Before I moved to China, I wasn’t all that keen on meat. Sure I’d eat it if it was served to me and would probably enjoy it, but I never cooked it at home and never craved it. So when I first moved to China, I would usually favour vegetarian dishes, and if I did eat meat, I’d order chicken or beef.

But in a country where pork rules, this state of affairs was never going to last long. As I became more and more interested in the food of Sichuan and of China, my eating habits began to expand, and I tried more and more meat dishes.

The time and place of my conversion to pork I can remember very clearly. It was about a year after I arrived in China, and the Foreign Languages department of the university where I worked had taken the teachers away for a weekend break to the famous Emei mountain. We were eating lunch on our last day, at a fairly modest roadside restaurant near the small and unlovely town at the bottom of the mountain. Our boss had ordered lunch (including picking out a live fish) with the kind of enthusiasm and aplomb that speaks of someone who knows and loves food and doesn't need to worry about the bill. Soon, dozens of dishes appeared at our table, showcasing the breath of flavours that Sichuan is famous for.

Amongst the copious dishes spiked with bright red chilies or pungent Sichuan pepper, there was a subtle, pale dish of cauliflower and belly pork, the meat cut into finger length pieces that were an equal mix of fat and lean. The meat and vegetables lay in a small pool of equally colourless liquid, and it looked as if it would be a very plain flavoured, rather boring dish; as I remember, on being offered some by my Chinese colleague, I was reluctant even to try it.

I will never, ever forget the moment of my first mouthful of that pork. The best description I think I've come up with is 'an explosion of flavours'. Less poetically, it was as if I had discovered a whole new set of taste buds – there was a depth and deliciousness of flavour that I had simply never experienced before. It was a moment, and I say this without any exaggeration, of personal epiphany, and had two direct and wonderful consequences: I was instantly hooked on pork, and I started blogging about Sichuanese food soon after.

So, it was with delightful anticipation that almost exactly a year ago I planned my trip to Vietnam, where pork has almost equal a status as in China. My mouth watered even at the very descriptions of bun cha, bun thit nuong, cau lau et al...and thankfully, Vietnam did not disappoint.

I ate delicious pork dishes the length and breadth of the country – from bun cha in Hanoi, to cau lau (above) in Hoian, but there are two particular porky moments which I remember most of all. The first was in the far south of Vietnam in the Mekong delta, in a small town in Ben Tre Province. On my first evening there, finding myself unimpressed by my hotel’s food, I wandered into town to find some grub. In the small square at the main crossroads, I found a tiny noodle stall, and my heart jumped for joy.

As well as just looking fantastic, this barbecued pork was giving off an incredible smell – it had been marinating in fish sauce, chili and other flavourings for who knows how long, and was cooking over a fire made from coconut (the main local crop) shells, lending the smoke an intensely sweet and aromatic quality. It was cooked quickly, and served with cold bun rice noodles, crushed peanuts and various other goodies. It was simply gobsmacking, and I went back to that stall every evening of my stay.

The second porky moment of note in Vietnam was in the capital Hanoi, and was a rather special experience all round. Through my great friend Karin, who is Swedish, I came to meet and have the pleasure of spending some time with Thoa, the chef at the residence of the Swedish Ambassador to Vietnam. On hearing of my interest in Vietnamese food, Thoa welcomed us into her kitchen, not only at the Ambassador’s residence, but also in her own home.

The wonderful Thoa.

One afternoon, Karin and I went round to Thoa’s house for a very memorable cooking class/dinner, where we learnt how to cook nem, cahn chua, and this dish of pork and quail’s eggs, a variation of the Vietnamese classic pork and caramel sauce, itself a relative of my old Chinese favourite, hong shao rou, red braised pork. It’s an utterly sensational dish, and lucky for you, me and the rest of the world, I watched Thoa with eagle eyes and wrote down a rough recipe.

Thoa's version.

