Come again? Definitely, with no reservations. I like the local vibes here and this is the type of raw foodie experience I look for when I travel. Some of the dishes I like and others, I can learn to appreciate it like a local palate. KF Seetoh wants to come back for the incredible fried rice, and I hope to be back for the goat An was raving about.
Restaurant name: Bờ Ao Quán
Address: 2 Kiet 106 Lê Ngô Cát, Thủy Xuân, Thành phố Huế, Thừa Thiên Huế, Vietnam
Tel: +84 829 389 416
Hours: Dinner
Date visited: 2 Mar 2020
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