It was another rustic-style type of breakfast for me this morning.
Thinking back now I wonder just why it is on this second last day in Vietnam I didn't opt for something more, something more substantial, like an omelet on its own, or one of their local (glutinous rice) desserts, or even their croissants with butter and jam.
I guess I had gotten intrigued by their offerings of rustic-styled foods, and in any case, steamed tapioca is not something I get to have very often.
This morning I took a steamed spring roll, a serving of steamed tapioca and what I think is a mushroom or two.
Vietnamese spring rolls are bombz, by the way.
Doesn't matter if they're steamed or fried, they're stuffed to the brim with ingredients- lettuce, shredded carrots, sliced mushrooms, bean sprouts, bits of meat, and the like.
It is not the kind of spring roll that you can nibble on.
Neither is it the kind of spring roll that you can cut into pieces of three and not have the ingredients fall out.
And unless you open up the whole spring roll (which otherwise would no longer be a spring roll) you can't pick and choose your ingredients either.
You just have to bite it through, lettuce, carrots and all.
Later in the afternoon we headed out for a wander around District 1.
I'm not sure if we were going to anywhere in particular, but we walked along Ngo Duc Ke (which, by the way, has an outlet of Thailand's ChaTraMue on it) until we came to Nguyen Hue where this park seems to be.
Here we crossed the road, and onwards we went, passing by part of the Old Quarter- which building I unfortunately do not know- but it might well have been the Sheraton Saigon Grand Opera Hotel.
Here we continued walking along Nguyen Sieu all the way to the end, then we did some sort of a turn, and found ourselves on the road that I think must have been Ton Duc Thang.
Here we passed by the Lotte Hotel Saigon, The Landmark serviced apartments, a couple of skyscrapers that looked like they housed the offices of financial services firms, and then finally we were at the monument statue of Vietnamese royal prince and statesman Tran Hung Dao.
To be honest I don't know how we made it there.
Google Maps tells me it is quite far from where we were at the waterfront side, but we must have walked, and somehow we must have made it, because there're all these pictures- and pictures don't lie.
Amongst some of the places we passed were the Notre-Dame Cathedral Basilica of Saigon. Constructed between 1863 and 1880, it has two bell towers, of which I think I must have passed at least one, whose view, by the way, had been temporarily obstructed by scaffolding and the like.
There was this park that came after, and then after a bit of a turn, reached the War Remnants Museum in District 3.
This museum has gone through several names, she has, from the "Museum of Chinese and American War Crimes" to "Exhibition House for Crimes of War and Aggression", in 1995, it simply became the "War Remnants Museum"
They're aren't joking when they say there exist in this space remnants of the war, because right in the front, period military equipment stand within the walled yard.
If you've ever wondered what a "Huey" helicopter was, an M48 Patton tank was, or an attack bomber, this is the place to see it.
This is also the place to see what the "tiger cages" were.
And graphic photography documenting the effects of Agent Orange, the use of napalm and phosphorus bombs, and the My Lai massacre.
There are exhibits of of defused ordnance on display.
There are relics of the Vietnam War.
But what stands out most are the photographs taken by Vietnam War photojournalist Bunyo Ishikawa.
This, I believe, is his camera.
Most of the time this afternoon was spent wandering about from (humid) room to (humid) room looking at the photographs and the displays.
There's no air-conditioning here in the museum, by the way.
At least I don't remember seeing any.
There were, however, at strategic corners of the room, very huge fans whose blades helped to circulate the air.
I didn't spend too much time reading the texts below the photographs this afternoon. There were a fair number of visitors about, and I didn't feel like dodging in front or behind them to read what I might be able to research about another time.
But perhaps one day I might drop by here again, better equipped with knowledge about the Vietnam War, and appreciate the exhibits and photographs here better.
We stayed all through mid-afternoon till early evening, then headed off to dinner.
My friend had booked us a lovely table at a restaurant by the river.
Sad to say I don't remember the name of the restaurant, but it was quiet, it was peaceful and serene and it wasn't too far away from the city.
What made this restaurant interesting, I thought, was how deep the entrance was from the main gate. There was a sort of garden from the main gate to the restaurant itself, and you had to meander a little bit but when you got to your table right by the wood boardwalk over the water, the view was beautiful.
I had never thought of Saigon having such calming night time views.
I was surprised.
Not just by the quietly rolling waters, not just by the sight of the river bank's foliage swishing about in the silent breeze, not just by the beauty of the dusky skies.
But the food.
There could have been much more I'd have loved to order, but my still bopping stomach didn't have much of a space (yet) so we decided on a steak, a soft shell crab and a separate order of fries.
It's funny, I thought I'd taken a picture of the soft shell crab but I don't see it anywhere.
Maybe it got deleted.
Pity- the crab was good.
Few are the places where I can say that their style of soft shell crab is good.
This is one of them.
This was not one of those places that did the dish in a slipshot, casual sort of way .
Their portion wasn't small.
On my plate I got a full sized crab complete with legs and all.
And it was very well fried.
There was none of the oil taste lingering in the batter of the crab. There was none also of the grease feel one sometimes gets from deep-fried food that hasn't been freshly fried. Here the batter was crispy and tasty, very clean a flavor on the tongue.
You got the taste of the delicious, fresh crab meat right at the moment you took the first bite, and felt the distinctive burst of seafood umami mixed with the salty, crispy flour of the earth.