Having made hong shao rou quite a bit recently, I decided that the next time I bought a piece of belly pork from my wonderful local butcher I would try to recreate this dish at home. That day came last Friday, and also happened to be the day when I learnt that I'd got a job here. So, I made this dish in celebration, and it was, if I do say so myself, a brilliant success – the moment I starting cooking the meat I was transported back to the streets of Vietnam, the heady scent of fish sauce banishing the cold January day outside. The combination of this dish, and my recent meeting of another pork-obsessive, the talented chef here, have reminded me afresh why I adore this meat so. So, enough babbling: here, in honor of the pig, the King of Meats, is the recipe.

Thit Kho Tau (Pork and Quail’s Eggs in a Caramel Sauce)

500g of belly pork
1 spring onion
2 tablespoons of fish sauce
2 tablespoons of dark brown sugar
100 ml of water
½ can of coconut milk
6 quail’s eggs
Salt and pepper

1. Cut the pork belly into finger-length chunks, making sure that they have an equal mix of lean and fat layers. Finely chop the spring onion, and place in a small mixing bowl with the pork. Add the fish sauce and salt and pepper and mix well.
2. Hard-boil the quail’s eggs in a small saucepan, for about 10 minutes. Allow the eggs to cool by immersing them in cold water.
3. While the eggs are cooking, in a heavy-bottomed saucepan heat the sugar and a little of the water until they begin to caramelize.
4. Add the coconut milk and the rest of the water, and then add the pork and its marinade.
5. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to a gentle simmer. Cook uncovered for at least an hour, stirring occasionally, topping up the mixture with water if it becomes too dry.
6. Shell the cooked quail’s eggs, and add to the pot about half an hour before serving.
7. Serve with plain steamed rice.

My version.

As I wrote about some months ago, while I was in Ben Tre province in February, I went on a bike ride. This was no ordinary bike ride however, but one on which I not only got to see the cutest baby in the whole wide world, but also...

Yes, that's right - chocolate! Little did I know, but Vietnam is actually one of the world's largest producers of cacao, almost all of which they export. I doubt that this is particularly high quality cacao, but at the time, I really didn't care - I was just beside myself with excitement at actually seeing chocolate in its rawest form. Above are the beans, spread over bamboo colanders to dry in the sun by the side of the road - this method of drying is also very commonly used in China, where everything from soy beans to sesame seeds are dried in this way.

And here is an individual bean in the palm of my hand. In fact, the chocolate bean itself is inside another thin layer of skin that is discarded before use - in the photo above you can see the bean with the skin sill on, split almost in half.

And of course I had a taste. Bitter, gritty and somewhat akin to coffee beans, I wouldn't like to eat chocolate in this form everyday, but it was definitely a memorable experience. For me though, the real icing on the cake was the sheer beauty of the cacao pods, just harvested from the trees - a positive rainbow of yellow, orange and pink.

And finally, at the beginning of this post you will find (or may have already found) a very short audio postcard that I recorded very close to where these photographs were taken. Please excuse the awful sound quality!

As a seasoned traveler and obsessive foodie, I like to think that I can suss out where the good food is wherever I am. Sometimes though, it pays to have a little local knowledge, a fact that I very pleasurably experienced earlier this year in Vietnam’s third city, Da Nang.

Known to most Westerners for its American air base during the war (which, in the words of John Pilger, eventually turned the town into ‘a small American city’), today Da Nang is little visited by foreigners. Though this is probably part of the charm of the place, it’s also a shame more people don’t go to Da Nang, for this relaxed port city has some of Vietnam’s most beautiful scenery on its doorstep – and, as I discovered, some of its most delicious food.

Originally, I’d planned to go to Da Nang just for a day trip from the nearby beach where I was staying, and arranged, through the wonderful Couchsurfing.org, to meet up for dinner with a local young man by the name of Kent Lee. With a couple of hours to kill before I was meeting Kent, I decided to check out the city’s central market – and realized very quickly that I had vastly underestimated Da Nang.

The place was heaving, full to the brim with families doing their shopping for the upcoming New Year festivities. Da Nang-ites, I now appreciated, were serious about their food. A colourful (and delicious) snack outside the market only whet my appetite for more, and I looked forward to dinner with mounting anticipation.

Thankfully, within minutes of meeting Kent, I discovered that I was in excellent hands. As well as being fantastic company (he is, among many other talents, the Vietnamese translator of Bridget Jones’ Diary no less!), Kent is also a consummate foodie, and as soon as he learned of my interest in food, resolved on showing me Da Nang’s best.

