02-12-2020 DaNang

Small problem with the nice apartment -- my bedroom window faces an  alley that appears to "T" into a street which has a nightclub.   Starting around 11:30pm  until 4:30am there was a LOT

of loud music.   Ugh!    I'll be using earplugs tonight.

Had a few early morning snacks as a result:   Some apple bananas and mango slices from yesterdays marketing along with a croissant.   My "pre-breakfast-breakfast".

For "main breakfast" (or "second-breakfast" as hobbits might say) my friends  Bob and Shirley and I grabbed a  "grab" car and headed to a Mi Quang stand that I'd read about on the

Internet.    This was Ms Quang's located at  58 Quang Trung in city center.

After "main breakfast" we walked across the street at had some nice vietnamese sweet coffee at a random coffee shop.    Definitely got our "caffeine buzz" on... but forgot to take a picture!

We did a lot of walking after this, checking out a local market -- similar to open air markets in the rest of south east asia but inside a big warehouse building.    The veggie section was 

interesting but none of us bought anything.    We were also on a quest for an ATM machine as I needed more local currency  ("Dong") and most ATM's didn't seem to like my ATM card.

Sigh.    It's okay though -- good exercise walking around.

Finally we tried to find one of the recommended Bahn Mi stands but all the ones we were looking for were either no longer there or were closed for the day.     We ended up taking a Grab 

car back to the apartment for a quick refresh and then walked just around the corner to a local Bahn Mi window to try out the pork Bahn Mi.    They also had a different variety of 

passionfruit juice, so I ordered that while Shirley ordered the peach tea and Bob ordered a watermelon drink.

Following this we just HAD to (well I had to!) stop at the local bakery for some sweets and another rounds of   coffee drinks:

Then back to the apartment to enter all this on the web and take a nap before our 4:30pm departure by Grab for city center where we'll be meeting our evening food walking tour guide

"Ahn" for a night dinner walking tour.

First stop on our dinner food tour was for bánh tráng trứng ( rice paper roll with quail egg ) and  bánh tráng bò khô  (BBQ rice paper with beef jerky).  Our  guide described this as after-school snack food somewhat like our version  of pizza or nachos.

Second stop  on  our tour was for  bánh mì, traditional baguette  sandwiches.   We had  a choice  of any of  a small bánh mì thịt chả  (Vietnamese baguette with pork), a round  roll of  bánh mì gà (a  baguette with butter and pork floss and chicken) or a traditional "everything on it" bánh mì.    

Our next stop was for bột lọc chiên ( fried tapioca dumplings ) and bánh canh cua cua  ( rice noodles with crab meat ball )  along with some chả trộn   ( green papaya with fish cake )

Next  we moved onto our "main course" restaurant,  Quang Tuen Rao, for a variety of seafood and grilled treats.     The place was located down a series of alleys that we'd never have found without our guide.   LOTS of food here!

This included nghêu hấp xả - (boiled clams with lemongrass and garlic) - sorry no picture of this,    cá diêu hồng chiên mắm xoài  (fried tilapia with fish sauce and mango),  

ếch nướng  (grilled frogs with mince lemongrass),  mực hấp mắm gừng (steamed squids with ginger fish sauce) and -- just in case anyone wasn't already full-- 

cơm chiên dương châu (fried rice with pork and vegetables)

Finally we headed out to dessert --  the same  place the other tour took  us for "coconut  ice cream   with avocado"  also known as  kem bơ  (avocado with coconut ice cream):

We "rolled"  into a grab car and went back to the apartment to pass out for the night.