Where to eat in Da Nang, Vietnam

Da Nang is a very nice place to be, unfortunately it was monsoon season when I went so I was forced to stay indoors. This gave me the perfect opportunity to discover different eateries around Da Nang and I'm really excited to share them with you. 

Quirky Café - Cong Caphe

A popular café in town that is communist themed, a must-go if you are planning to visit Da Nang. Decorated with army-green hues and bright red floral prints, Cong Caphe really creates the communist, dingy atmosphere, very unique. Don’t forgot to try their coconut cream coffee, it’s really refreshing!

Address: 96-98 Bạch Đằng, Hải Châu 1, Q. Hải Châu, Đà Nẵng 550000, Vietnam

Authentic local cuisine - Ba Duong

We found this place on TripAdvisor as it claimed to have the best Bahn Xeo (sizzling crepe). Bahn Xeo is basically a rice crepe with pork, shrimps, bean sprouts added to it. You eat it by creating a wrap with Vietnamese rice paper, lettuce, pork skewers, and other vegetables/herbs. You then dip it in this fragrant satay-like sauce and just eat the whole thing in one bite. It’s kind of a mess to assemble but, trust me, it’s worth the hassle (the lady had to demonstrate it once for us). Personally, the Bahn Xeo itself didn’t really stand out for me, but the pork skewers combined with the herbs and sauce was THE BOMB. There are plenty of Bahn Xeo places around town, we just happened to go to this one, so you can have a look around.

Address: 280/23 Hoàng Diệu, Bình Hiên, Q. Hải Châu, Đà Nẵng 550000, Vietnam

Quality food and great atmosphere - Madame Lan

A proper restaurant you can put on your list if you want to try authentic Vietnamese food but is a bit skeptical about eating at hawker stalls. It’s nicely decorated and has a wide range of food choices (you know you won’t have an upset stomach after this). Although it's a proper restaurant, prices are still considerably low. I was a bit more adventurous with my choices (with hygiene not being an issue) and discovered my love for Banh It Tran (sticky rice dumplings). It’s chewy and has so much flavour from the minced pork and beans inside… and that garlic-infused oil/sauce on top. Mmmmm, I’m salivating just thinking about it because, to this day, I have not seen it in any Vietnamese restaurants. You have to give this a try!

Address: 4 Bạch Đằng, Thạch Thang, Hải Châu, Thạch Thang Hải Châu Đà Nẵng 550000, Vietnam

A nice place to chillax - Golem Coffee Da Nang

This was actually an unexpected find. The entrance is a narrow alley, which leads into a half-open space that feels like your own backyard. We weren’t hungry at the time so just ordered coffee. The café takes on a rustic, industrial vibe, repurposing wooden doors as coffee tables and armchairs, barrows as stools and benches into hanging chairs. It’s definitely a good place to chat and just appreciate the creativity put into the café.

Address: 27 Trần Quốc Toản, Hải Châu 1, Hải Châu, Đà Nẵng 550000, Vietnam

How can you ‘pho-get’ - Pho Stall

You have to stop by a pho stall and try Pho in Vietnam.  See how it’s different from pho in your own country. The pho place I went to had pho with a raw egg in it and both raw and cooked beef. It was a good experience.

Address: Q. Hải Châu, 62 Ngô Gia Tự, Q. Hải Châu, Đà Nẵng, Vietnam

I'm planning to go travel back to Da Nang and Hoi An again (not during monsoon season), let me know if you have any recommendations, I would love to try!

Hope you are well.

Love,

Vivien

Five Budget Friendly Eating Ideas in Italy || EATALY Vol. 1

Ciao! Over the past two weeks, I’ve been on a trip to Italy. I really enjoyed it and can't wait to share everything I did with you guys! With Italy being one of the most popular travel destinations in the world, it means that you will be ‘graced’ with high hotel prices, expensive mediocre food and crowds (quite depressing in’t). That being said, with the help of hostel hosts, I have put together a list of 5 budget-friendly meal ideas that might help you plan for your trip to Italy. Check them out:

Fancy a cuppa??

It was my two girlfriends' birthday and we decided to celebrate by having this 'once in a life time' afternoon tea feast at The Ritz. We made a reservation for afternoon tea at 7:30pm since they were fully booked during the supposed 'tea time'. Expecting our table to be the only awkward group to have tea for dinner, turns out, every single table of people were having tea (not that weird after all ain't it).

This place was extremely luxurious and high-end I felt completely out of place: Legitimate English gentlemen in tux and ladies expressing as much sexiness as possible (while still remaining elegant) having presumably profound conversations, while I try to walk like a lady through the corridors in fatal anxiety. 

Anyway, back to the afternoon tea. The choices of teas were pretty good, the standard Earl Gray, Darjeeling, Green Tea and all other choices, but I ended up ordering Lemon Verbena (a tea that I have been scavenging for since trying it in Paris). It is this herby tea that I believe has calming effects and was a source of medicine. Finger sandwiches and sweet desserts were served first, and scones were served warm afterwards. I am not joking, the scones are AMAZING!!!! Soft, flaky, buttery, worth all calories for the day! The sandwiches were really good too, aside from the normal smoked salmon, cucumber and eggs, they also had cheese and chutney, ham with mustard and chicken mayo; all of which were really good (loved the ham with mustard one). To be very honest, I've never had afternoon tea with good sweet pastries (partially because I never had 'high class' tea), but it might have been that since the cakes and sweets came as a set, they had to choose the 'not as good' dessert to balance the budget? I have no idea, this is only my assumption. Okay, so since this seemed like such a legitimate afternoon tea, my expectations for the pastries sky-rocketed. The final verdict for pastries: I don't think any sweet pasties in an afternoon tea are the bomb. Let's just focus on scones, tea and sandwiches. They were just, in my opinion, overly sweet and low quality. To be fair, I think if we had ordered cakes and pastries separately, those might be tasty as hell, but in an afternoon tea? I don't think so. 

Final shout out to my lovely ladies, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

Love,                 

Vivien