We started with one of the Central coast’s most famous dishes – My Quang, a beautiful bowl of springy, bright yellow rice noodles, served with beansprouts, herbs, shrimp, quail's eggs, chopped peanuts and crunchy flatbread. Kent took me to an utterly undistinctive-looking corner restaurant, but whose brisk business and fresh ingredients (above) attested to its quality.

This is my mixed-in My Quang, waiting to be devoured, which it duly was. I could easily have eaten a second bowl, but Kent advised me to keep some space for dessert –

Che, a kind of cross between a drink and a pudding, of which there are countless varieties – ours contained mango, coconut milk, and (joy of joys!), durian.

After a quick drink with Kent’s friends in a surreal bar full of fortune tellers and snake-charmers, I went back to my beach-side hostel pleased to have seen a side of Vietnam unknown to most tourists – so you can imagine my delight when Kent called me the very next day to invite me back to Da Nang, this time for lunch with his family.

As you can see from the photo, it was a sumptuous spread. My favourite dish was the one you can see to the right of the soup – a salad that I guessed contained, among probably many other ingredients, fresh herbs, raw onions and chicken. I was overwhelmed by my hosts’ generosity, but when I thanked them profusely for it, was told by Kent that the best way of showing my appreciation was by eating a lot. I was, as you can probably understand, starting to fall for Vietnam big-time.

But the delights of Da Nang didn't end there. After a couple of hours swimming at this beautiful nearby beach,

Kent took me for a dinner which was probably one of the best I ate in Vietnam (but which sadly I have no pictures of): at a street-stall down a tiny, scruffy alley, we ate snails and salad – the former which I am not normally a big fan of, but whose flavours I was so overwhelmed and delighted by that I completely forgot to ask what was in them, or their name. Which at least gives me a good excuse to go back to Da Nang one day.

My Quang restaurant
Corner of Le Hong Phong and Nguyen Chi Thanh.

Che cafe
Tran Phu Street.

Snail and salad vendor
Unknown alley.

The day I arrived in Quy Nhon, this already supremely chilled out seaside town was in the process of shutting down for the New Year celebrations, meaning that the vibe was so laid-back it was almost horizontal. Almost nothing was open, nearly everyone was at home with the family, and one's options for eating and drinking were severely limited. So thank god that, as I arrived in town on the back of a motorbike taxi, I glimpsed the Kim Dinh through the palm trees on the seafront.

Though nothing more than an open-front unit with chairs and tables on the pavement out the front, something about the place immediately appealed to me, and sure enough, it became my default hangout for the duration of my stay in Quy Nhon.

Like all the best cafes in Vietnam, the Kim Dinh does not make a song and dance over its operation. The only things sold here are coffee, tea, sinh to, and the classic central-coast region snack, banh beo. All of which were done to perfection.

The banh beo, above, came bathed in a unctuous, vinegary (in a good way) sauce, which worked wonderfully with the glutinous chewy texture of the pancakes. Great with an iced coffee, but even better with the Kim Dinh's signature sinh to, which, like the amazing sinh to that made up The Best Breakfast of my Life, was a combination of fruits rather than just one or two, including avocados, papayas, and dragon fruit, among others.

What took this sinh to to even greater heights, however, was that the fruits were not blended as is usual with sinh to, but arrived at my table roughly chopped, along with crushed ice and - oh my - a generous dollop of condensed milk.

The photo above is of the many glasses of the fruit, minus the ice and milk, which the Kim Dinh staff prepare in advance for when there's a rush of customers (because almost EVERYONE orders the sinh to). The opening photo is of after the whole lot has been mixed together into a delicious mess and is waiting patiently for me to devour it.

Just the thing before a stroll along the seafront at sunset.

Kim Dinh
18a Nguyen Hue,
Quy Nhon,
Vietnam.

Banana lady.

Passion fruits, I think.

Three varieties of limes.

Chilli powders.

Unknown green vegetable or fruit.

Mushrooms and garlic.

Red shallots.

Coconut lady.

All from a sunny morning in Hue, Vietnam, February 2010.