Restaurant: Madame Hien
Location: Hanoi
Date: March 29, 2014
Cuisine: Vietnamese
Rating: Excellent neighborhood Italian
For our final dinner in Vietnam we head out to another “high end street food” restaurant, this time part of a group of establishments run by Didier Corlou a French chef who married a Vietnamese woman.
The chef says:
This restaurant is a dedication to my wife’s grandmother and to all Vietnamese women of the past and the present. It is also a tribute to their way of cooking, their ancestral culture and the artisanal and regional knowledge of over one thousand years. The rich diversity of Vietnam, found in its two deltas, fifty four minorities, three thousand kilometers of coastline and many natural resources (rivers, forests, mountains and oceans) is reflected in its cuisine.
The location is in a lovely colonial courtyard.
Fresh spring rolls.
Banana flower salad. These salads are amazing. I think this one had chicken and believe it or not, mortadella!
Pupu platter. Well, for lack of a better name this appetizer sampler comes with all sorts of good stuff. Fried spring rolls, fresh ones, pickles, softshell crab, omelet.
More spring rolls, tofu sticks.
This is a fried softshell crab and crab salad.
And steamed Chinese broccoli with garlic.
Duck breast.
Sliced lamb, I think. Like most Vietnamese meats, scrumptious.
Overall, this was the tastiest meal we had in Hanoi, and probably in the top three of our trip. The chef had a great palette and the execution was very sharp.